TAIWANESE STUDENTS TO LEARN SCIENCE THE IIT WAY

What better way to spend your summer vacation than in Chicago as part of a unique, international partnership? For a group of Taiwanese junior high students, that means immersing themselves in university-level science inquiry – using the same kind of techniques the teachers themselves practice.

During the week of July 25-31, 35 students from Yuan-Lin Junior High School, a small-town Taiwanese public school, will jump head-first into science inquiry to help them solve real-world problems and offer them a better way to learn science. Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT)’s Department of Mathematics and Science Education currently teaches this approach to instructors at Chicago Public Schools and other districts. Taiwanese teachers accompanying the students will also observe the teaching methods both here and when IIT professors travel to Taiwan later this year.

“It is the only partnership between a university in the United States and an international school district,” said Dr. Norman Lederman, chair of the Department of Mathematics and Science Education. “They would like to do better with inquiry, so they value our input.”

Kids learn science best by doing – asking questions and performing lab experiments – and this forms the basis for IIT’s inquiry approach, a teaching method advocated by prominent educational organizations. Students learn the same way scientists gather knowledge – developing questions of interest and research designs, carrying out the research and reporting conclusions – and become engaged in a concrete way, which improves student learning and retention.

The Taiwanese teens benefit from university-level instruction while becoming immersed in a new culture, language and science. The practice, now in its sixth year, is funded by local Parent-Teacher Associations and by national grants from the Taiwanese government. Learning English and experiencing the culture and entertainment opportunities of a big city like Chicago are additional positive benefits of the students’ visit.

Founded in 1890, IIT is a Ph.D.-granting technological university awarding degrees in the sciences, mathematics and engineering, as well as architecture, psychology, design, business and law. IIT’s interprofessional, technology-focused curriculum prepares the university’s 6,200 students for leadership roles in an increasingly complex and culturally diverse global workplace.