Community collaboration

Wetland Community of Practice is composed of teachers and administrators from Kandelia Community and Mangrove Forest Community, based in Northern Region and Southern Region respectively. Kandelia Community was established in the February of 2017. Its members were principals and administrators from Pilot Schools and SAP schools in Northern Regions. Their mission was to collectively inquire into the problems stemming from the implementation of the new curriculum guidelines, and to further design as well as develop strategies and measures for Pilot Schools and SAP schools. In 2020, in wake of the success of Kandelia Community, Mangrove Forest Community was established in southern Taiwan. Being the first professional community to promote curriculum policy in the southern region, Mangrove Forest Community is symbolic of the cyber activism. By means of continuous "puânn nuá," the community grew as the roots of the mangroves grow. The community possesses resilience as mangroves that nurture the ecosystem and diversity. Its members were from several types of high schools and administrative offices. Their diverse backgrounds enabled them to deliberate comprehensively and devise a variety of potential strategies. With the implementation of the new curriculum guidelines, the needs and demands for curriculum restructuring and planning across Taiwan surged. In response to new challenges, Kandelia Community and Mangrove Forest Community decided to merge with a new name, Wetland Community of Practice. The alliance of the two communities empowers them to create and develop more effective tools and practices with the aim of helping schools to implement the curriculum restructuring. The members of the Wetland Community of Practice take turns serving as workshop lecturers, organize regular meetings and workshops for Pilot Schools and SAP schools, and assist schools to consolidate, design, execute, and examine curriculum development and transformation. Wetland Community is "the think tank" of SAP and indispensable support for pilot schools and SAP schools!

Competence-based and interdisciplinary curriculum and instruction are the current trend in educational development. In order to assist high school teachers to effectively master the design and develop competence-based curriculum and instruction, in December 2016, Professor Peiying Chen from National Taiwan Normal University called for teachers from public and private high schools to form the ASK-PLC with the support from the MOE Program of Pilot Schools under the policy of 12-Year Basic Education General Guidelines. Beginning with collective inquiry and studies through reading and empowerment workshops, the team gradually evolved into a collective agency with strategic intelligence to devise curriculum concepts and tools, and further construct and organize them into procedures, and activities for professional workshops and trainings, in which they facilitated collaboration and exchanged experience and ideas with teachers across schools. In 2017, ASK established a taskforce of Collaborative Facilitators, the foremost signature of ASK, to effectively facilitate collective learning in workshops. In each workshop, each group had one Collaborative Facilitator to facilitate group discussions. It becomes a key empowerment mediation to support adult learning, and recognized as ASK’s achievement, which prominently promotes peer collaboration and mutual trust in the education field. In 2018, the ASK team began to recruit and train seed teachers from senior high schools islandwide. With the participation and engagement of three generations of more than 30 seed teachers, the strength and power of teacher's energy significantly expand. We can expect to see those seeds turn into blossoms and bear fruit all around Taiwan.
Since ASK was founded, experienced and energetic teachers across schools have gathered and kept co-creating and co-designing curriculum full of cross-disciplinary spirit in nature, although the members of the team changed due to the needs of new tasks. ASK constantly updates the training tool-kits, co-learning activities, and collective inquiry process, which demonstrates to teachers the positive energy and pathways required to respond to new challenges. The team innovates while they value inheritance. Inspired by the spirit of new curriculum guidelines and co-generating strategic intelligence, ASK is marching to the future.