Journal of Educational Practice and Research

A Construction of Global Literacy Indicators for Undergraduates

Lung-Sheng Lee, Chun-Chin Lai, Ying-Ju Pan, Yu-Hua Liang, & Mei-Tyng Wang

In the era of glocalization and logloblization, only university graduates who are globally literate can effectively deal with international affairs or work overseas. Therefore, this study aimed to construct a set of global literacy indicators for undergraduates in Taiwan. The global literacy indicators can be used as a guide to assess undergraduates’ global literacy level and serve as the foundation for developing global education curriculums. Employing a theoretical framework, this study drafted global literacy dimensions and indicators from reviewing related literature, and invited 18 practitioners with international experience to participate in this study. During the item development process, fuzzy Delphi method (FDM) and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) were applied to select and weight global literacy indicators respectively. Consequently, a set of global literacy indicators for undergraduates were constructed, which include the following four dimensions: communication, context, career development, and culture. “Communication” is the most important dimension among them, while “communicate with foreign languages” and “use information and communication technology (ICT) to communicate with others” are the most important indicators and items at the second and third hierarchical levels, respectively.

Changing College Students’ Stereotypes of Standard English: The Pedagogical Process of an English Course

James H. Yang

The use of English as a lingua franca for international communication has made the primacy of Standard English (SE) become ideologically undesirable, not only because distinct varieties of English have evolved with their own standards, but also because nonnative speakers tremendously outnumber native speakers and their interaction has soared in intercultural exchange. Accordingly, a curriculum was devised to guide students to explore worldwide English variations in response to the paradigm shift from SE to a pluralistic model of English language teaching. This pedagogical research aims to examine how students transformed their stereotypes of SE into the understanding of world Englishes. This curriculum was implemented in English with 77 undergraduates enrolled in the ‘Language and Culture’ class at a national university in central Taiwan. With the focus on English spoken in New Zealand (NZ), they began with their impressions followed by their revisions. Then, they were guided to discover stories connecting themselves with the country. They proceeded to promote NZ tourism, understand local slang and accent, and take part in an optional semester-final volunteer teaching workshop. Their learning portfolios indicate that they modified their initial stereotypes, generalizations, misconceptions, and prejudices, becoming aware of the cultural diversity in NZ and linguistic differences between NZE and GAE. Overall, 86% of the students found the given instruction helpful for communication with New Zealanders, particularly so among high achievers and those who participated in the teaching service project.

A Study of Using the Case Writing and Discussion Guide Framework to Promote Student Teachers’ Reflective Thinking

Wei-Yu Liu

The purpose of this study is to promote student teachers’ reflective thinking by using the case writing and discussion guide framework (CWDGF), which was developed by the researcher in response to the requirement of effective focus before case writing. The framework focused on pedagogical reflection during practicum and provides a systematic guide for pre-service teachers to engage in multiple levels of reflection. The participants were 12 student teachers who were enrolled in the researcher’s class of Educational Practicum from August, 2013 to January, 2015. The results showed that CWDGF helped most student teachers advance from single-loop to double-loop reflection, and from technical to practical reflection. In addition, CWDGF helped all student teachers reach the level of explanation with principle or theory and with consideration of context.

Transforming a University "Entomology" Course into an Elementary Pre-service Teachers Training Course

Chow-Chin Lu

As elementary school pre-service teachers are required to learn the pedagogical content knowledge of natural field, "Entomology" course offered at the teacher training department was transformed into elementary pre-service teachers’ training course to early cultivate science teachers. This study adopted a mixed method research design. Forty-three pre-service teachers participated in the study and took the "Entomology" teacher training course. The course covers insect concepts, concept map drawing, insect feeding skills, outdoors teaching skills for insect survey, assessment for insect science fairs and designing science lesson plans. Both quantitative data and qualitative data were collected and analyzed to investigate the development of pre-service teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge. The results were as follows: 1) ICTS pre- and post-testing t test results show that pre-service teachers gained more insect cognitive concepts from the Entomology course. 2) In the pre-service teachers’ drawings of conceptual diagrams, the class framework was partially correct, but the conjunctions were accurately presented. 3) Pre-service teachers demonstrated skills of rearing insects, outdoors teaching skills for insect, assessing insect science fairs, and designing science lesson plans. 4) The transformation of the Entomology course into a teacher training course was feasible; however, entomology experimental activities may be added into the curriculum when pre-service teachers assessed insect science fairs.

