The Open University of Indonesia and Florida State University: Communication, Collaboration, and the Important Work of Training Teachers

Since the summer of 2006, faculty from the Florida State University (FSU) College of Education and Learning Systems Institute and the Open University of Indonesia (Universitas Terbuka, or UT) have worked together to strengthen UT's distance teacher education program, which prepares a large percentage of Indonesia's basic education teachers. While this relationship has been positive and collaborative from the beginning, the authors have naturally experienced some misunderstandings. These are inevitable consequences of the nexus of different cultures, instructional approaches, and learning contexts. At the same time, faculty involved in this project have found many areas of common ground, leading to what has become a strong relationship that will expand considerably as UT begins sending faculty for graduate study at FSU. In this article, the authors briefly describe the context and background of the project, evolving collaborative work between the two universities, obstacles they have faced and progress that they have achieved, and lessons learned to date.