In Search of a Modern Confucius for Effective Teaching in Law : A Trial Project to Promote Interactive Learning in Taiwan (松浦好治教授退職記念論文集)
This paper observes and reviews the progress of interactive learning in a Taiwan eConfucius Drama Classroom. Based on accumulated findings in a law classroom of blended learning, an innovative pedagogy is introduced to promote conversational teaching with passive students. The Socratic pedagogies may have led the western movements towards interactive learning. Given a different educational heritage in Taiwan, the constructivist teaching value may be realised with culturally situated methods to achieve Socratic ends. The ideas of “guided independent learning” are thus proposed with the back-up of filed findings. In the classroom of a modern Confucius, the teacher remains to be respected, yet learning-centred pedagogies are adopted to lead the students to become active and reflective learners.
More Pedagogic Techniques: Online Exercises & (and) Integrating Skills into Different Kinds of Courses
The Business Practice Clinic is an externship program that sends third-year students out to work either full-time or part-time in an agency or law firm. The externs are trained in the clinical program and during a biweekly class. There is also a three-credit class that students complete before they go into extern placement. It was a big challenge to complete the placement class in only two weeks because of the students’ busy schedules, so we began offering pieces of it online. We are moving more and more of this course to our online platform. This article discusses our experience in preparing third-year students for a transactional clinical experience through the course and how this has been accomplished in an online classroom environment.
Science fairs as learning tool for teaching excellence
Science fairs are usually considered to be a pedagogical and cultural activity that involves the students actively. Gifted students need challenges to further develop their skills while maintaining the motivation level. Science fairs may provide the informal environment that will request and allow these students of excellence to challenge themselves by developing a scientific research project. Despite being well known in different countries, in Portugal first steps are being made on the use and implementation of science fairs as effective pedagogical tool. In this work, we will present a 4 years study that was developed on a Portuguese school with the main goal of evaluating the advantages of this informal way of teaching. The study includes an analysis of the evolution of the students’ knowledge that have participated, or visited, the different science fairs. Some advices for the implementation of these projects will be given. The motivation of the students was monitored as well as the knowledge and skills effectively improved by this activity.