On Compatibility Between University and Sustainability: Contentions, Opportunities, and Directions

Jung Hsiao

The advocates of sustainability have started to regard universities as an important means to realize sustainable development since the Tbilisi Declaration in 1977, making universities a target of many initiatives to this day. However, as this study argues in accordance with the result of literature review, this phenomenon is politically correct as much as controversial. The reason lies in the fundamental question about the nature of university. In other words, the talk about how to realize the ideal of sustainable development through universities has to involve first the question of “what is the paradigm for universities?” As this study argues in light of rudimentary inquiries of the three paradigms and the reflection on educational philosophy, the university is better when it is based on the paradigm of “liberal education” rather than that of “knowledge factory” or “pragmatism.” The study suggests that universities should adhere to the paradigm of liberation education as the most appropriate response to the ideal of sustainable development. Not only so, this study further points out what universities can do on the basis of their roles in the society: a member in the society, a vocational education institution, a training center for future leaders, and an organization for humanity and knowledge. It is especially worth noting that universities have potentials and advantages for the development of humanities and environmental ethics that are yet to be discovered and expanded.

Beyond the Ivory Tower: A Study of Germany’s Dual System of Higher Education

Yuan-Chuan Chang

In this paper, document analysis was used to investigate the Germany’s dual system of higher education. Notable examples include the models of Baden-Württemberg, Nordrhein-Westfalen and Bayer. Students in this system of education can satisfy the demands of industry; the job prospects of graduates has been enhanced where 85 percent of those who graduate from Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University found work in their field prior to graduation. For a long time, there has been a distance between higher education and the realities of the wider society; however, due to recent developments in modern times, academia is becoming more relevant and connected to the society as a whole. As a result, a close relationship has been developed between university education and vocational education. This relationship is based not only on the needs of the society, but also on changes in epistemology, the rise of the competition state, and the difficulties arising from the gap between what students learn at universities and the actual needs of the industry. Germany’s dual system of higher education is seen as a paragon. By contrast, in Taiwan there remains a large gap between what students learn at universities and the actual needs of the industry, resulting in an imbalance of supply and demand in the labor market. Thus the educational authorities in Taiwan may consider the applicability of adopting the German system of dual education.

An Inquiry into Athletic Coaches’ Knowledge: Revealing the Structure of Experiential Knowledge

Chung-Yi Wu

Knowledge of athletic coaching has always been regarded as an important approach toward improving athletes’ performances. In the sports and exercise sciences circle, the channels of athletic knowledge research are generally divided into scientific and human social aspects. In recent years, scientific research studies on sports and exercise has put more emphasis on athletic performances, thus enhancing the reliance on scientific results and disvalued trainers’ experiences accordingly. However, sports and exercise are science of practice and application, the existence of trainers’ experiences should be respected and not to be replaced. Therefore, phenomenology established by Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) was applied in this research to go deep into athletic coaches’ experiences and explore their essential knowledge. The results shows that there are generally two sets of knowledge in the natural mindsets of trainers, which are fixed scientific knowledge structure and experiential human body diagram. After restoring, digging and exploring the essence through phenomenology, scientific knowledge is found to have the characteristics of control, consistency, unification, and order, whereas the features of body diagram are imagination, realization, mix and mingle, and conviction. In order to clarify the existing conditions of coaches’ experiential knowledge, a second essence restoring was made attempting to return to the forming stage of coaches’ knowledge. The results show the coaches’ experiential knowledge is integral, long-lasting, and consistent, and works smoothly in the sports fields.