Subproject 1 - Highlights of implementing innovation in teaching and improving teaching quality
Highlight 1: Strengthening information technology education and practical skills as well as enhancing employment competitiveness of students
In response to the current industrial trend, we hold advanced training courses of “object-oriented programming” and “mobile application programming” to strengthen the programming ability of students in the departments related to information and communications. Besides, we conduct “English integrating with brand marketing- cloud data integration and personal website design integrating with technology” as well as offer “Digital Technology Microprogram” for non-information and communications students to increase the information literacy among students in non-information and communications related departments. We encourage teachers to offer courses related to professional certificate, such as “Agile Certified Practitioner”, “Commercial Software Applications”, “Computer Software Applications”, “Tour Leader and Guide Practice”, “Python Programming”, and “Property Insurance Practice”, to assist students obtaining certificates. Meanwhile, we subsidize students for their professional certification examination to develop their employment competitiveness.
Highlight 2: An ecology of innovative learning develops self-directed learning ability among students
In the academic year of 2021, we subsidized 16 groups of students self-directed learning community with 90 participants in total. It includes the community that focuses on discussing special projects and carries out peer learning at each meeting participated in “2021 the 26th National Colleges and Senior and Vocational Schools Special Topic Competition and R&D and Industry-Academia Collaboration Competition” held by Ministry of Economic Affairs and received the award. It also includes the “Stunning Mountain City” team consists of students from Department of Chinese Language and Literature and Department of Electricity Engineering that uses digital media to record the landscape and humanity as well as featured culture in Miaoli to demonstrate the spirit of applying what have been learned. The community of students in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature integrates with the teaching materials of modern Chinese language. They follow the introduction of the local cultural splendor in Taiwan to carry out panorama sketch of location shooting, produce digital VR materials, and create more abundant teaching materials. The community of students in the College of Management presents how to apply modern technology in our life and use it to solve social problems, such as developing bookkeeping APP and using technology fitness testing instruments to check whether the movement for fitness is correct or not.
Highlight 3: Establishing an interdisciplinary learning environment and encouraging diverse learning among teachers and students
We encourage teachers to organize teaching development communities to enhance their teaching capabilities in “flipped teaching”, “interdisciplinary”, “problem-based learning”, or “English as a medium of instruction”. It can be carried out through the community members sharing teaching topics and experiences, simulation of teaching demonstration, advancing innovative teaching methods, developing teaching materials, and inviting on-campus and off-campus experts and scholars for lectures and exchange.
We have launched 12 on-campus teachers innovative teaching programs to introduce innovative teaching methods in courses. Teaching is carried out through group discussion and teamwork implementation supported with hands-on practice or the interview with enterprises to enhance students’ learning interests and strengthen the learning of key knowledge. “You need a doctor if your English is poor?!- The establishment of English clinic” program is imported the concept of “precision teaching” to use the accumulated big data as the foundation and develop English diagnosis and treatment service process for students with poor English ability. We actually set up an “English clinic” and hire qualified “English doctors” to station at the clinic for the “on call” business in order to provide students precise diagnosis, one-on-one consultation service, follow up the English progress of students, and establish feedback mechanism as the enhancement of diagnosis efficiency. The program of “situated teaching exploration that combines with database programming of local industrial demands” includes “database programming” and “network marketing” to develop the basic database development capabilities of students. It allows students attempting jump out of the mode of traditional stand-along operation for the scope of database programming and expanding the scope of application to a network service mode that can be accessed anywhere, anytime, on any device, and to anyone through the logical framework of network marketing. It creates promotional effects to local industries and helps students contributing to local revitalization with their professional abilities.
