Vol. 26-2（2013/12）
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Jui-Chou Cheng, Jeng-Fung Hung, & Tai-Chu Huang
Student interest plays a vital role in science learning. In particular, junior high students in Taiwan showed higher interest in informal than formal science learning. Thus, this study investigated the relationship of junior high students’ situational interest and multiple teaching strategies in informal nanometer-related curricula and the source of situational interest. Two questionnaires were administered to 110 students and semi–structured interviews of selected students were conducted. The results showed that after implementing multiple teaching strategies in informal nanometer-related curricula, the junior high school students’ situational interest increased, especially for low-level interest student group. The findings suggested that the students perceived the following teaching strategies to have helped enhanced their situational interests: hands-on activity, teaching aids demonstration, providing examples from daily life, and multi-media presentation; by contrast, the “question and discussion” teaching strategy was regarded to have a lesser effect in promoting situational interest for lower-level student group as compared to the higher-level student group. The results of the interview showed that while involving in "hands-on laboratory work," students felt a sense of novelty, instant enjoyment, meaningfulness, exploration, understanding, and achievement, which contributed to enhancing their situational interest. The findings suggested that teachers should adopt various teaching strategies for students with different levels to enhance student’s situational interest.
Keyword：informal nanometer-related curriculum, situational interest, teaching strategy
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The Development of Adolescent Online Reading Literacy Assessments
Kuei-Lin Chang
By adopting the constructs of reading literacy and with the use of information and communication technology, the purpose of this study is to develop two adolescent online reading literacy assessments (ORLA) and examine the preliminary validity of ORLA. In addition, samples of online reading literacy performance are described. The design of ORLA is based on PISA electronic reading assessment framework and Leu et al. (2004)’s online reading comprehension definition. A total of 601 eighth graders from junior high schools and 618 tenth graders from senior high schools in Taiwan City participated in this study. This study uses Rasch IRT model to calibrate the item parameter and scale scores. The results indicated: the online reading literacy assessments had adequate difficulty level, reasonable validity evidences, and students’ online reading literacy performance contains ICT element which is different from offline reading; the gender effect exists in the online reading environment by grades.
Keyword：information and communication technology, online reading literacy, Rasch IRT model
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Jen-Jun Chen
As the white paper on international education for primary and secondary schools was released in April 2011, integrating cross-national projects into current schools’ curricula has been a core strategy promoted by the government for implementing international education at schools. This paper reports on my experiences and the context in which the iEARN projects is implemented in a junior high school. Using self-narratives, I discuss my own cross-national project experiences in the past ten years and my connection with the iEARN international community. At a reflective stance, I seek to discover and understand what iEARN means for my students and myself in our context, the effects of cross-national projects, and the process of teacher change. My experiences revealed that teacher change was a dynamic and interconnected process, involving multiple pathways among the personal domain, the domain of practice, the domain of consequence, and the external domain through the mediation of reflection and enactment. In addition, cross-national projects helped develop global vision and key competences, create authentic learning contexts, and motivate students to learn English.
Keyword：cross-national project, international education, self-narratives, teacher change
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Mei-Yin Hwa, Hong-Teng Chow & Shun-Mei Wang
Almost all environmental problems are caused by human. Besides being good at environmental engineering theory and technology, to enhance the ability to solve environmental problems, the environmental practitioners need a closer understanding of the stance of different stakeholders. This study is an instructional design combining both "case method" and "role-playing" into the “Soil and Groundwater Talent Training Courses” in Taipei. The curriculum is based on the hexavalent chromium pollution case in Yunlin County. Each group of students is encouraged to play four roles, inculding leather factory owners, farmers, environmental officials, and soil testing professionals. Each group of students has to propose solution strategies after discussion and consultation. The study adopts a single group posttest design. The qualitative data were analyzed using content analysis. The quantitative data were analyzed through proportion and Pearson correlation. Results were as follows: (1) The solution strategies identified by the students include:“mutual communication”, “consensus-building”, and “the formation of an environmental committee". (2) More than 80% of students were satisfied with the instruction, and they found it helpful in terms of knowledge and skills in doing surveying. A moderate positive correlation exists between students’ participation and learning satisfaction. A reflection concerning this instruction design along with some recommendations are provided.
Keyword：case method, hexavalent chromium pollution, role-playing
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The Aesthetic Value Embedded in the Negative Number History and the Negative Number Instruction
Shu-Chuan Chen
The purpose of this article is to interpret the meaning and the aesthetics value in the history of negative numbers and the instruction of negative numbers. The argument begins with explaining the reasons why the aesthetic approach can be recommended to inspire the instruction of negative numbers. The aesthetic contents of negative numbers are then analyzed and presented. The author further explicates the beauty embedded in negative numbers can be demonstrated through their developmental history. This article ends up with emphasizing the 4 merits of aesthetic viewpoints in broadening the visions of the negative number instruction; they are as follows: (1) to calm the restlessness of negative number learning; (2) to inspire student to pay more attention to number learning; (3) to better the understanding of negative number algorithm through the aesthetic intuition afforded by two examples of figure images showing that "subtracting a negative number by adding its opposite" and that "the multiplication of two negative numbers being positive"; (4) to assist student in facing and overcoming the problems in learning negative numbers. The teachers are encouraged to facilitate students to embrace the aesthetic value of negative numbers and to tackle students’ problems in advanced mathematics learning by taking into consideration of their cognitive abilities and mathematic performance.
Keyword：mathematics aesthetics, negative number algorithm, negative number instruction
