Li-Wen Chang
Chinese Culture University
Li-Wen Chang is an assistant professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at Chinese Culture University, Taipei, Taiwan. Her research interests include American literature, feminism, New Woman writings, passing narratives, and literature teaching. She has been offering both literature and language courses to both English majors and non-majors. In her desire to provide better learning environment for her students, she is now exploring possibilities in applying problem-based learning, project-based learning, and computational thinking into her literature classes.
Sessions
Learning western literature through computational thinking
The study aims to discuss the extent to which project-based learning (PjBL) involved in digital technology can create an environment for Computational Thinking (CT), which in turn might enhance the learning of Western literature in the Expanding Circle where English is used as a foreign language. While PjBL and CT have gained much attention from educators in Taiwan, teachers of literature are confronting a serious challenge resulting from students’ doubts about the function and practicality of learning literature. It is in such a context that I blend CT into a required course for English majors 2019-2020, “Introduction to Western Literature.” One purpose of this study is to observe how students’ familiarity with computer and the Internet enables them to concretize and present their understanding of literature. The other purpose is to utilize the elements of CT in class activities so that students could learn to simplify literary works by systemizing information and organizing ideas in the process of completing such projects as story creation, mind map, and micro movie. The result of this study is based on the execution of students’ projects, along with the instructor’s observations, and the analysis of a post-activity questionnaire.