A Case Study of Technology Education at Taiwan Elementary Schools

 Chia-Sen Jimmy Huang , Ph.D. - Associate Professor of Dept. of Fine Arts and Technology Education

In-Feng Chen - Professor of Dept. of  Nature and Science Education

National Taichung Teachers College in Taiwan

Tel / Fax : +886-4-2234749

E-mail : hcs@mail.ntctc.edu.tw

Introduction

 The nine-grades-coherent new curriculum standards will be set into action by the Ministry of Education in Taiwan from 2001. In the primary and secondary grades, nature and technology will be one of the seven integrated subject groups which includes language, health and athletics, social studies, arts and humanities, mathematics, nature and technology, and recreational activities incorporating the new curriculum standards (Ministry of Education, 1998). This study explored the 1996 current curriculum standards regarding the developmental history, goals, time distribution, contents, characteristics, implementation, a case study, and conclusion at the level of primary technology education in Taiwan.

Evolution of Primary Technology Education

The evolution of craft-industrial arts- technology education in Taiwan reflects the social movement based on the agriculture world of the past and the industrial/technology world of today. The history of the technology education can be traced back to Ching Dynasty, while China was still in the feudal system.  “Picturing and handicraft” were the earliest courses in the history of technology education in China, and they were electives in school programs.  However, they became required in 1917.  Later, in 1923, the content was expanded as “image arts” and “industrial arts”, however, the former was changed as “art education”, the latter was changed as “work education” in 1932.  When the curriculum standards of China was amended in 1975, art education and work education were combined as “art and handicraft education”. In Taiwan, the name “work education” was used in Taiwan’s elementary schools before 1975.  The name of “Fine arts and craft arts” was used between 1975 and 1995.  After 1996, it was changed as "fine arts and technology education" at primary school level.  Such changes, in a sense, imply a great changes in the context as well as in pedagogical significance (Huang & Jen, 1999).

Goals and Time Distribution of Current Curriculum on Technology Education

The goals of technology education in 1993 current curriculum are to equip students with the abilities of presenting art works, to foster students’ appreciation of art works, and to prepare students applying their art literacy in daily lives. Basically, the content is based on the predetermined objectives for each grade and is divided into three areas -- presenting, appreciating, and application. Followings are the statements of the goals in three fields (Ministry of Education, 1993):

(1)     presenting: to use various materials to shape; to enjoy creativity; and to foster the ability of presenting.

(2) appreciating: to recognize the value of arts; and to elevate art literacy.

(3)     application: to expand the vision of applying arts; to adopt living technology; to foster beauty literacy; and to refine life quality.

 Goals are also classified into three groups – the lower graders, the middle graders, and the higher graders, each grade group has its own goals in three fields.

  For the lower-grade group, there are two sessions for a total of eighty minutes weekly, while for the middle-grade group and the higher-grade group, there are three sessions for a total of one hundred and twenty minutes.

Content Outlines of Current Curriculum on Technology Education

 Several amendments were undertaken for the content.  The curriculum of arts and handicraft education was amended in 1975 and in 1993.  Although these two versions of the content are different, they are similar in their content structure. In both versions, the contents were outlined in three areas: (1) appreciation and observation; (2) presenting and practicing; and (3) research and discussion.  Each area contained several items; and each item was described in terms of the desired behaviors. While the new version contains three areas: (1) presenting; (2) appreciating; and (3) application.  In presenting area, mental and functional presentings are two components, in which three aspects are included-- (1) scope; (2) materials; and (3) skills. Consequently, the content structure is subject to change according to the grade. In appreciating area, three components are included-- art cognition, appreciation , and evaluation.  As for the application area, only the statements are described in behavioral terms.          

   The first graders begin their arts lessons from games.  Constructing various materials into shapes, along with the imagination of the children, allows students a great freedom to create their own shaping.  By means of sensory perception, children start getting to know that a lot of shapes exist in the nature and in surrounding environments.  They organize materials and objects and arbitrarily rearrange them into new shapes, which encourage children to develop their unique creativity.  By games, students are encouraged to actively involve in the learning activities. Such realization and recognition will rise student attention to the beauty surrounding them.

