An Educational Dream from the South: The 3-Teacher Co-Learning Model at National Pingtung University

​Rural districts in Pingtung have always struggled with the issue of recruiting and retaining elementary school teachers, of which the direct consequence is high teacher turnover (teachers’ instability) and insufficient professionalism. To overcome these challenges, the goal of this project was to bring educational professionals, in-service teachers, and pre-service teachers together to work collaboratively to determine solutions. Under this “3-teacher co-learning model”, university educational professionals brought the pre-service teachers into rural elementary schools to practice their teaching skills so as to assist in-service teachers in those areas at further developing professionally.  The project host, Vice President Xiaowen Lin of National Pingtung University, integrated the resources from the School of Education, the School of Information, and the School of Humanities and Social Sciences and was assisted by Professor Xinfeng Cheng as the co-host.

​The host of the Mandarin Chinese subproject, Dr. Wenling Zhong, conducted multiple lectures and workshops involving an array of professional knowledge and activities at the university with the end goal of equipping teachers with both teaching theory and practice. The professional events hosted by Dr. Zhong included the topics of 1) the problem-based learning (PBL) approach, 2) teaching plans for the 108-syllabus Mandarin Chinese literacy initiative, and 3) a practicum on the use of an innovative teaching tool, “Six Hat Thinking”, in classroom settings. Furthermore, Dr. Zhong offered pre-service teachers guidance for laying the foundation for Chinese language teaching activities and recruited them to form a rural service team to serve at Dimoer Elementary School and Donghai Elementary School. In addition to providing supplementary and remedial teaching for elementary school children at these two schools, top-notch training in Mandarin Chinese for those students with excellent grades was offered as well. Principal Xiuyu Shi of Donghai Elementary School stated: “The remote township is not like any city with so many resources. I also want to give excellent students a little more cultural stimulation to improve their competitiveness.”

​Dr. Yi-Ching Pan, the host of the English sub-project, promotes English teaching activities that integrate the use of a variety of real-life situations. Under the leadership of professional English teachers relying upon the assistance of a foreign teacher, the pre-service teachers of this project designed daily-life and cross-cultural activities for elementary school children to learn by doing. During the summer vacation, the team, consisting of Dr. Pan working as the consultant, teacher substitutes, and pre-service teachers, organized an immersive daily-life English summer camp. The theme of this summer camp was “An Introduction to Our Home, Fangliao, in English”. Famous attractions in Fangliao and Pingtung’s characteristic fruits were utilized and designed into competitive games to attract and motivate students in different groups to learn English. Students were also taught how to create a small book that combines English learning with art.

​The host of the mathematics sub-project, Dr. Yuping Zhang, assisted pre-service teachers with proposing innovative mathematics teaching strategies and designing teaching activities in a course called “Mathematics Teaching Methods”, which was offered in the teaching education program at National Pingtung University.   In this course, Dr. Zhang placed an emphasis on a combination of the mathematics teaching method with the mathematics foundation-laying activity module, taking into account the knowledge of pre-service teachers and the spirit of the new curriculum. Dr. Zhang also brought these pre-service teachers into the workplace of the elementary school teaching site and hosted a workshop at Yuguang Elementary School on co-preparation mathematics study in September to enhance the teachers’ mathematical knowledge and to meet their teaching needs.

​The host of the sub-project of the transition from preschool to primary school is Dr. Weigh-Jen Chen. She led pre-service teachers to help rural schools prepare by using AI robots telling stories, and held workshops about the operation of AI robots and the production of teaching materials. The first phase of the sub-project focused on integrating English into teaching. To develop children’s English abilities from listening to speaking, the team listed the terms used in one’s daily routine, then the team and Dr. Chen translated and edited those terms, and finally they combined the AI robots and teaching materials with other activities. This project also held a workshop on innovative teaching methods and strategies for preschool educators located in the southern Pingtung area to address the problem of a lack of opportunities for in-service professional development. The contents of the training workshop included the design of the learning area and the observation of children to enhance the professional knowledge of preschool educators.

​Due to the urban-rural gap and the impact of declining birthrates, many rural schools have reached single-digit populations of students. Professor Yating Li, the host of the multi-grade sub-project, led pre-service teachers into rural elementary schools to look for a suitable multi-grade teaching model.  Professor Li collaborated with Dacheng Elementary School and held two workshops on multi-grade teaching theory and practice, so as to initiate tripartite cooperation and joint lesson preparation between educational professionals, in-service teachers, and pre-service teachers. Throughout the workshops, Professor Li analyzed Dacheng Elementary School from multiple perspectives such as the civic aesthetics of the revised curriculum, multi-grade teaching, and 108 curriculum literacy. At the same time, these teachers were able to have open discussions and interactions, make observations on teaching activities at the workshops, and finally build a solid foundation for the enhancement of their educational experience and theory.

​Dr. Zhiqiang Yang, the host of the digital co-learning sub-project, brought pre-service teachers into rural elementary schools to develop a better understanding of the lack of companionship for rural students after class. In order to motivate students to learn independently and make up for the gap that exists between urban and rural education, Dr. Yang trained pre-service teachers to integrate the use of information technology into learning with the core concept of companionship.  By means of online operating systems, Dr. Yang and his team developed exclusive digital audio-visual textbooks that were designed mainly for the elementary schools.  These digital materials can also be utilized on digital channels (e.g. Yincai and YouTube) as teaching platforms to overcome learning restrictions and barriers between classes and schools and accordingly to promote equal learning opportunities in urban and rural areas.

​This project finally utilized the department guidance and checklist mechanism to ensure effective teaching quality control. Professors Xinfeng Cheng and Zhiying Yang regularly discussed the implementation status with the co-hosts of each sub-project and held inter-school alliance forums.  The end goal was to develop a better understanding of the problems faced by the rural elementary schools engaging in this project and to initiate discussions with those schools to ensure that the implementation of this project proceeded smoothly.