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First JASCE Conference Draws More than 200 Participants

 The 1st annual conference of the Japan Association for the Study of Cooperation in Education (JASCE) was held in Kurume, Kyushu, in the southern part of Japan, on November 19, 2004. More than 200 people attended. The theme was “Join together in the spirit of cooperation to forge a new frontier in education reform in Japan: Overcome uncertainty by taking research-based, practically-proven steps toward changing educational institutions.”

The conference consisted of a plenary session followed by a keynote speech, workshops, and presentations. The keynote speaker was Kazuma HARAOKA of Kurume University whose talk was entitled “Variations in individual motivation and actions in light of group dynamics.”

Four workshops were conducted. The workshop topics show the diversity that thrives among JASCE members:

  1. Philosophy of JASCE and its relevance to CL
  2. Nursing and CL
  3. Language learning and teaching with CL
  4. A case study of the implementation of CL in the Inuyama City school reform movement.

Later, roundtable presentations provided good opportunities for active participation and contributions from all the conference participants.

Teachers, graduate students, and undergraduate students all worked for the success of the conference, and it was surely a good example of cooperation in education. The 2nd national conference will be held in 2005 in the Tokyo area. For details, watch the JASCE website (http://jasce.jp/indexe.html) or the IASCE website (www.iasce.net).