Highlight 4: Colleges and departments promote the highlights of distinctive teaching and activate the mode of flipped teaching
To integrate the core competency and teaching objective at each college and department in our university as well as confirm the distinctive positioning in each college and department step by step, we launch five new colleges and departments distinctive teaching highlighted programs this academic year, including “Developing Campus Media Recording Team” and “Drone Pilot Training” in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, “Developing Tongluo Community and Industrial Marketing through Design Application” in the Department of Industrial Design, “Intelligent Agriculture Innovation and Management Talents Distinctive Teaching Program” in the Department of Business Management, and “Distinctive Teaching in Artificial Intelligence Practical Application- Use Medical Information Service Industry as an Example” in the Department of Information Engineering. “Developing Campus Media Recording Team” combines two interdisciplinary skills of “humanistic competence” and “digital storytelling” to guide students applying modern communications technology on the community culture in Miaoli County where our university is located at and turning their research thoughts into simple but profound units through documentary, digital project, and webpage design. The curation is carried out online to preserve and promote the local features in Miaoli County. “Drone Pilot Training” designs a series of professional courses to help students mastering various flying skills step by step, establishing solid flying skills, and obtaining the professional certificate through academic and practical examination during the courses. “Developing Tongluo Community and Industrial Marketing through Design Application” encourages teachers and students devoting to the community and industrial marketing in Tongluo Township. Community involvement is carried out through workshop courses to understand the actual problems and demands in the community. Project-oriented learning method is introduced to the courses to design and implement potential solutions as the generator of social design and local revitalization. “Intelligent Agriculture Innovation and Management Talents Distinctive Teaching Program” aims for cultivating “intelligent agriculture innovation and management talents”, expects developing students’ abilities in discovering/ solving agriculture innovation problems as well as trains students’ capabilities in analyzing agriculture innovation opportunities and executing innovative agriculture marketing projects to further achieve the final goal of cultivating intelligent agriculture innovation talents. “Distinctive Teaching in Artificial Intelligence Practical Application- Use Medical Information Service Industry as an Example” links with the three key development areas, “multi-media”, “network communications”, and “artificial intelligence and internet of things” in the courses provided in the Department of Information Engineering, to strengthen the interdisciplinary distinctive program of “Artificial Intelligence Practical Application” collaborated with the Department of Information Management and further enhance the practical capabilities of overall information application among students as well as establish seamless employment capabilities between students and industries.
Subproject 2 - Highlights of developing school characteristics
To consolidate the research energy of i2GO Tech, we actively encourage teachers to carry out interdisciplinary research based on the development of the topic as well as promote key development programs. Five programs were executed in academic year 2021 as well as one 2021 Veterans General Hospital- UUU joint program collaborated with Taichung Veterans General Hospital. We establish and complete three university-level distinctive research centers (Smart Green Energy Research Center, Long-Term Care Development and Digital Service Research Center, and Glass and Optical Materials Research Center) to integrate resources, execute interdisciplinary plan, and set up a university-level distinctive research program achievements video zone. We establish seven smart distinctive labs to develop and carry out in-depth teaching research in order to combine smart technology with application related courses. In the academic year 2021, we held visiting activities to intelligent green and orange tech areas and encouraged students carried out internship in the off-campus intelligent green and orange tech areas. We have subsidized 40 cases in 2021. To expand international academic exchange, we continue improving and holding various foreign language seminar camps, workshops, and lecturer as well as offering courses of English as a Medium of Instruction, multiple foreign languages, and international volunteer training. Besides, in response to the impact of global epidemic, we encourage teachers and students participating in international conference, seminar courses in sister schools, lectures delivered by international scholars, and overseas recruitment education fairs through remote online exchange activities to enhance internationalization. In terms of connection with local features, we promote and deeply cultivate local distinctive culture through editing indigenous and Hakka teaching materials, promoting and offering cultural and innovative courses related to Hakka industry, developing Chinese language tourism APP, webpage, and materials as well as hosting indigenous cultural exhibition, tribal teacher qualification seminar, Hakka featured craftmanship, and innovative exhibitions.
Highlight 1: Creating university-level research centers to improve and integrate intelligent green and orange tech teaching and research capacity
We establish and complete “Smart Green Energy Research Center”, “Long-Term Care Development and Digital Service Research Center”, and “Glass and Optical Materials Research Center” in the university level as well as set up smart featured labs to construct the teaching and research features in our university, improve excellent school development, enhance research capacity, and strengthen interdisciplinary collaboration. In 2021, we launched five key development programs focusing on “smart management, sustainable environment, regional industry, local culture, and innovative design” in cooperation with the middle and long-term development of the university. In terms of linking with industry, we invite advanced talents in the industry to deliver lectures and seminars by industrial experts in order to link with industrial learning and promote industry-government-academia collaboration, promote professional skill development among students, and get familiar with industrial situation in the early stage. To strengthen the research capabilities and features among teachers in our university and develop students into talents with both academic knowledge and practical learning, we have established relevant regulations for scholarship and subsidy. We have offered scholarship and subsidy for 50 programs in 2021 to encourage teachers and students actively participate in the internship and visiting in intelligent green and orange tech areas as well as encourage them to join various competitions and seminars to enhance professional skills and industrial competitiveness.
Highlight 2: Promoting local internationalization and enhancing international competitiveness and talent cultivation mechanism
To enhance the international competitiveness of our university, we actively develop the mode of holding international activities. In 2021, we continue activating and focusing on topic items to achieve the learning effectiveness established for the program. We held 2021 NUU English Camp to strengthen students’ English expression and application abilities; Volunteer Training Camp to enhance Oral English ability of young volunteers; 2021 EMI Teacher Workshop and Teacher-Student English Writing Camp to encourage all the teacher participants carrying out transposition thinking as well exchange teaching skills for English writing to improve teaching methods; International Diverse Cultural Workshop to invite foreign teachers in Taiwan visiting our university to carry out full English immersive teaching in order to enhance the knowledge towards diverse cultures among students and encourage them to interact in English naturally. Our university arranged ten sessions of international volunteer training courses in 2021, hosted 41 sessions of international seminars, workshops, and remote lectures by overseas scholars, and offered 48 courses of EMI programs and diverse foreign languages to enhance the international perspective among teachers and students as well as establish an environment for international interaction, exchange, and learning.
