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NTU General Education Faculty Received
Citation from Ministry of Education

The Ministry of Education set up the “National Outstanding General Education Teacher Award” in 2007, and every year the winners of this Award can be as many as five people. The winners get a certificate of citation plus a cash prize (for 2007 and 2008 the cash prize was N.T. 200,000, and for 2009 and 2010, the cash prize was 300,000). NTU faculty has won this Award for four consecutive years. In 2007 the winners were Professor Chu-Fang Lo of the Institute of Zoology and Professor Kuo-Yen Wei of the Department of Geosciences, in 2008 the winner was Professor Chia-Ling Mei of the Institute of Taiwanese literature, in 2009 the winner was Professor Chau-Chi Chi of the Department of Life Science, and in 2010 the winner was Professor Chun-Chieh Huang of the Department of History.

Professor Kuo-Yen Wei offered a general education course entitled “Biological Evolution and Extinction”, which adopted a pluralistic approach toward teaching. In addition to using multi-media and self-made teaching materials, he also designed debate sessions and led field trips to inspire the students’ learning interest. Finally, he cited the most profound and most controversial topics in biology, geosciences, chemistry, and astronomy, and asked his students to discuss them in depth, so as to inspire a new mode of thinking. The general education course offered by Professor Chu-Fang Lo, on the other hand, was centered on life science of which she was the expert, and connected to other directly or indirectly related subjects. She used this course as the basis for expanding the mind and horizons of the students. Take her course “Life science and the human living”, for example, she made a link between the professional knowledge of life science and current hop topics such as “embryonic stem cells,” “avian flu,””genetic engineering,” and “rare genetic disease,” so that life science courses can be extended from a pure biological level to social sciences and humanities. In this way, her students can learn the correct value system, cultivate their concern for life and increase their ability to cope with the world with intelligence and confidence. The general education courses offered by Professor Chia-Ling Mei included “A history of modern literature” and “Modern literature and Culture”. Basically, her courses were given discourse by a teacher, while she and her teaching assistants mapped out the focus point activities for students, including panel discussions and term-end performances. Every week, her students were required to turn in critiques and reviews of a certain piece of literary creation, so as to inspire the literary interests of students who came from different departments and different fields. Professor Shau-Chi Chi’s teaching placed great emphasis on the enlightenment of concepts, and on the course’s meaning and assistance toward the students’ livelihood. She offered a course entitled “The exploration of life”, in which she allowed students to record the main learning points as diaries, then, she asked the students to hold panel discussions according to different topics. These panel discussions were anchored by teaching assistants while the professor gave critiques. In this way, her students were allowed to express their own opinions while deepening their understanding of a certain issue and reflecting different viewpoints toward the same issue. Professor Chun-Chieh Huang has made great contributions in the planning and promotion of general education curricula. During his tenure, he has actively participated in the teaching, research, and administration of general education. So far he has taught general education courses for 15 consecutive semesters, offering more than 20 general courses. Upholding the ideals of general education, Professor Huang is very meticulous about the design of each teaching unit, insisting that every teaching unit must have a theme, problems to discuss, and extended reading. When he teaches, he often raises questions to inspire students’ thinking, so that students can engage in in-depth debate, thus cultivating the critical ability of his students.

Under the planning and design of this group of outstanding teachers, the general education curricula of our University are second to none. These teachers all design after course learning activities for students, so that students can deepen their understanding of what they learn. Every year, when we hold the “Palm Tree Forum”, we asked our Award winners to share their teaching experience as a way to further promote the teaching quality of our general education courses.

Chinese version