Ming Chuan University 2020 Higher Education Sprout Project Highlights
Ming Chuan University promotes students' ability in learning and exploration, deepens students' basic skills, connects with society, and enhances international mobility through innovative teaching and learning integrated with application.
Ming Chuan University Higher Education Sprout Project set “Innovative Teaching; Combining Theory and Practice” as its focus. In regard to overall achievements, in line with the 2019 syllabus, cultivation of core competencies was proposed as the theme of curriculum development. A 5.5 million NTD grant was awarded by the Taiwan Ministry of Education (MOE) for Professionalized Student Recruitment Development Project, which is the top among all universities nationwide. In order to enhance students’ media literacy skills, MCU strengthened media literacy education; performance in this area was affirmed by the MOE as MCU became the lead institution of the Higher Education Media Literacy Teaching Development Program and was tapped as the North District Resource Center host institution. In order to assist students in their career development and smooth adaptation to the workplace, MCU effectively combines the University information system and UCAN platform to keep tabs on student ability development status. The effectiveness of this has also been affirmed by the Youth Development Administration of the MOE, with MCU serving as the North District Convener of Colleges and Universities Career Development Promotion Subsidy Project.
For the Teaching Innovation Sub-Project, a Teaching Practice Research Program was promoted; 35 projects were granted MOE subsidy in 2020, which is the top 2 among universities nationwide. Teaching innovation has been integrated with adaptive guidance, and students' learning progress enriched through multi-faceted practical teaching such as deep bowl courses and micro-credits. Meanwhile, 92.03% of the total student body at MCU took relevant courses to enhance their abilities in logical and computational thinking and program design. In 2020, 125 student projects were awarded MOST Undergraduate Student Research Grants (top 4 nationwide) to advancing self-learning ability and research energy. In 2020. MCU was ranked No. 1 of all universities in Taiwan by Global Views Monthly for current students participating in off-campus competitions and papers published. Concurrently, MCU also completed the implementation of off-campus and industrial internships for current students, resulting in 45% of students participating in off-campus internships and 208 participating in long-term internships in their 8th semester. Moreover, Ming Chuan established an Occupational Competency Standard and Student Learning Outcome Review System to direct student career planning and track the flow of graduates and employers' feedback to improve teaching methods and course design to more robustly execute the teaching quality PDCA loop.
For the Enhancing Global Mobility Sub-Project, despite the impact of the pandemic in 2020, Ming Chuan persisted in the internationalization of education. The number of exchange students was expanded to 1,858 students (top 1 among private institutions nationwide). Among them, foreign students account for 940, an increase of 4.5% compared with the previous year. MCU continues to require four years of English courses, and has redesigned English learning materials to promote online learning. Meanwhile, second foreign language learning is encouraged by offering Japanese, German, French, Spanish, Korean, and Southeast Asian language courses, with enrollment of 3147 students in 2020. The enrollment in English-instructed programs was 980 students for the same year. In addition, MCU’s Hospitality & Tourism Management ranked 37th globally in the Shanghai Ranking Consultancy’s Global Ranking of Academic Subjects 2020, being included in the QS Asia University Rankings for 3 consecutive years. These achievements indicate MCU’s success in expanding international education.
In the Improving Public Nature of Higher Education Sub-Project, MCU completed aid and fundraising mechanisms for disadvantaged students, and has raised 5.94 million NTD for these designated accounts. Based on their academic performance, 5329 grants to disadvantaged students have been awarded. In recognition of faculty members’ outstanding achievements, 10.93 million NTD has been issued as flexible salary. The establishment of university affairs and financial information platforms allows students to participate in the important meetings of the University. The establishment of Indigenous Students’ Resource Center enhances guidance for indigenous students.
In the Completing Social Responsibility Sub-Project, the Ming Chuan University Social Responsibility Promotion Center was established to implement research and evaluation of fields for societal practice, and to integrate resources inside and outside the university. The university is developing five external field projects in Taipei Tamsui River Area, Taoyuan Guishan District, Kinmen Area, and Datong Township in Yilan County to promote the establishment of partnerships, care for local disadvantaged groups, foster local creations and add value to industry-university cooperation, assist faculty members to link mutually beneficial relationships between university, places and communities, as well as to activate local growth momentum, and promote regional innovation.
In the University Affairs Research Linkage Sub-Project, in addition to the annual student enrollment warning analysis and the score and learning performance analysis of students admitted through the three major admission channels (High School Star, Direct Admission, Department Required Test), the time point of student data analysis was extended to include students’ high school performance, connecting their high school learning history data with learning performance after admission for correlation analysis. In addition, a number of studies have also been completed in terms of learning effectiveness, such as: effectiveness analysis of flipped teaching of English, analysis of key subjects failed for students who have taken study leave or withdrawn from University, and analysis of remedial course effectiveness, etc. These analysis results have been used to draw up relevant strategies to help optimize and improve university affairs decision-making.