Introduction
The center was renamed " Center for General Education " in the August of the year 2000, when Kuang Wu Junior College underwent its reformation and had a brand new name as "Northern Taiwan Institute of Science and Technology". Currently, the department has a department head, a section chief and an administrative assistant. In addition, eleven teaching and research divisions, including Chinese, physics, chemistry, law, history, geography, art, information, counseling and sports, as well as course design divisions and divisions in charge of maintenance of facilities work out together to achieve the success of course designing and teaching in the three fields --- humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences.
General Objective
1. To help students understand themselves, fulfill their own promise, have their own visual and visions, and build up their interpersonal relationships with a sound mind becoming morally cultivated as well as insights into the meaning and value of life.
2. To help students look into things with a scientific attitude, to inspire their potential in terms of observing, thinking, analyzing, synthesizing, and judging. To improve their abilities in making right decisions as well as solving problems efficiently, and enable them to receive lifelong education.
3. To broaden the students’ horizons, to cultivate their mind and moral sense and, hopefully, to help them become cultured elegant modern citizens. Moreover, by understanding the evolution of technology, students are expected to fulfill themselves and to show their respect and humanitarian consideration for the society and the environment.
Specific Objectives of Different Fields
(1)The Field of Humanities:
1. To equip the students with the skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing and to facilitate the students’ interests in and appreciation of literature and thus increase their understanding of the essence of Chinese and western cultures.
2. To encourage the students to show their solidarity and support for their local culture, their fellowmen and humankind. Also, to prepare the students with a cultural view, historical view as well as global view needed when they deal with the outside world.
3. To enlighten the students, enhance their self-respect, cultivate their mind through the appreciation of music, arts and dramas, and then help them to have a better understanding of the true meaning and value of life.
(2)The Field of Natural Sciences:
To teach the students to take a scientific attitude toward discovering the depth of nature, to absorb all new knowledge of science and technology, and to rebuild the harmonious relationship between humankind and nature.
(3)The Field of Social Sciences:
To provide the students with an overall basic understanding of laws, regulations and democracy, to reinforce the education on the subject "sexual relationships", to provide psychological counseling and to enhance the harmony all around the world, also, to teach the students to cherish and value their own lives, to display their virtues, to show their talents and to express their concern for the society and the environment.
Curriculum Characteristics
1. Planning curriculum courses in accordance with the school traditional exhortation to students:
Being consistent with the school traditional exhortations: “loyalty, faith, sincerity, respect”, the general courses lie its curriculum programming direction in cultivating the students’ loyalty and faithful behavior, honorable morality, responsibly and sincerely to obey the creed in their job fields.
2. The curriculum content is broad not confined, integrated not defined.
Based on the goals of the general courses and school students’ unique characteristic, the curriculum contents are planned to be integrated, prospected and diversified to offer a curriculum course various choice.
For the two-year college students, the eight –credit -hour required general courses include “Chinese”, “ English” to improve students’ language communicating and composing ability; “ Introduction to Logic” to train students’ speculation and creation ability; “Management science” to have students deal with the theory of method for solving the problems while for the four-year college students, 28 credit -hour required general courses are designed covering the fields of Humanities, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences. As to the elective courses for both two systems college students, all reach to student’s interest with the expectation of students’ achievement in both mental and physical balance.
3. Follow-up online courses
To stir up students’ learning motivation and go into teaching effect, it is an obligation to the department teachers to install their teaching syllabus, teaching materials with follow-up self-learning materials into the website, which students may take as a course reference.
The curriculum program contents and after-class learning materials from teachers provide the learners repeated learning chances to add up the learning effect.
4. Build up General Aided Courses:
Not only do we carry out the general education spirit and function in formal curriculum courses but puss a latent and informal curriculum of general aided courses as well. About the informal or latent courses, we make the use of time of the extra-curriculum activities have students own a diversified learning environment, develop internships with team-work activity and seek the society of interaction and enjoy the breath of art and devote to civilization. Students may experience the pleasure of living and the meaning of life through participating personally. It is believed that students’ participation in the latent curriculum courses not only develops the five well-rounded prosperous teaching that breed: Virtual breed , wisdom, physical performance, social internship and beauty recognition but makes up insufficiency of the formal curriculum courses.
