Case Study: ECoN & Mapúa Partnership
41 students from Vietnam and the Philippines conducted the online collaborative learning for 6 weeks, starting in March 2022. 21 Vietnamese students joined from ECoN, an English club of Nguyen Chi Thanh Gifted High School, Vietnam, and 20 Philippine students from the English Club of Mapúa University Senior High School, the Philippines. They split into 6 small mixed groups and tackled on the group work for the conservation of natural resources based on MOTTAINAI (a popular Japanese word, meaning "What a waste!") that Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, introduced as a slogan for environmental protection.
01
Orientation Day
At the first day, two schools conducted the orientation together with country/school introductions and casual chats in breakout rooms to get to know each other. As might be expected of English Club members, their English abilities are quite good and they successfully socialized with each other.
02
Cultural Exchange
After the orientation day, students split into 6 mixed groups and conducted cultural exchange on the Group Discussion Board respectively. The hobbies and country's traditional items that were shared taught them that there are similarities and differences in culture and lifestyle between two countries.
03
Online Collaboration
Each group had researched and discussed how MOTTANIAI (resource-wasting) behaviors would impact on the Earth, by filling in the online worksheet asynchronously and by confirming orally via video chat every Saturday. Surprisingly, in most groups they could edit and work on Google Slides simultaneously on the group video chat day!
04
Presentation Day
The final day was the presentation day. As we agreed to both clubs' proposal, we adopted a way of competition, resulting in a fun but earnest session for all participants. It was impressive for delegated judges to struggle to make a difference in their grading due to all high quality presentations!
