【Promotion of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) series】

2022-09-21 National University of Kaohsiung has participated in “Digital Learning Partner Program” with Ministry of Education since 2015. The president, Yueh-Tuan Chen, invited Professor Tsung-Fang Wu, Department of Applied Mathematics, and Professor Chih-Hung Wu, Department of Electrical Engineering, to be in charge of this program. With the support of administration and teaching departments for 8 years, students of NUK help the students of primary and secondary schools in Kaohsiung, Tainan, Chiayi through regular and fixed-point online companionship without being restricted by distance. 

The core value of this plan is to accompany lives with life, and to teach lives with life. This also echoes the spirit of SDGs – to balance the educational gap between urban and rural areas, and to establish a social care platform for practice. At the aspect of knowledge, learning, verification, creation, cooperation, they form an interactive cycle to implement sustainable development goals.

This year, NUK has an outstanding performance in Outstanding Model Selection Activities of MOE just like the past few years. Six teachers and students stood out from 2,600 digital learning partners from 25 universities across the country and 131 national primary and secondary schools, and all of them were awarded.

The two students who won distinguished teachers of learning partners (21 in total) respectively are Chia-Hui Wu and Hsu-Cheng Chao from Department of Finance; distinguished digital learning partners (35 winners in total) are Yu-Ting Su and Yu-Hsuan Su from Department of East Asian Languages and Literature.

The winners of outstanding class teacher of national primary and secondary schools (18 winners in total) are Ming-Chia Wu from Ka-bua Sua Elementary School, Tainan City, and Yi Hsieh from Chingshan Elementary School, Tainan City.

The following is the digital learning partner program described by the 6 award-winning teachers and students:

“Smile and the world will smile with you. This sentence probably is the best answer to how to become an excellent partner. Make great efforts and treat everyone sincerely. The students can feel the sincerity, and you will also gain something in it,” said Chia-Hui Wu.

“Work hard, so the change will come true. It’s the effort of digital learning partners that makes good teaching quality. It’s the dedication of teachers that makes here a friendly teaching environment. Everyone should perform their functions and keep an open mind, so that we can move on to the greater future together,” said Hsu-Cheng Chao.

“The art of education lies not in the ability to impart, but in motivating, awakening, and encouraging. I was frustrated when first being as a digital learning partner, but then I realized the meaning of digital learning partners lies in learning and growing with children after I made teaching material that fitted the needs of children. Students actually remember every effort we made. Their enthusiasm for learning also awakes my power of learning all kinds of things,” said Yu-Ting Su.

“It was fate that made us meet each other, and accompanying that ushered the growth of us. One day, a student told me that he didn’t want to graduate from his school, for there was no such Digital Learning Partner Program in junior high school, and they might never meet again. I think that Digital Learning Partner Program is a plan with great continuation value, bringing students opportunity and hope. The digital learning partners can also grow and learn during the course. Both sides will definitely gain more diverse thoughts and knowledge from each other,” said Yu-Hsuan Su.

“Every companionship is a seed of hope to be sprouted. Because of the experience of being a digital learning partner in college, it makes me know more about how to cultivate tacit understanding on teaching interaction with students. I expect that both digital learning partners and students can grow together, so the seeds of hope will sprout successfully,” said Ming-Chia Wu.

“Share the joy of studying to people around you with a grateful heart. When I saw students express thanks to the digital learning partners with tears in the final video, I realized that they all remember our love and dedication, and they also learnt how to give this gratitude back to others,” said Yi Hsieh.

Through the invisible network, Digital Learning Partner Program connects a group of strangers who had no chance to know each other into a "Cloud e-Family" to support each other, prompting them to grow and thrive. 

The Awards Ceremony had been held at Fu Jen University on September 16th. The Ministry of Education also issued a Certificate of Appreciation to National University of Kaohsiung in recognition.

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