This purpose of this paper is to describe the development, implementation, and assessment of a series of Cross Cultural Communication workshops. Combined, these workshops aim to support the professional development of engineers by embedding multicultural awareness, knowledge, and skills into engineering curricula. In total, four workshop modules have been developed and implemented, with a fifth workshop under development. Curriculum for the workshop modules is grounded in a number of conceptual frameworks, including Multicultural Competence Theory, Human Relations Theory, Human Relations Facilitation and Intergroup Dialogue, and the Social Justice Ally Development Model. This endeavor has been led by a diverse group of experts and stakeholders across a large research institution in the southeastern United States, and stakeholders have been included in ongoing assessment initiatives of the workshop. We conclude this paper by discussing future efforts to embed cross-cultural communication learning opportunities into our living-learning community for first-year engineering students. Future work will center on empowering student leadership by training undergraduate student leadership to effectively implement and assess workshop modules.

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The importance of app development education is increasingly gaining attention. However, teaching app development has a relatively undeveloped pedagogy. Educators tend to borrow the pedagogy of programming education, ignoring the fact that programming is only one phase in a full app development cycle. In this paper we propose a new pedagogical model for teaching app development. Our proposed model addresses three key components in teaching app development: technology (cognitive), project management (associative) and social context (situative). This model gracefully accommodates the full app development cycle from conceptualization and planning, to implementation, to usability test, and to release and maintenance. Based on the proposed model and existing evidence-based teaching practices, we designed an app development course for college students. The design, implementation, and outcomes of the course are presented in detail as a case study. The case study provides rich implications to both practitioners and researchers of app development education.

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“Omotenashi”, which is loosely translated as Japanese hospitality is one of unique traditional values of Japanese culture. This value-added service approach is adopted to many Japanese business practices, from manufacturing to services industries, taking in various forms and styles
This paper deals with treating project stakeholders with the “Omotenashi” spirits for a project success. It describes how the Omotenashi spirit could be applied to Project management practices, especially in Stakeholder Management. Firstly, a trend of Project Management approach is introduced with its importance of stakeholder management. Secondly, how Omotenshi spirit can be applied to stakeholder management practices together with examples of the application. Lastly, challenges and criticism of Omotenashi in today’s project environment are presented. This paper should provide some insights on new approach of managing stakeholder as a comparison of that of Western approach described in the PMBOK®Guide.

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In the modern corporate management, the importance of logistics fields is highly estimated, and it is necessary to develop the logistics education. While the importance of logistics education is increasing, based on the popularization of the IoT, Big data , and online shopping, the decision making from a mathematical rational judgment is demanded rather than the situation analysis relying on past experience and intuition. Based on this research, this study will provide learners with the practice of creating decision trees using free software and trying to build a logistics strategy. The learner firstly learns the logistics theory, and then requires the knowledge about Bayesian statistics and Bayesian networks to make decisions related to logistics practices based on real data. In the decision making, it is divided into small groups to practice PBL, Problem Base Learning, and in the end, a presentation is made in front of multiple groups.

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The increase in international student mobility signifies a growing recognition of the benefits that international cooperation through education brings. These benefits can be enhanced through innovative education programs that create mutual value for the international student and the host community. This paper gives an example of value co-creation in disaster education where international students work with a local community to improve tourist disaster management plans. The community gained a valuable resource comprising a diverse group of individuals whose characteristics closely match what the community needed. The international students got real life study experience on the important role of community based disaster risk management in ensuring disaster resilience in Japan, and a sense of accomplishment from the meaningful service to the community. This and similar mutually beneficial engagements with the host community can provide greater value if educators can deeply integrate them into the course content.

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We have been conducting the international collaboration on the engineering education researches in assistance of the educational reform program conducted by the grants-in-aid from Japanese government. Beside the announcements of educational results worldwide, we have been conducting the mutual exchanges of the students and faculty members between the universities, discussing the topics on the educational reforms, project-based learning programs, engineering ethics, and so on. Since the current issues on the engineering education are common to those of every country, it is beneficial for us to discuss about the educational information with foreign faculty members. In addition, since the experiences of collaboration with foreign universities are also profitable for student beside the faculties, we have been conducting the student exchanges by the mutual contracts with foreign universities on the academic research areas. The scientific research collaborations driven by the dispatched students showed us that the experiences of collaborations were beneficial for students’ career-design as well as the enhancement of motivation on their scientific researches, which resulted in the academic paper publications on the collaborative academic researches. 21 Japanese students have studied abroad and 10 German students have studied in Niigata. 13 scientific papers co-authored by the students who contributed to the collaborative researches have been published in nine years.

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G-DORM is a student exchange project that has global project-based learning (PBL) in an internship by Niigata University with four universities in Mekong countries. In 2017, actual implementation of G-DORM was launched. One of the uniqueness of G-DORM is that students form cross-academic year, cross-disciplinary, multinational groups to have the internship. This paper aims to grasp achievements of G-DOMR carried out in 2017, in terms of coordination with companies for program designing, recruiting and selection of students, implementation of internship in the student exchange program and evaluation. In addition, this paper argues values of this international cooperation for global PBL in an internship based on findings of the achievement of G-DORM in 2017. As a result, global PBL in an internship of G-DORM is implied as a model of international engineering education that can create impacts to students as well as industry.

