At the Peace and Multicultural Center, we educate teachers on peace and multicultural coexistence, promote multicultural symbiotic education at the Faculty of Education, and hold “I-STEP,” an exchange program where students can communicate with their counterparts in Chinese and Korean universities and take part in class visitations to those countries.

As part of I-STEP, students at the Faculty of Education visit Chinese and Korean universities, which in turn send their students to study in Japan every other year. The exchange students attend classes at the attached elementary and junior high schools, and visit historical and cultural relics to understand their own and other cultures. This project helps students broaden their educational practice and horizon of knowledge on peace and multicultural understanding.

Teaching at an elementary school in Korea

I-STEP completion ceremony

Since 2018, we have been participating in a joint learning project that connects Japanese and American universities online. For this Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) project, our partner university is DePaul University (Chicago, Illinois), which was chosen by the American Council on Education. The COIL sessions cover “the debate across multiple cultures over the ethics of the use of the atomic bomb” and “literature and translation studies,” and also include online face-to-face lessons. In addition, there are direct interactions and joint research activities between teachers and students.

The COIL methodology is useful for instruction at the elementary and junior high and high school levels. The Peace and Multicultural Center attached to the Faculty of Education is carrying out research on “Remote Island Education by COIL.” As part of COIL, you can study with the American university’s students and learn new teaching methods for the 21st century.

Remote class between Chicago and Nagasaki

Discussion in an international exchange class