5. Develop the latent curriculum courses
Regularly having conducting, teaching and counseling of three-in-one workshops all-purposed workshops, teaching workshops, tutorship workshop and other different - purposed workshops to share experience among all faculty. Because of teachers’ compassion; inspiration and behavior direction, it makes achieve the education goal. Students are being educated on the maintained campus with palatial buildings and greeneries
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Teaching Staff
There are thirty-seven teachers, including eight professors, twenty-three associate professors, five assistant professors, and sixty-one senior instructors. Each teacher is experienced, enthusiastic and has his or her specification.
Concerning Courses
Three fields of curriculum courses
(1)The Field of Humanities:
Chinese, English, Business Letters, Appreciation of Literature, English Anthology, Japanese, Taiwan History, Modern History, Taiwan Economic Development History, History and Culture, An Introduction to Arts, Drama Appreciation, Artistic Appreciation…..etc..
(2)The Field of Natural Sciences:
Mathematics, calculus, Physics, Chemistry, An Introduction to Logic, Management Science, Mathematics in the Daily Life, Decision Mathematics, Industrial Safety and Hygiene, Fundamentals of Food Science and Food Technology, Introduction to Biotechnology, Introduction to Natural Science, Internet Application, Internet Security, Evolutionary History of Science, Use of Library and Information, Gymnastics.
(3)The Field of Social Sciences:
Dr. Sun Yat-sen's Philosophy, Political Parties and Democratic Development, Introduction to laws, Civics, The Constitution and Government of ROC, Laws in the Daily Life, Sexual Relationship, Marriage and Life Introduction to psychology, Psychological Counseling.
Apparatuses and Facilities
1. The department has a multimedia classroom for each of the following teaching divisions: Chinese, Arts, Social Sciences, and natural sciences while two laboratories for physics and two for chemistry. All the facilities meet the needs of different teaching fields.
2. Exclusively for English learners to improve their language proficiency, the department is equipped with two different English multimedia classrooms: one computer multimedia English lab and one multimedia English lab .Furthermore, one English Corner with eight computers and some TVs for self-learners has been opened for years and a Self-study Center with nine computers and a bunch of English learning materials including magazines and DVD movies films within the Library building.
3. There are several research rooms providing the department teachers for doing researches concerning the courses such as Chinese, English, Physics, Chemistry, Laws, History and Geography, Arts and General Education with fully various reference books.
Research and Teaching
1. Teachers are encouraged to compile or carefully select textbooks, create audio-visual teaching aids and make lesson plans in order to achieve a successful, exciting, interesting, and stimulating learning environment.
2. To provoke the students' learning motivation, teachers’ personal websites have been being installed with teaching materials and follow-up exercises.
3. Seminars will be held periodically to decide on teaching goals. In addition, there are teaching observation activities for the teachers to share their teaching experiences and thus upgrade the teaching quality.
4. The department, in cooperation with the Office of Academic Affairs, has regularly called and conducted English speech contest, Chinese composition contests, mathematics competitive examinations, and physics competitive examinations.
5. To strengthen the teachers' professional knowledge and guarantee a better teaching quality, faculty members are encouraged to join in-service doctoral programs. Currently, there are 16 teachers in the doctoral programs.
For future expectation and development
1.To meet the two-year and four-year college students’ demands, the department will revise the courses offered.
2. To encourage teachers to enroll in the in-service continuing programs or have a second/minor major and increase the number of assistant professors, associate professors and professors.
3. To encourage the teachers to publish the paper, participate in the domestic and foreign recreational activities positively, promote the research atmosphere.
4. To encourage the teacher apply to National Science Council,or the school or other related units for special independent study.
5. The teaching assessment will be delivered to the students so as to promotion teaching result.
6. To supply teachers with more reference books, video tapes, computers and other media teaching aids in order to make the teaching activities function more effectively.
7. Responding to the curriculum demand of both the two-year and four – year programs, it is crucial to have more related multimedia labs such as the courses of physics , chemistry, Chinese, English social science, arts and nature science.
8. In accordance to the curriculum need, it is inevitable to increase both physics and chemistry labs experiment equipment and renew the language labs equipment, as well.
9. To unify the school and the community resources, and be engaged in the communities expend education is the core role to the School and the Center.
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