Abstract

Inspired by a local phenomenon in Taichung, Taiwan, we, Mingdao iGEM team, hope to make science more inclusive of under-resourced elementary school students by providing free education about science. We introduced the knowledge in easy-to-understand ways, and taught interactively, so the students could participate in the course which they lacked in normal school education due to low self-confidence. It not only built self-confidence for the children, but also boosted their interest in learning science. We also introduced a board game about viruses designed by our iGEM team. Through the game, children can learn about different famous diseases and related prevent methods. After discussions with elementary school teachers, we changed some rules so that it can improve their basic mathematical skills, which is helpful for their performance in general schoolwork. Lastly, we combined online teaching, which allows our plan to be more broadly spread to under-resourced students in remote schools.

Background: why did we take notice of under-resourced children?

A year ago (2021), after the announcement of the name list for the “science class” of Taichung Municipal Taichung First Senior High School, we discovered a strange phenomenon. “Science class” is the name we usually call the classes which are regarded as the best class of each city, since they usually require high science-related abilities and students have to pass difficult tests before entering. Of the 30 students who passed, 10 of them were from Mingdao, while an astonishing number of 16 students were from another well-known private middle school in Taichung. Judging from the admissions of science classes at other cities in Taiwan, it was more ordinary to have a maximum of 2 students accepted from each junior high, and it was obvious that the situation in Taichung was odd. What is the reason for our strange admission in Taichung? We, as students from Mingdao, began to discuss this special issue, and guessed that this must be closely related to the unique “private middle school phenomenon” in Taichung.

What is the so-called “private middle school phenomenon” then? For other regions, private high schools may be the choice for some families with special needs, but here in Taichung, Taiwan, they are more like "admission guarantee classes". In Taichung, where grades are still the main pursuit due to high school admission policies, private high schools that have achieved outstanding results for many years become the best choice for parents who are capable of or willing to put efforts on educating their children. However, private schools generally charge higher fees, and it’s definitely the same in our area. Since the number of students in private middle schools is so limited, parents with better financial conditions tend to spend more effort on their children, and the most common way is to pay for various kinds of after-school classes (also known bushibans or cram schools).

The barriers for under-resourced children in science

As we delved deeper into the “private middle school phenomenon,” we recognized that it has a lot to do with the unequal distribution of resources and may have caused many children’s potential of becoming scientists to be covered up. While the students with better grades or better family conditions get into private middle schools and continue to get better training, the gap between them and those who are under-resourced is continuingly widened during elementary school to junior high school inadvertently . There are some investigations we did on this problem below.

1. Questionnaire

We made a questionnaire for the students whose academic performance ranked in the top 50 of Mingdao junior department, the 1 student who were accepted by the science class but didn’t ranked in top 50 of Mingdao junior department, and the 16 students who were also accepted by the science class from the another private middle school, 67 students in total. The result is shown in the pie chart below. As you can see, most of the students have joined any form of after-school classes for the private middle school entrance exam, and if we consider the students accepted by the science class only, an incredible 20 out of 26 people have joined science bushiban and did extra experiments since elementary school in preparation of the science class entrance exam. The result showed that few students could get good grades on their own, however, what about those who can’t afford the high cost of all these classes?

Figure 1-1 |As the pie chart shows, most of the students who got better grades in school had paid for extra courses.

Figure 1-2 |As the pie chart shows, though most students answered no, 20 students from the Science Class answered yes. That’s 76.9% of them. Through this result, we could spot that it’s important to take extra courses since elementary school for those who want to enter the Science Class, which means that the problem of uneven resources adjustment might affect elementary school students.

2. Verbal questioning

During a chat with classmates, we have also noticed that the problem of inequality of scientific resources has existed since elementary school. Classmates studying in public elementary schools said that because public elementary schools generally lack resources, most science classes teachers divide the students into several large groups to share a small number of equipment when doing experiments, so there are a few students whose academic performance is far behind others have never had a chance to do the experiments. What’s worse, their families’ financial conditions often do not allow them to attend extra classes after school.

3. Studies

After understanding the situation of students who got the top scores, we studied the students with the lowest and what caused their lower-than-average scores? Reading through several studies, we summarized that lack of self-confidence is a common problem. The word self-confidence has long since disappeared from the lexicon of the group with grades lower than the average student. When this group of students often appears some pessimistic thoughts such as "I'm not a candidate to study anyway!" "Even if I studied, I still didn't get good grades, perhaps I should just quit!" When there is always no improvement in their grades, the children lose their self-confidence and even give up on themselves. Test scores are the fastest and most direct way to measure students' learning effectiveness, and are also one of the indicators which students assess themselves with. Therefore, when the test scores are unsatisfactory, many children will subconsciously begin to doubt their abilities and lack self-confidence. Because of self-abandonment, they consider their unsatisfactory grades normal, and they do not want to work harder to improve their grades, resulting in a vicious circle. Fortunately, we found ways to correct this problem, as a study showed that ”increasing Students' self-confidence can improve scientific results. There is significant in four latent classes, which is the most effective in the culturally disadvantaged and economically disadvantaged group.” While it seemed like a perfect solution to the problem, combining the second point above with our own experience, it’s obvious that the current situation is that such students are often neglected in science education in school. Out of lack of self-confidence and enthusiasm for learning, they are afraid and unwilling to actively fight for themselves.

