XPlorer Exchange Group Visits! Collaborating with Tunghai University to Solve Higher Education Challenges
Facing the incoming freshmen following the current 12-Year Basic Education curriculum guideline (new curriculum) in August this year (2022), Section Chief of the Department of Information and Technology Education, Zhi-Zhang Kao, Chief Secretary of Chung Yuan University, Chao-Ming Wu, Associate Professor at the Center of General Education at the National Taichung University of Science and Technology, Shin-Jia Ho, Executive Director of the college of interdisciplinary studies at Taipei Medical University, Ming-Chi Wu, and the XPlorer Project Office hold an online meeting with XPlorer THU team on May 24th to communicate and jointly address challenges in higher education. On the same day, they provide a project briefing at the department heads’ meeting.
The Dean of Academic Affairs, Jeng Liu, states that during this phase of the XPlorer Project, Tunghai university is dedicated in development of four core module, with "Social Sustainability" and "Economic Sustainability" as focal for learning path. By incorporating new normalcy or sustainable development issues, they hope to stimulate students’ exploration of different field of knowledge. The XPlorer Project Office highlights an important crucial challenge that needs to be addressed for the future of higher education site is “how to use new technology to initiate collaborative learning between professors and students and to guide self-directed learning for students”. The incoming freshmen are not only the first batch of students that follow the new curriculum, but also “digital natives”, therefore it is imperative to promote incorporation of new technologies or digital tools in teaching, as well as to sustain and support the momentum for innovation by professors. As the project is implemented, further discussion with the center for teaching and learning development will be held to establish collaboration mechanisms and models.