Education

To enhance global awareness and employ practical and innovative approaches to solve global problems, Taiwan added “global competence” through international mobility as a criterion in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) for the first time in 2018. However, due to the unpredictable development of COVID-19, "local internationalization" has become an alternative to international mobility. This course features three NTU professors and administrators specializing in international affairs and higher education, as well as foreign national representatives and ambassadors, sharing insights on their countries’ unique issues and addressing global learning in times of uncertainty. The course covers topics such as education, diplomacy, economy, ecological and environmental protection, democracy, etc., and aims to advance professional and global competence in international and multicultural fields. 

This course examines a number of questions regarding education and schooling from a normative perspective. It considers the relevant criteria for evaluating the moral rights and duties of children, parents, and states with regard to education. Students explore some of the most important concepts in political theory such as justice, equality, liberty, autonomy, and community. They also discuss the different aims of education as well as which agents have which responsibilities with regard to enabling children to acquire the capacities for full membership in society. In addition, the course considers which understandings of freedom and equality should inform our thinking about multicultural education and/or demands for equal opportunities for the socially disadvantaged and discuss whether and in how far state schools ought to be neutral with regard to religious and/or cultural norms relating to conceptions of the good life.

The formative purpose of the course is to promote the exercise of cultural citizenship through participation in mediated cultural activities of a diverse nature, planned in order to generate a panoramic and critical view of the value of culture and its necessary rights-based approach.

This seminar course familiarizes students with advanced topics related to the interplay between societies and education from a comparative and international perspective. After basic coursework in comparative education, this course encourages students to explore advanced topics which are central to theoretical debates in comparative education and may be relevant for their thesis research. Topics may be specific to the Asian region or have global relevance for societies and education systems around the world. 

This is a special studies course involving an internship with a corporate, public, governmental, or private organization, arranged with the Study Center Director or Liaison Officer. Specific internships vary each term and are described on a special study project form for each student. A substantial paper or series of reports is required. Units vary depending on the contact hours and method of assessment. The internship may be taken during one or more terms but the units cannot exceed a total of 12.0 for the year.

‘Geographies of Youth in Changing Societies’ studies how young people (between 4-25 years old) experience and use various places in changing societies, based on the premise that their experiences differ from those of adults.  The course examines what happens at the intersections of age and life-course (e.g. children, youth, teenagers, young adults), and places (body, home, street, neighborhood, community, city, urban, rural, (trans)national, trans local, global). The course considers young people’s lives from various but interconnected perspectives. Transformations in the context of globalization, migration and societal change define young people’s lives across the world. However, growing up in an increasingly interconnected world affects young people in different and unequal ways depending on local relations and historical contexts. This course contributes to the field by teaching how geographers and spatial planners understand and examine youth-related themes, youth’s positions in various societies and places, and their subjectivities and orientations in a constantly changing world with new possibilities as well as risks. The course provides an in-depth understanding of processes and dynamics that shape young people’s lives on various spatial scales. The places where we are born, go to school to, play, hang out, exercise, study and work are an important part of young people's lives, their everyday experiences and their identities. But young people’s relationships with these places are subject to ongoing transformations due to changing priorities, needs and aspirations across their life course. The concepts of childhood and adolescence are, however, relatively recent phenomena in Geography. Rather, in much scientific work by geographers and spatial planners, young people are seen as ‘adults in becoming’, even though the perspectives of young people on the world are qualitatively different than those of adults. The course consists of lectures and tutorials. Guest lecturers from the various sections within the Human Geography and Spatial Planning department introduce different perspectives on young people’s geographies. The first part of the course is an overview lecture that recapitulates youth as a socio-spatial construct. The geographies of youth are explored through relevant themes, such as identities and belonging, inequalities, and youth & public space. The second part of the course investigates a youth-related topic by working on their own research group project.

This course examines pedagogical theories, strategies, and applications related to blended learning in formal and informal science learning environments. Students will engage in a blended learning science practicum, developing and implementing a blended learning science module for upper elementary school students.  

This course introduces concepts and practical applications in multilingual education, allowing students to understand multilingually and to examine the characteristics of multilinguality that monolinguals cannot experience in general. The course will help students to recognize themselves as multilingual agents, to explore how to use languages, and to realize how this process affects their identities. Topics include language acquisition and multilingualism, multilingualism identity formation, language use and code-switching, technology and multilingual education, case studies, current research in the field, and practical applications. Assignments include case study analysis and designing a multilingual curriculum. 

This course focuses on the integral connection between play, creativity and the arts for children and adults, and the essential role they contribute to lifelong learning. Through practical workshops students will use a variety of art media including digital technologies. To understand and learn how to facilitate a focus on children’s engagement through play and the arts, involves students co-playing, co-making and co-imagining in mentored immersive interactions with children in our arts studios. The experiential nature of the course is supported by knowledge drawn from a range of disciplines incorporating theories of engagement, play and creativity, learning, artistic creation, and human development. 

This course offers a basic and applied overview of research methods, data collection and treatment of educational information, and its analysis and interpretation using specific IT tools to confront the challenges that future education professionals face. The course is focused on challenge-based learning, where students engage in real-world scenarios, to foster critical thinking and problem-solving skills.