Enhancing the Learning Effectiveness of University of Science and Technology Students through Flipped Teaching in Chinese-Language Curriculum
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Literature Review
3. Methodology
3.1. Teaching Methods
3.2. Research Methods
3.3. Research Subjects
3.4. Curriculum Framework and Implementation Steps
3.4.1. Curriculum Framework
3.4.2. Teaching Steps
3.4.3. Teachers’ Observations and Students’ Unit Teaching Feedback
- It’s great. I learned about a lot of books that I haven’t read.
- I have a deeper understanding of friendship, family affection, and romantic love.
- In this unit, no matter whether family affection, romantic love, or friendship, every emotion made me think a lot and learn a lot.
- I didn’t like it when I learned that I had to report in groups after the first class, because I didn’t know the students in the group at all, but I got used to the feeling of grouping, and even felt that I had learned a lot.
- I learned the attitudes involved in friendship, romantic love, and family affection.
- This topic is sensitive to me, so I have more feelings about it.
- These stories are very helpful to living and life. We can make our own choices based on the reflection in the course.
- This unit gave me a deeper understanding that literature is full of all kinds of emotion.
- It provided a rare chance for me to seriously examine my emotional situations from the past to the present, as well as the method and mentality of interactions with people.
- I found that the affections I have, whether it is family affection, romantic love, or friendship, don’t come easy.
3.5. Research Hypothesis
4. Research Results
4.1. Pre-Test/Post-Test Effectiveness of Language Proficiency
4.1.1. Improvements in Reading Proficiency in the Pre- and Post-Tests of the University and College Students’ Language Literacy Test in Taiwan
4.1.2. Performance of the Accounting Information Department in the Pre-Test and Post-Test of the Reading Examination
4.2. Teaching Evaluation of School Curriculum
4.2.1. Content of the Teaching Evaluation Questionnaire
4.2.2. Evaluation of the Teaching of the Chinese Language in the 2020 Academic Year
5. Limitations and Discussion
- (1)
- During the actual implementation of the method, we noted the importance among teachers of establishing a learning consensus with students at the beginning of the semester. If the explanation is inadequate, teachers and students are prone to friction resulting from maladjustment and poor communication, and it is not easy to establish a good learning environment.
- (2)
- In the team-based learning session, teachers can treat group leaders as important helpers in teaching and give them the utmost importance and trust. During the teaching period, teachers should hold regular appointments (after each midterm/final exam) and design “group discussion sheets” to develop a sense of commitment and responsibility among group leaders. This section will allow for quicker resolution of many individual students’ learning difficulties.
- (3)
- When designing the curriculum and teaching materials, teachers should think in terms of “students’ needs” and should not teach only what they want to teach. Teaching materials that can be connected to students’ life experiences are easily accepted. It is advised to open up space to allow students to give feedback on their individual experiences and ideas to form a positive cycle of teaching and learning, in order to achieve a more harmonious teacher–student relationship and smooth teaching.
- (4)
- The “five-minute impromptu writing” section requires considerable patience. The author insists on handwriting, hoping that the connection between the hand and the brain will help students to capture their ideas quietly and express them accurately. This creates a heavy workload because the teacher’s feedback needs to be sent back to the students immediately (usually every week), and between the writing and the feedback, the teacher and the students form a textual dialogue that brings them closer together and sustains their willingness to learn.
- (5)
- The peer review form is an important mechanism in training students to listen quietly to their classmates’ reports because they are required to give their opinions on each group’s report on stage. All groups had to concentrate on listening to the lecture, so they reduced their use of their mobile phones. However, this mechanism requires weekly evaluation and suggestions for each group to be used as the basis for the next improvement of the group, and it also requires the teacher’s patience.
- (6)
- Good learning experiences and results involve a whole year of patient waiting and persuasion. The stereotype of freshman-level Chinese in students’ minds cannot be easily erased or changed in the classroom with a few words, but the effectiveness of language learning is difficult to see immediately in the short term, and the results are not easily verified. As a result, patiently accompanying students and constant explanations become a daily reality in class. Even if students feel that the teacher is extremely verbose, they have to be humble and persevering in completing the planned course curriculum.
- (7)
- The major aim of Chinese language teaching is to improve the reading and expression of the language. Through the test, the results can be seen. Chinese-language teaching also has teaching purposes, such as cultivation of reading habits, self-study ability, and moral character. These can be accumulated gradually through the design of teaching processes and the determination of a class mode. Therefore, the authors repeatedly expressed the reading mode of the text in the thesis, i.e., guiding reading through asking questions; training students to listen, think, and express themselves through the mechanism of five-minute casual writing; note-writing in peer review form; and a group discussion. If the participants generally perform better in the post-test than in the pre-test, it indicates that the intervention via the teaching method was effective.
6. Conclusions
- (1)
- The use of the flipped teaching model enhances students’ interest in learning and improves their attitudes in class;
- (2)
- The flipped teaching model provides space for students to participate in discussions and reflections, increasing their learning effectiveness;
- (3)
- The pre- and post-test reading scores of the Ministry of Education’s University and College Students’ Language Literacy Test showed improvement in students’ reading ability;
- (4)
- The survey of students’ opinions on teaching showed that students were highly receptive to the flipped teaching strategy, and their opinions were quite positive.
