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Prof. HONG Jon Chao
洪榮昭教授
Chair Professor, National Taiwan Normal University;
President, Taiwan Creativity Development Association; Project Director, Game-based Learning Lab, Taiwan
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Engaging students’ STEAM learning through hands-on making contest
Nowadays, hands-on making contests are regarded as an efficient way to enhance science learning. In present speech, PowerTech and GreenMech were introduced.
PowerTech and GreenMech is a STEAM hands-on making contest required participants to finish their contraption in the morning and evaluation takes place in the afternoon. Therefore, all the competitions were done by students without teachers’ or parents’ interference. PowerTech is a mechanical project required participants to make wooden miniatures, and to compete with them in games of relay race and tug-of-war. Only raw materials, like fiberboard, craft sticks, gear box and hand tools can be used. The participants need to apply suitable physics-related problem-solving strategies that might win the relay race or tug-of-war during the project production stage. In this sense, the concepts of physics, mathematics, technology and engineering were applied.
GreenMech was established in 2006, and it is open to elementary, junior high and high school students. The aim of this contest is to apply STEAM to design a contraption with different stages that involve chain reactions to smoothly trigger the next junctures. To encourage the participants to integrate scientific imaginations and STEAM concepts, scientific and mathematical application, scientific method and creativity, green technology application, engineering reliability, assigned material application were evaluated.
Furthermore, hands-on practice does not only enhance students’ interest, but also activate their brain function. In line with this, STEAM via hands-on making, science, technology, engineering, arts and math can be anchored.
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