a blessed Easter to all!
by God’s Grace alone,
my team and i have been invited to visit Taiwan next month.
from the 7th to the 11th of May, we will be at the College of Education, National Pingtung University, facilitating a series of workshops and talks on curriculum design for STEM and maker culture, through the lens of Disciplinary Intuitions, to pre-service student-teachers and academic faculty.
this series spans the following four topics:
Topic 1: Investigating local microclimate using open-source sensors
In this workshop, participants will be introduced to open-source sensors, and will learn how they can be used to investigate their local microclimate. This workshop will consist of two parts. The first part will include a hands-on activity with sensor hardware, and the second part will focus on STEM lesson design incorporating the use of such sensors.
Topic 2: Surfacing learner intuitions using immersive environments
In this workshop, participants will be introduced to immersive environments (such as OpenSim or Minecraft), and will learn how to design lessons incorporating the use of such environments to surface learner intuitions.
Topic 3: The Disciplinary Intuitions approach to STEM curriculum design
In this workshop, participants will be introduced to the Disciplinary Intuitions theory of learning, and will discuss curriculum design which focuses on surfacing learner intuitions using technological affordances such as immersive environments, open-source sensors, or robots.
Topic 4: Makers on parade: the spontaneous emergence of a makerspace within a state-funded school in Singapore
This talk introduces a maker culture that has spontaneously emerged within a state-funded school in Singapore. The study is of interest in that the culture of tinkering and improvisation that has supported the student-drvien makerspace shares characteristics with community-initiated makerspaces in the West, rather than with the more prescriptive and regulated socio-political constructs which are often associated with countries in East Asia.
then, on the 14th of May, we have been invited to visit the Department of Education and Learning Technology, Hsinchu Teachers’ College, National Tsing Hua University, where we will engage in conversation with graduate students there.
finally, our visit to Taiwan will conclude on the 15th of May, when we will visit the Graduate Institute of Science Education, College of Science, National Taiwan Normal University. There, we will facilitate a workshop to both pre-service student-teachers and in-service teachers on the topic of Disciplinary Intuitions as a lens for designing STEM curriculum.
thanks be to God alone for this opportunity to visit Taiwan :-)