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
Appendix A
I. Teaching attitudes |
1. The teacher fulfilled the required teaching hours (18 weeks per semester) and was neither late nor left early. 2. The teacher was dedicated and responsible and actively guided students. 3. The teacher respected the individual differences of students (such as ability, ethnic group, gender, etc.) |
II. Teaching methods |
4. The teacher clearly conveyed the content of the lesson. 5. The teacher used teaching media (such as slides, multimedia, teaching aids, reference materials, etc.) to increase their interest in learning. 6. The teacher guided students to collect information, think independently, solve problems, and express opinions. |
III. Teaching content |
7. The teaching content was arranged systematically and had learning value. 8. The teaching content was pragmatic, distinctive, and met the needs of students. 9. The teacher followed the course outline and completed the scheduled progress. |
IV. Assignments and evaluation |
10. The teacher carefully corrected and reviewed the students’ homework and examination papers. 11. The teacher used multiple assessment methods (such as homework, exams, reports, work presentations, learning attitudes, etc.) 12. The teacher’s assessment method was fair and reasonable |
V. Other comment |
Please fill in within 100 words |
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Teaching Steps | Conducting Activities | Expected Training/Results Expected Training/Results |
---|---|---|
Group learning | Group reading and discussion of questions before class. |
|
Group reporting | Each group should complete the above discussion and the group report within the time limit each time they read the text. |
|
Lecturing | Provide explanations of prior knowledge for the text in progress, integrate the views of each group, guide their extended thinking on the unit, and offer an overall conclusion after reading the text. |
|
Five-minute impromptu writing mechanism | After completing the reading and extended thinking, the topics are handwritten, so as to reinforce the impression of learning without being bound by the content. |
|
Evaluation of outcomes | Midterm/final exams for each semesterPre- and post-tests for language proficiency testing Administration of teaching feedback questionnaires at the end of the semester in the Office of Academic Affairs (anonymous) |
|
Language Literacy Reading Evaluation Score in 2019 | Pre-Test | Post-Test | Improvement Rate |
---|---|---|---|
Average score of Class 1 in the Accounting Information Department | 88.72 | 89.26 | 0.61% |
Average score of Class 2 in the Accounting Information Department | 88.72 | 88.28 | −0.50% |
Language Literacy Reading Evaluation Score in 2020 | Pre-Test | Post-Test | Improvement Rate |
Average score of Class 1 in the Accounting Information Department | 76.68 | 83.88 | 9.39% |
Average score of Class 2 in the Accounting Information Department | 76.92 | 84.10 | 9.33% |
Reference Data for Chinese-Language Teaching Evaluation in the 2020 Academic Year | ||
---|---|---|
I. Teaching attitudes | Class 1 | Class 2 |
1. The teacher fulfilled the required teaching hours (18 weeks per semester) and was neither late nor left early. | 4.43 | 4.71 |
2. The teacher was dedicated and responsible and actively guided students. | 4.39 | 4.51 |
3. The teacher respected the individual differences of students (such as ability, ethnic group, gender, etc.) | 4.2 | 4.51 |
II. Teaching methods | ||
4. The teacher clearly conveyed the content of the lesson. | 4.26 | 4.53 |
5. The teacher used teaching media (such as slides, multimedia, teaching aids, reference materials, etc.) to increase their interest in learning. | 4.28 | 4.47 |
6. The teacher guided students to collect information, think independently, solve problems, and express opinions. | 4.39 | 4.56 |
III. Teaching content | ||
7. The teaching content was arranged systematically and had learning value. | 4.13 | 4.4 |
8. The teaching content was pragmatic and distinctive and met the needs of students. | 4.07 | 4.27 |
9. The teacher followed the course outline and completed the scheduled progress | 4.22 | 4.47 |
IV. Assignments and evaluation | ||
10. The teacher carefully corrected and reviewed the students’ homework and examination papers. | 4.37 | 4.64 |
11. The teacher used multiple assessment methods (such as homework, exams, reports, work presentations, evaluation of learning attitudes, etc.) | 4.24 | 4.53 |
12. The teacher’s assessment method was fair and reasonable | 4.11 | 4.42 |
Total average | 4.26 | 4.5 |
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Huang, C.-C.; Lin, Y.-L.; Ho, C.-Y. Enhancing the Learning Effectiveness of University of Science and Technology Students through Flipped Teaching in Chinese-Language Curriculum. Sustainability 2021, 13, 9743. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13179743
Huang C-C, Lin Y-L, Ho C-Y. Enhancing the Learning Effectiveness of University of Science and Technology Students through Flipped Teaching in Chinese-Language Curriculum. Sustainability. 2021; 13(17):9743. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13179743
Chicago/Turabian StyleHuang, Cheng-Chih, Yen-Ling Lin, and Ching-Yen Ho. 2021. "Enhancing the Learning Effectiveness of University of Science and Technology Students through Flipped Teaching in Chinese-Language Curriculum" Sustainability 13, no. 17: 9743. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13179743
APA StyleHuang, C.-C., Lin, Y.-L., & Ho, C.-Y. (2021). Enhancing the Learning Effectiveness of University of Science and Technology Students through Flipped Teaching in Chinese-Language Curriculum. Sustainability, 13(17), 9743. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13179743