Developing competency-based teacher training through mind mapping for interdisciplinary school-based curricula

Abstract

Taiwan's educational reforms highlight important competencies for contemporary teaching and learning and emphasize several new concepts and perspectives for pre-service and in-service teachers. These core competencies and emphases on autonomy, life-long learning, higher-order thinking, and an inter-disciplinary and cross-cultural mindset apply not only to students, but to teachers as well. To highlight the importance of core competencies as central to curricular design and educational practice, this research contextualized these elements through the use of mind mapping in preparation for the “Remote Camps TW” project implementation, based on both interdisciplinary learning and school-based curricula. Through mentorship, modeling, and microteaching programs, teams of pre-service teacher volunteers were guided in constructing mind maps which (a) were linked to the K-12 core competencies, (b) adopted school-based curricula, (c) integrated an interdisciplinary approach, and (d) focused on inter-cultural competency (including elements of both localization and globalization). In-service teacher mentors and teacher trainers, in collaboration with pre-service teacher volunteers, engaged in developing cohesive unit designs for English summer camps. Mind maps served to scaffold these units' development, with micro-teaching being used to further refine the link between instructional objectives and learning activities, to develop fidelity of implementation.