Education China Project #41104

Empower Rural China Students - 21st Century Skills

by Evergreen Education Foundation

Project Report | Dec 20, 2021
Reflection: Volunteer STEM Teacher visiting Shanghai Makerfaire

By Guojuan Shang | Evergreen Volunteer Teacher

I am Guojuan Shang, a volunteer teacher of the Li Gengsheng Program. I am very grateful to the Evergreen Education Foundation for supporting me in participating in the 2021 Shanghai Maker Faire. This event brought together makers from different organizations, including the Woodworking Museum, Maker Space, educators from Shanghai elementary and middle schools, individual makers, and commercial exhibitors. I have seen many interesting and creative projects, such as bottle cap robot activities, masks designed with recycled materials, creative stools redesigned based on IKEA products, water rocket projects, superconducting magnetic levitation demonstrations, somatosensory tails, and so on. Knowing these novel projects, I think it provides a lot of inspiration for my own design projects. I have planned to add the water rocket project, bottle cap robot, and creative stool project to our program. I believe that our teachers and students will benefit from these new projects, and they will also have more choices to participate in their favorite projects. This faire also allowed me to see how the most advanced regions and schools in China’s maker field carry out maker education, and how they integrate the knowledge into interesting projects and motivate children. For example, the Outerspace Exploration Project is very well designed. It integrates the practical application of Microbit (testing the air humidity and temperature of alien planets) and 3D modeling and printing technology (spacecraft 3D design). One thing that excites me in this exhibition is that several projects we are already working on, including paper circuits and vibrating robots, are also being carried out by other institutions, and they are very popular in the exhibition, so I am more determined and confident to continue on our projects. In addition, although we have the same content, the project design is slightly different, giving me new ideas to improve our existing projects. It was a very meaningful learning experience. Thanks again to the Li Gengsheng Project and Evergreen Education Foundation for your support and help.

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Aug 23, 2021
Exploring programs to support K-12 education

By Prof. Lili Luo | Board Member & Education Committee

Apr 27, 2021
New Education Initiatives in 2021

By Dr. Jo Bell Whitlatch | Board Member & Education Committee

In past years, Evergreen Education Foundation conferences, workshops, and small projects have been popular and successful programs, which have supported our commitment to educational equity in rural China. Our education committee, headed by Dr. Lili Luo, Dr. Jo Bell Whitlatch, and Jingyi Yu, developed and administered a need-based survey to identify the issues that EEF should focus on for the next year or two. Teacher training, especially on developing informative assessments and rubrics, comes on top of the list. We had two successful pilot projects completed from March through August with encouraging and promising. As we cannot offer in-person workshops and training this year, we are also making progress on effectively communicating with teachers under the new normal of purely online communications.

After surveying Evergreen teachers, the EEF Board identified two initiatives as having the most possibilities for enhancing the learning environment for students in rural China:

Explore the potential for online teaching through projects that provide a rich teaching plan, teaching aids, and some new educational concepts; for example “One Window Project” and “One Kilogram Box.” Provide practical training through hands-on project training; train teachers by treating teachers as students working on real projects. Our first step will be to provide a summary of how these programs might be utilized to enhance teaching and learning in rural China.
Through financial and information technology support promote the use of Makerspace, STEM education, research on teaching cases, instructional design, and multidisciplinary integration related to STEM education. As part of this initiative, we are exploring potential collaboration worldwide on constructing a website and database for use in locating teaching projects, including topics, content, and how to evaluate student learning.

For students in rural China, well-designed online modules that can be distributed over vast distances have the potential to enhance student success through interactive programs that introduce the latest educational ideas, methods, and interactive projects. Well-designed online modules have the potential to provide rural students with learning opportunities comparable to those students living in urban areas.

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