Richly cultivating Chigu while teaching for the rural areas
Chigu, one of Tainan districts, is not only famous for the Salt Mountain, nor should it be known as Salt Mountain district only. Beyond the beauty of natural ecology, the most beautiful scenery is the love of education!
Upon Tainan County and City merged in 2010, Chigu Town was renamed Chigu District. This place was the largest sea salt field in Taiwan with a beautiful fan-shaped salt field in the past. Nowadays, it becomes famous for the visit of the black-faced spoonbills, and people realize this estuary wetland with rich ecological resources eventually.
The blessed natural environment, linked with the long-standing human development, seems to have everything in this place, but still can't escape the fate, population loss and insufficient resources of the countryside "rural area". Part of the reasons for its inability to flourish is due to the remote geographical environment. And the other part is insufficient education resources, causing few job opportunities, resulting in population exodus, and limiting local learning resources. Although people with lofty ideals want to change the deadlock, it still has a long way to go.
The University of Tainan (NUTN) has been a fabulous education center since 1897, and its geographical relationship with the Chigu District is linked tightly. Upon the connection, it makes NUTN indispensable to set up the educational supply station of "teaching for the rural areas" within the system. We hope that the USR project of NUTN can help the sustainable development of urban and rural areas through education and humanistic care, and help to promote the cradle of rural education in Chigu District through professional and spiritual supply.
(1) Deep cultivating the management of cross-region and cross-school collaborative professional learning communities for teachers:
The 10 schools in Chigu District are all small schools. When they are separated, there is one class for each grade, and no other teachers in the same grade can work together to prepare lessons very well. Through the establishment of a cross-region and cross-school collaborative professional learning communities, teachers in the whole district have a platform for collaboration, through mutual observation and learning among teachers. On one hand, it makes teachers aware that their teaching can no longer be done behind closed doors, and on the other hand, it also lets teachers understand the different characteristics and expertise in neighboring schools. They can be used for exchanging ideas, and then refining teaching motivation and promoting resource sharing.
(2) Develop key competency-based instruction models and share resources
Based on the characteristics of the schools in Chigu District, this project plans to have two main axes of "outdoor education" and "environmental education".
Outdoor education is leading by National University of Tainan Affiliated Primary School teachers’ team, assisting rural area teachers to prepare and grow together, focusing on expanding the children’s life vision and strengthening multiple life experiences. Based on "The Bite of the Tongue", from 2020-2022, three outdoor education modules were planned in sequence: "Navigating to the Gold Mine", "Food for the People" and "Fruit New Kingdom", leading from 1st grade to 6th-grade students, starting from Tainan as the core. Students explore the products of the earth under the four seasons, learning about the diverse cultures of the land, and connecting to the exploration of related international issues. Through outdoor education field trips, students will increase their interest in learning and strengthen their theme exploration, problem-solving and communication skills.
Environmental education focuses on the ecological environment of Chigu District, and develops common environmental education textbooks with rural characteristics to highlight the advantages of rural areas. With local natural characteristics and biodiversity as the main axis, it assists elementary schools in developing school-based curriculum.
(3) Promote the application of the rural education action platform
Establish a rural education action platform and reserve teachers for rural area schools to provide a matching mechanism to solve the plight shortage of rural area teachers and the high turnover rate.
(1) Strengthen individualized teaching guidance and technology assistance
Individualized teaching adopts from collaborative teaching method. In addition to general tutoring and remedial teaching for underachievers to strengthen the basic academic ability, a "dual tutors" mechanism is adopted for special students. Pre-service teachers from the Department of Education in NUTN are responsible for basic academic tutoring and special education department pre-service teachers are responsible for individualized plans and special learning problems. In addition, strengthen the skill training on individualized teaching technology counseling, collect student learning performance data to evaluate the learning effectiveness.
(2) Implement two-way exchanges between urban and rural areas, expand learning perspectives
Organize English summer camps in line with different school's characteristics, through game-based learning to inspire students' interest in English. Through situational learning help students understand how English is used in real life situations. In addition, the computational thinking camp is organized to guide students through problem-based learning (PBL) and collaborative learning to explore the basic computational thinking and controlling the mBot robots. We use mBot to cultivate students' computational thinking and problems solving skills. We help students understand how to face and solve a real-life problem. Through the integration of formal and informal courses in NUTN, combined with the expertise of the faculty and students in NUTN, it provides rural area children with more diverse learning activities and career exploration opportunities, expands the vision of rural children, and triggers local understanding and recognition.
University characteristic Startup Stage Project
Tainan City
National University of Tainan
Further reading
From 13:00 to 14:00 on December 12 (Saturday), 2020
Log in to your personal Facebook or Google account to proceed with leaving a message; each account with a successful message of #2020usrexpo left before the end of the live streaming of the opening ceremony will have an opportunity to enter the draw, and each account is restricted to winning the prize once only.
On December 14 (Monday), 2020, the list of winners will be announced on the event official website https://2020usrexpo.org/) Announcement of the list of winners
“Huei Yeh” Power Extreme Massage Gun 1 winner
Nestle Dolce Gusto Genio 2 1 winner
KINYO Bluetooth 5.0 Wireless Speaker 2 winner
7-11 Gift Voucher valued at NT$200 27 winner
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