Highlight 3: Constructing and passing on cultural education with local features and promoting professional and innovative interdisciplinary courses to enhance industrial competitiveness
To deeply cultivate the culture with local features, we actively develop indigenous and Hakka cultures, host ethnic culture exhibitions, consult and interview elderly in the tribe to compile videos that demonstrate the teaching materials of tribes, and invite indigenous craftsmen joining teaching and provide multiple opinions for the specific program for the indigenous students in order to establish the features of the specific program in our university and cultivate indigenous talents. In terms of passing on the Hakka features, we actively promote courses with local Hakka features, compile teaching materials of Hakka language “NUU Cultural Tourism and Miaoli Burst Dragon” and establish network platform with Hakka featured culture in to pass on Hakka language and cultural spirit. We hosted several sessions of Hakka featured crafts culture and innovative guided tour to connect with local Hakka culture and creativity in Miaoli. Through linking to local culture, we encourage students carrying out creation and implementation and consolidating the foundation of innovative ideas to turn the Hakka image into the presentation of action and inspire the potential of innovation in traditional Hakka cultural industry. We develop tourism Chinese language APP, webpage and teaching materials as well as summarize the featured culture of tourism in the eighteen towns in Miaoli and integrate local tourism information into the teaching and digital platform in order to cultivate students as the talents for local tourism receiving and guided tour. Meanwhile, we aim for promoting local culture, tourism, and distinctive industries to spread the local featured culture in Miaoli around.
Subproject 3 - Highlights of increasing the publicity of higher education
We add “vision program” in the academic year 2021 as a channel for additional admission. It expanded the number of recruitment to 55 students and enhanced our recruitment of financially or culturally disadvantaged students in 2021 to 19.11%. In addition, indigenous students plan curriculum on their own for the first time to work with three rural indigenous schools in the county for teaching students indigenous culture and language. It also enhances in-depth cultural recognition and ethic cultural identification through the method of learning from doing. Besides, for information accessibility, we establish wireless access station at the Covered Field in Bajia Campus that is the sports field used by a lot of students to enhance the coverage scope to 76%. In response to the epidemic and assisting the reading demand at the rural schools in the county, we provide shared 2,026 electronic books to 11 elementary schools, junior high schools, senior high schools, and vocational high schools to implement the goal of higher education publicity.
Highlight 1: Promoting distance-free library resource sharing program to implement the responsibility of publicity with actual actions
Our university promoted “distance-free learning- library resource sharing program” in 2020-2021 to share electronic books with elementary schools and junior high schools in rural areas. It has achieved significant effect by actively gathering abundant reading resources for rural schools and sharing interactive electronic books in foreign languages. We step out of campus, send our concern to rural areas, and assist reducing the gap of reading resource in rural areas. While caring the local demands, we also implement the responsibility of higher education publicity with actual actions at the same time.
Highlight 2: Promoting school attendance, career and cultural education development to enhance counseling effectiveness on indigenous students
We establish one-stop service for indigenous students through the mechanism of Indigenous Student Resource Center to provide indigenous students various resources of university life, academic studying, and career consultation. In the academic year 2021, we promoted and hosted nine sessions of cultural proficiency courses, student counseling activities, and competency seminars; five sessions of tribal and interscholastic visit and exchange activities; two sessions of cultural inclusion and exchange activities. The number of indigenous students who receive life counseling was increased to 395 people in total. Indigenous Student Resource Center will continue taking care of indigenous students and promoting indigenous culture actively. To respond to the impact of global epidemic, we hosted three sessions of diverse employment competence courses through physical materials combining with online remote learning to enhance employment competence of indigenous students, fulfill the counseling effectiveness on indigenous students, and construct a friendly learning environment for indigenous students in order to enhance their learning effectiveness and confidence.
Highlight 3: Completing sustainable smart campus and friendly learning environment as well as actively enhancing the transparency of administrative affairs
The research of school affairs in our university is unfolding, and the relevant information is published in the public information zone for school affairs of our university. It includes explanation of school affairs, financial information analysis, tuition fee and incidental expenses, subsidy information, and other important information in the university. Moreover, we start to take the initiative from 2020 in producing five videos every year to deliver important information related to school affairs, like effectiveness and direction of running the school, through multiple platforms and on-campus and off-campus important activity venues (such as anniversary celebration and visits by alumni) to the public.