   For the second graders, they learn to arrange the objects into new shapes in a planned manner.  They choose their favorite color and have more experience in shaping.  In addition, they are more sophisticated in skills.  As a consequence, they will select the color to fit in their dressing and to decorate their environment with objects.

  For the third graders, the content has more emphasis on motivation and theme of works. Basically, students will review the skills, concepts that acquired in the previous semester.  Students expand their view of arts from two dimensions to three dimensions.  However, they are not sophisticated in multi-dimensional observing.  Instead, students will be more sophisticated in coloring.  Field trip gives students another experience in aware of the natural arts.  At this stage, producing objects is not just for fun, instead, there has more emphasis on considering the functions and the meaning represented by the objects.

   In the fourth grade, students are able to produce art works by three dimensions.  At this stage, the content prepares students to use formal and advanced tools.  Skills of using tools become a very important technique in art production.

 For the fifth and the sixth graders, cultural significance will be analyzed so as to rebuild the conception of art in their traditional arts.  The content has embraced the knowledge of art creativity, art criticism, and history of arts (Jiau, 1998).

Implementation of Current Curriculum on Technology Education

 In new curriculum standards, detailed information is provided with the ways of implementing, followed by the principles and the evaluation. Principles of selecting teaching materials are (Ministry of Education, 1993):

  (1) to accord with children’s cognitive development as well as their development in shaping, abilities, interest, needs, and experiences;

  (2) to select from children’s experiences in daily lives;

  (3) to reflect the social changes and the future trends, to stimulate children’s self-recognition about their relationship to the environment;

 (4) to accord the arrangement of teaching materials with seasons, school administration;

  (5) to organize the materials based on children’s experiences, and in accord with the ease of acquiring materials, skills, and tools;

  (6) to balance the mental image performance with the functional performance in the lower- and the middle-grade groups, while to increase the functional performance in the higher-grade groups.

(7) to systematically plan every unit;

(8) to relate materials in presenting area with that in appreciation area.

    As for appreciating area, selecting materials based on the following principles:

(1)     to expand the scope for selection from domestic to international arts,

from ancient to modern arts;

  (2) to accord with mental growth, shaping psychological characteristics and

cultural literacy.

The Characteristics of Current Curriculum on Technology Education

    As the foregoing context illustrates, the new 1996 curriculum of primary technology education in Taiwan has the following characteristics (Huang, 1999A):

(1)      Humanistic -- emphasizing normal teaching and according with the students' psychological development.

(2)      Applicable -- suggesting students' works apply to their daily lives.

(3)      Prospective -- corresponding to the current trend of technology education in the world.

(4)      Flexible -- being flexible in teaching in terms of the time, the unit arrangement, textbook selection, and contents.

(5)      Interesting -- offering diversified teaching materials and strategies to students.

(6)      Individualized -- emphasizing students' learning diversity.

(7)      Artistic -- students' works are requested to correspond to the artistic principals.

(8)      Integrated -- the curriculum structure is designed in accordance with Tyler's three principles of instruction: (1) continuity, (2) sequence, and (3) integration.

A case study of Taiwan elementary technology education

The author introduces a case study regarding the current curriculum of technology education that was implemented at an experimental elementary school in Taiwan. Both the rationale and the contents of this case study are introduced in the following.

(1)  The rationale of this case study

    Tyler (1949) indicated the effective curriculum consists of three criteria: (1) continuity, (2) sequence, and (3) integration. Oliver (1977) offered three characteristics of curriculum organization: (1) articulation, (2) balance, and (3) continuity. Taba (1962) indicated that the curricular arrangement needs to consider: (1) teaching content, (2) teaching process, and (3) students' psychological development. The continuity means that the curriculum needs to overlap teaching content during the different learning stages. The main purposes of continuity are to repeat the classes and to avoid forgetting. The sequence ( articulation ) means that the curriculum can offer the classes from easy to difficulty orderly. The integration ( balance ) means that the relationship between students' learning situation and their ability of application (Huang, 1999B).

