The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement has released the results of the quadrennial Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS).
There was not much change in the results for Taiwan, as students scored high in learning achievement, but low in learning attitude toward mathematics and science, and their sense of alienation toward mathematics and science was higher than the average.
Faced with the results, the Ministry of Education’s K-12 Education Administration simply responded that “students in high-performing countries tend to feel a sense of alienation toward learning,” without offering any further background analysis, which was a pity.
Taiwan participated in the study six times between 1999 and last year. During these 20 years, the reforms in Taiwan’s curricula and educational system reached a climax. These involved reforms in the curriculum standards and guidelines, the replacement of the Nine-year Integrated Curriculum with new curriculum guidelines last year and switching the focus from “core competencies” to “competency-based instruction.”
The system for advancement to higher-level education progressed from a joint entrance examination to the Basic Competence Test and the Comprehensive Assessment Program for junior-high school students.
The integration of examination and enrollment has been replaced with the separation of examination and enrollment, as well as adaptive enrollment based on a student’s aptitude.
However, after making all these reform efforts, Taiwan has still failed to boost students’ motivation to learn mathematics and science, so there must be some blind spots in its K-12 policy.
The first blind spot is a matter of over-rectification, as the government places excessive emphasis on social sciences and humanities at the cost of mathematics and science.
It cannot be denied that residues of the past authoritarian rule still existed in Taiwan’s curriculum standards and textbooks at the end of the past century. As a result, in every reform of the curriculum, all sides focused mainly on the debate over social and language-related subjects.
Issues such as changes to the nation’s historical view, the proportional adjustment between classical and vernacular Chinese, and required elective courses for local languages have received greater attention than the subjects of mathematics and science.
As a new curriculum guideline review committee is about to start operating, hopefully the over-rectification of, or imbalances in, Taiwan’s curriculum reform will be reversed in a timely manner.
The second blind spot lies in outdated instruction, which has resulted in an inflexible response to a constantly changing situation, with the result that the government is stressing adjusting class hours over teaching innovation.
In every aspect of curriculum reform, there was not much change in the distribution of class hours for mathematics and science, and the only change was the adjustment of the required elective courses and the division of mathematics teaching materials.
For a course to meet its goal, it should prioritize efficacious teaching, diversified assessment and differentiated instruction.
However, no matter how the authorities adjust the curriculum guidelines for mathematics and science, they have continued to stick to traditional teaching methods. How will they boost learning motivation and competency using the same old tricks?
Taiwan’s adoption of the US’ “reform mathematics” teaching method, which sees mathematical calculations as a constructive activity, had failed due to bad communication skills, insufficient teacher training and poor learning efficiency.
What would the new model for teaching innovation be, and would it change outdated classroom instruction? Such factors are likely to be the keys to success.
The last blind spot lies in self-contentment, as the government emphasizes cognitive performance over affective education. Past TIMSS results showed that the country’s eighth-grade students’ confidence, interest and appreciation of mathematics and science ranked at the bottom of the list, and their average score was even lower than that of fourth-grade students, showing that the older they get, the worse their learning attitude became.
From the perspective of learning psychology, without strong motivation or interest, it is difficult to sustain a learning activity for long.
The TIMSS results reveal why Taiwanese teenagers come out on top in prestigious international mathematics and science competitions, only to lose their competitiveness once they enter college or graduate school.
If the nation’s students are self-contented with their academic performance without their passion for learning being awakened, students in other countries would quickly catch up, because self-contentment is the best sleeping pill.
Wang Yen-huang is a senior-high school principal.
Translated by Eddy Chang
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017