Among the three core competencies in the 12-Year Basic Education Curriculum Guidelines, “independent action” is perhaps the most important.
However, if a teacher’s approach to teaching follows the Nine-Year Educational Program model, independent action and independent learning seem to be a long-term goal and not a top priority.
Fortunately, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the start of school was postponed by two weeks, and the government has been pushing for online teaching.
Teachers and students are beginning to focus on independent learning, making this a topic of discussion in educational circles.
During the two-week delay, teachers and students at a few schools shared their experiences with online self-study.
Some were already in the habit of using the online teaching platform daily, so to them it had almost become second nature.
Others rarely used it, but had heard of it and were able to handle it after a bit of trial and error, while others had never tried it, were not familiar with the interface, had no urgent need of it and were complete strangers to the platform.
Educational authorities should work on finding ways to help address the digital gap caused by different experiences with self-learning.
If they do not, some teachers and students will not be able to use the platform, despite the authorities’ unilateral enthusiasm.
The spirit of independent learning is to give students the means to study on their own, not to just demand an answer.
During the self-learning process, children must be able to use different strategies, media and channels to find an answer.
The teacher provides students with ways of finding a solution. They are supposed to impart on students the approach to, and methods for, learning, because once students have the approach and method they need, they can apply that over and over again, using the same methods to solve other issues and learn new things about the world.
Teachers should give their students ability and sophistication, because traditional knowledge is something they can easily Google and find online: Even the children of the Generation Z “digital natives” are better than their teachers at finding information.
As long as teachers teach their students self-learning methods, they will be capable of studying easily and comfortably if classes are suspended again and they need to study at home.
When children are able to study on their own, the possibilities are endless.
A host of new words, phrases and concepts have been created over the past decade, such as blockchain, big data, mobile payments, cloud computing, QR code, artificial intelligence, augmented reality and virtual reality.
None of these were innovated by their creators in a traditional classroom setting; they were all created as a result of the ability to engage in self-learning.
Students must be allowed to generate more ideas and inspiration for self-learning, regardless of whether the ideas are realistic or castles in the air.
If children have the ability to build a new world, deal with it in their own way and interpret it based on their own world view, what is so wrong with that?
The deteriorating pandemic situation is a good time to test children’s self-learning abilities.
If online learning is widely well-received, the core competencies promoted in the 12-Year Basic Education Curriculum Guidelines would receive a further boost.
Lin Yen-yu is an elementary-school teacher.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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