The rationale of this study follows the above three principles: (1) continuity, (2) sequence, and (3) integration. All the teaching projects were designed by the rationale of this case study. The case study was designed from the element of " environment ". The environment can be divided into four areas: (1) human being, (2) nature, (3) society, and (4) image. Each area can offer several conceptual frameworks for teachers to design their teaching activities regarding the technology education programs among presentation, appreciation, and practical application. The conceptual frameworks of this case study contain several lesson units for students to learn step by step from Year 1 to Year 6. The conceptual frameworks include thirteen lesson units such as: (1) clay, (2) stone, (3) water, (4) wood, (5) paper, (6) sea, (7) spring, (8) autumn, (9) myself, (10) animal, (11) image, (12) color, and (13) society. The author selects the “clay” unit to make a statement.    The conceptual framework of “clay” is an element in this case study. The element of "clay" is always considered by three variables: (1) children's ability, (2) social culture, and (3) biological factor. The structure of "clay" in this teaching project includes five topics as follows: (1) nature of clay, (2) function of clay, (3) culture of clay, (4) history of clay, and (5) life of clay. Teachers are requested to effectively direct students to utilize the diversified materials and related skills in this teaching project.

 (2) The contents of this case study

The conceptual framework of "clay" in this case study contains eighteen lesson units for students to learn step by step from Year 1 to Year 6. The content focus of the case study contains about the following items: (1) games and psychomotor activity、(2) discovery of clay、(3) manipulating clay、(4) decorating clay、(5) producing clay products of daily life、(6) presenting the image with clay、(7) understanding the process of glazing and firing、(8) appreciating art works of clay、(9) discussing clay from Taiwan's history and culture、and (10) expressing the concept of clay by painting. Also, the structure analysis of the case study includes the following key points: (1) learning by sense of touching, feeling, and discovering, (2) learning by doing, (3) direct instinct thinking, (4) discovering the image of clay through application, models, and structure of clay, (5) symbol and icon learning, and (6) painting history and life of Taiwan's land. The detailed lesson unit, content focus, and structure analysis are listed in Table 1.

Table 1  The conceptual framework of "clay"

Conclusion

 Currently, an educational innovation has been undertaken as part of the national innovation project for the year of 2001.  In this educational innovation, the curriculum of primary school education and that of middle school education will be combined into a nine-year free education system. In such new system, the conceptual framework will equip students with such abilities, such as (1) humanistic cultivation; (2) integrating abilities; (3) democratic literacy; (4) local and international perception; and (5) life-long learning abilities.  The goals of the curriculum are focused on fostering students’ perception of the relationship between the individuals and the group, the individual and society, and the individual and the nature.  In the area of natural science and technology, there combines the natural science and technology education.  In a sense, technology education will play an important role in the area in terms of the methodology.  Since them will be focused on utilization of tools, skills, natural resources, and solutions of problems.  However, it can be predicted that technology education will be integrated into the natural science.

  References

    Ministry of Education (1998) Nine-grades-coherent new curriculum outline, Taipei, Taiwan: Ministry of Education.

    Ministry of Education (1993) Elementary curriculum standards,  Taipei, Taiwan: Ministry of Education.

    Huang, C. (1999A) A study of craft-work teachers’ technical competencies at Taiwan elementary schools, Paper presented at the 61^st Annual Conference of the International Technology Education Association, Indianapolis, Indiana, March 28-30, 1999.

    Hung, C. (1999B) A conceptual frame work of `clay’ on fine arts and technology education programs in Taiwan primary school, paper presented at the 2nd International Primary Design and Technology Conference, Birmingham, England, June25-29,1999.

    Huang, C. & Jen, C. (1999) A study on the current implementation of new fine arts and technology Education programs at Taiwan primary schools, paper presented at the 8^th European Conference for Research on Learning and Interaction, Gothenburg , Sweden, August 24-28,1999.

    Jiau, J.I. (1998) Required learning outcomes for elementary craft teachers, Paper presented at the 1998 Taiwan Normal University/College Education Conference, Taipei, Taiwan: National Taipei Teachers College.

A Case Study of Technology Education at

Taiwan Elementary Schools

by

Chia-Sen Jimmy Huang , Ph.D.

In-Feng Chen, Professor

National Taichung Teachers College

140 Ming-Sheng Road, Taichung city, 403

Taiwan, R.O.C.

Tel/Fax: +886-4-2234749

E-mail: hcs@mail.ntctc.edu.tw

Paper presented at the Biennial Conference and Exhibition of

the Australian Council of Education through Technology (ACET),

Canberra, Australia, January 10-14, 2000