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This paper describes a gPBL (global problem-based learning) for adult students (mostly working as full-time) that was organized and implemented by Japanese and Thai universities, in which students identify, analyze and discuss the problem, and to propose Kaizen ideas (= solutions) for the production line of the industrial chains (for tractors) in a Thai local factory. By 1) having on-line/off-line pre-lectures in Japan, 2) using movies as the alternative of a site visit, 3) giving them a chance to try their ideas/prototypes in the real production line of a factory, this program can solve the issue of time management that most adult students constantly struggle with. At the same time, it can provide them with “rich experiences” of Kaizen activities in the real global context.

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As well known, problem based learning among different countries has large potential on the education. In our Shibaura Institute of Technology (SIT), a lot of program are also already held among various countries, for example Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand and so on. The period of the most programs is less than two weeks due to the limitation of the student' cost and to the difference of the academic schedule among countries. Therefore, the period two weeks for PBL is not sufficient in the case that the PBL's work manufactured by students. In this report, the PBL program between SIT in Japan and King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT) in Thailand is presented. In the program, the students work 8 days in SIT and KMUTT respectively. There is 2 months interval set between the PBL program in SIT and in KMUTT. Owing to the interval period, the students can complete the work which is almost same amount spent in more than one months. Additionally, in order to make the student's motivation higher in the program, the topics of the PBL is given by the corporation which is member of Global Technology Initiative Consortium (GTI).

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Lectures delivered in Japanese at some large private and public universities in Japan were collected and uploaded to a corpus (database) called OnCAL.jp. The corpus confirmed that classroom discourse reflects the culture in which instruction is conducted. Concretely, OnCAL.jp was analyzed for the usage of pronouns in lectures, and the results were compared to those obtained from analysis of a corpus of lectures delivered in English, OnCAL. It was found that the first person singular was the most frequent pronoun in OnCAL.jp, while the second person (singular + plural) pronoun was the most frequent in OnCAL. This result can be seen as evidence that the Japanese educational process is teacher centered, while the American educational process is more student centered, in agreement with predictions in the literature.

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The theoretical foundations of Technical Education are traced in various well-known studies. It would be helpful to scan those studies to gain a better understanding of what factors might be contributing to the development process of Technical Education. The approach of classical behaviorist theory shows that it does not adequately address a full range of learning needs, which constructivist theory may address in a more comprehensive way. Studies have shown that Technical Education and the evolution toward higher technology continue to advance. Upon closer examination, shows the vital contribution those theoretical foundations have throughout the evolution of Technical Education.1Federal support for Technical Education must be on the redoubling of efforts to increase the links between not only academic and occupational skills development, but also between businesses and education. As a matter of urgency, attention should be paid to Technical Education due to its impact on society.

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Students learn about stress and strain using uniaxial models in introduction to mechanics of materials. The essence of these quantities is studied steadily throughout classes. Nowadays, advanced problems involving elasticity, plasticity, thermal expansion, creep, etc. are solved using software based on the finite element method not only to evaluate strength of products in their design but also to examine workability of processes. In order to accurately investigate obtained stress and strain, knowledge of them based on mechanics of materials as well as materials science is effective. When students become engineers and face real world applications, some of them think that their skills relating to the quantities are not sufficient. Some activities are performed to improve their skills. For example, the author’s lecture on heat treatment distortion and residual stress on a one-day course for engineers includes learning materials for intuitive understanding of the quantities due to elasticity, thermal expansion and plasticity that is described in this paper. These will be useful for engineers involved in various manufacturing technologies such as casting, forging, machining, and welding, and also mechanical design.

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Department of Mechanical Engineering and Science, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan, has offered PBL course to junior students for years. In this course, student groups are supposed to solve problems in real world, which may have various solutions. On the basis of a popular design methodology “Design Thinking”, students repeat the following process to develop what the targeted users really need; 1) to research users and environments with interview and field-research, 2) to build concepts with brain-storming and group discussion, 3) to build 3D mockups and evaluate the concept, 4) to find problems of the proposed idea and improve the idea, and 5) to draw mechanical and electrical design and to machine a product. This paper explains its pedagogy of this course, and shows the development process.

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Engineering ethics has been taught in the mode of “preventive ethics” with the emphasis on the responsibilities and duties of engineers to avoid harming the safety and health of the public. However, it has been recognized that a new approach with the emphasis on the positive side of engineering practice, which is called “aspirational ethics,” is also important. Meanwhile, it is sometimes forgotten that the main theme of ethics is “eudaimonia,” which can be translated as “well-being,” in the tradition of Aristotelian virtue ethics. One of the authors proposes a new way of teaching engineering ethics in which, in addition to preventive ethics, aspirational ethics is emphasized, and it is also conveyed with empirical evidence that the well-being of the public as well as that of the individual engineer should be promoted in ethical decision making and behavior. This mode of engineering ethics is named “Engineering Ethics 2.0.” The contents of an experimental course based on engineering ethics 2.0 are briefly described. In addition, some results of measurements on the effectiveness of the above course and of the education reform which implemented in 2016 at Tokyo Institute of Technology on the well-being of learners, although admittedly they are very primitive.

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