| Abstract: | In recent years, Taiwan’s education reform has shown considerable diversity and integrity, especially in curriculum reform and teaching activities. It has both changed course design models and enlivened teaching and learning. With the emphasis on diversity, flexibility, difference, and real-life applicability, this reform has drastically changed teaching methods and has made “experiential education” the most important guideline in the diversified fields of education.
A new model of education drawn on “business leadership” has recently appeared. This model opens new market prospects by making students active participants, that is, by shifting the focus of education from providers to users, from educators (teachers) to learners (students). The relevant government departments also actively set up inter-ministerial networks to help schools carry out a series of “experiential education” activities.
The primary samples of this study are taken from those elementary schools which have taken part in Promoting Rice Consumption: Schoolchildren’s Experience of Growing Rice Project, sponsored by Agriculture and Food Agency, Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan. By analyzing the information gathered by way of questionnaire, this study attempts to locate the major factors that have contributed to the success of the above-mentioned project. Furthermore, by employing Analytic Hierarchy Process, it also rates the importance of the key factors to the successful integration of marketing experience into instructional design. The results show that key factors are, in order of their importance, sensory dimensions, emotional dimensions, thinking dimensions, action dimensions, and relational dimensions.
About “sensory dimensions,” this study suggests that, in organizing rice-growing activities, new methods and strategies should be adopted to stimulate learners’ senses.
About “emotional dimensions,” this study shows that teachers should encourage students to personally participate in the activities in order to arouse their positive emotions.Concerning “thinking dimensions,” the scope and level of students’ thinking is much limited; therefore, they need teachers’ intervention and guidance in order to reach higher levels of thinking.Concerning “action dimensions,” teachers can provide more relevant discussions or brainstorming in order to motivate students to apply knowledge to practice.The “relational dimensions” involved in rice-growing activities can help students integrate their personal experiences into a whole, create a desire for self-improvement, assimilate the social and cultural framework of meaning, and go through the primary socialization process. |
