Abstract:

The basic mandates and lines of action in the field of education established in the European Higher Education Area indicate that, “it is the responsibility of the universities to ensure that the studies are innovative and original, incorporate lines that favor the development of the professional career, take into account the importance of inclusion and diversity, serve for social use and the consequent academic support is given to achieve excellence ”(European University Association). Additionally, The European Commission in its Digital Education Action Plan (2021-2027) sets the objective of readjusting education and training to the digital age. It highlights two main guidelines. Firstly, to promote the development of a high-performing digital education ecosystem and, secondly, to enhance digital skills and competences for the digital transformation.

Education connects directly with the students’ future employability. This industrial environment requires from the institutions a commitment to reach high standards of training based on social reality with applicability, in addition to other traditional knowledge such as literature.

Inspired by these three relevant statements, the University of Burgos (Spain) and the Ochanomizu University (Tokyo) have carried out a collaborative activity based on teaching innovation and bilingual teaching. The concept of Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) is to bring students and professors together across cultures to learn, discuss and collaborate as part of one class and introduce significant intercultural experiences. This collaboration between two different universities from different countries with different culture and languages can be consider as one good practice of COIL which is the pedagogical methodology that these classes were designed for.

The objective is to analyze the benefits that inter-classroom practices / lectures have for students. The performance is materialized in a multidisciplinary and synchronous learning format in which engineering, psychology and education students develop a joint challenge throughout the academic year. The methodological approach consists in a quantitative evaluation (27 item in rubric format) that gather data in several parameters such as linguistic aspect, transdisciplinarity, skills, learning approach, level of involvement, social impact, gender and inclusion. The analyzed results allow to obtain conclusions regarding the benefits derived from renewed learning methodologies and allows designing a proactive, diverse and disruptive learning itinerary, forming an international inter-university network, systematically improving the quality of teaching and learning processes, eliminating obstacles (geographical, linguistic integration, social), promoting a digital educational ecosystem and improving the basic capacities of values and respect and diversity.

This research has been carried out within the teaching innovation project entitled “Inter-lectures. A possitive rebound for English teaching”.

References:
[1] European University Association (2007): Doctoral Programmes in Europe´s Universities: Achievements and challenges. Report prepared for European Universities and Ministers of Higher Education. European University Association Publications. 2007.
[2] European Commission/EACEA: The European Higher Education Area in 2020. Bologna Process Implementation Report. 2020.
[3] SUNY COIL Home Page: https://online.suny.edu/introtocoil/

Keywords:

Inter-disciplinary lectures, COIL, digital education.