4. Interview experts

After the above investigations, we sorted out our learnings and discussed our thoughts with experts in this field, who were the teacher-counselors. As a school with high school and junior high school, Mingdao has teacher-counselors who are in charge of junior high school, so we visited them in advance. We talked about what we had concluded, “There are three main reasons why students get bad scores. Being under-resourced, causing worse performance than their peers; Lacking self- confidence, which caused them unable to perform better; Finally, being self-abandoned, and resulting in a vicious circle.”The teachers agreed with the conclusion we got, and told us a point that we had never thought about. “According to my experience, if we trace the under-performed students’ academic performance, we will find out that most of them have under-performed since elementary school,”said the teacher,” the lack of self-confidence due to poor grades in elementary school often limits their performance continuously.”

Figure 2 |We interviewed the teacher-counselors individually, and this picture shows one of our interviews.

After the investigations above, we figured out the main barriers for under-resourced students in junior high school in science. Of course, being under-resourced is a main problem, while lack of self-confidence and self-abandonment since elementary school are also important causes. Therefore, we aim to fix the problem and make the under-resourced elementary school students more inclusive in science, which will allow more students to have the opportunity to enter the scientific field and contribute to it.

Actions: how did we developed new opportunities and eliminate barriers for the under-resourced students

After we decided to provide more opportunities in the scientific realm for children with lack of resources, we took action immediately. Below are the actions we worked hard on.

Delving Into Elementary Schools to Investigate This Issue

After interviewing teachers, we found out that low levels of confidence and lack of motivation for learning usually stem from a child’s elementary school years which can lead all the way to high school. We then visited elementary schools and met up with professionists to understand this issue further. Teachers from public elementary schools provide children with extra practice questions to do if their grades can not keep up with the rest of their class. However, this does not solve the issue of few science related resources. Nevertheless, we believe that our team would be able to revive the confidence of students by finding the right way to encourage them and solve this dilemma.

Figure 3 |The picture was taken at the end of an interview with an elementary school teacher. Due to the pandemic, we had an online interview with a teacher of the elementary school where our summer camp was held.

Outlining a Plan

For children to gain knowledge efficiently, we decided to come up with a solution that can solve multiple issues of elementary students at once. We focused on students from grades four and five with lower scores, and planned a special program during the summer and after-school-hours for them. Parents will not worry about their financial load from sending their kids to our camp since it’s not as expensive as other summer camps. According to different situations in various schools, there are descriptions depicting each and every one of the camps below.

Taking Action

After devising our proposal, we negotiated with an elementary school and formed four programs. Below are the specific descriptions of the four programs and execution plans.

1. Elementary School Summer Camp

We organized a two-day life science camp during the summer vacation of becoming senior two high school students. The elementary school students we recruited had slightly lower grades which may be caused by lack of familiarity in molecular science or other less common fields of science. In hopes of giving discouraged pupils a wide range of possibilities, we started with the topics we learned at Mingdao iGEM and molecular science. Our team designed diverse and engaging activities for students in grades four and five to gain their interest. We started with an experiment and a fun power point on biology knowledge, while gifting snacks to encourage the students to ask questions. Last but not least, we utilized an exclusive Mingdao iGEM Team board game in our teaching program. The rules of this board game was created with the help of the elementary school teachers to not only teach children about the different diseases caused by phages, but also various ways to prevent the diseases. Another benefit from this board game is the implement of mathematic skills that improved the student’s overall performance in schoolwork. In conclusion, we wish that this type of camp can help children combine knowledge they learn at school with everyday life. We also hope that these children can be inspired to work towards biology related sciences in the future.

Figure 4-1 |The picture is about teaching the children to do a experiment.

Figure 4-2 |This picture is what it looked like when we were giving a lesson.

Figure 4-3 |This picture was taken during board game time.

Figure 4-4 |The group photo taken at the end of our summer camp.

2. The Hykf.eagle program

It's a pleasure to find fellow students who share the same passion of promoting education, and forming a team with them. The team name is called The Hykf.eagle program, which has an acronym meaning “soaring across the wilderness” in Chinese, hoping those children to fly like eagles. With our members’ thoughtful planning and our school’s enthusiastic support, We, “The Hykf.eagle program”, decided to put more effort in future planning to find a stage and share our ideas. In the process, we participated in an important competition, “The Project of Developing United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for Taichung City in 2020”, and won 2nd place with a prize of 6000 NTD. This is the most important competition promoted by the Taichung city government in recent years, so many people look forward to seeing the projects and results. We used this event as an opportunity to promote our plan to a wider audience, and to inspire more people to value our goals. More and more of our iGEM members participate in this program, the iGEM members will be responsible for teaching science related topics, and the rest of the team will be responsible for teaching English. We schedule an online meeting at noon weekly with the elementary students that we would teach. They were separated into 3 kinds of lessons, one-on-one, three-on-three, and ten-on-ten. Then, they were led through a fun process of learning knowledge about English and Science with courses designed every week to fit the amount of students. Through different course arrangements, the seniors who prepared the class would be aware of each student’s progress, and adjusted the course difficulty. We also used Kahoot for quick competitions to help children develop their confidence. Furthermore, a presentation is held each semester for students to get used to presenting. The program lasted for two semesters, and we have witnessed growth in each student. This September, our newly trained batch of seniors, who will be responsible for The Hykf.eagle program, will carry on the program after we graduate.

Figure 5-1 |This picture was taken during our presentation in “The Project of Developing United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for Taichung City in 2020.”

Figure 5-2 |The picture is about what it looks like when the Hykf.eagle program was taking place. It was a one-on-one lesson; therefore every member involved was on a different computer and taught the kid they each were responsible for.

Figure 5-3 |This is the group photo of every member and kid involved. It was taken after a ten-on-ten lesson. Due to the pandemic, everyone joined the same meeting respectively.

3. The Cschool program

We originally planned with a virtual institute to have a series of online teaching sessions for students from rural areas. These sessions take place weekly to intruct the children if they have problems with schoolwork. We settled with having these sessions four times, and the iGEM team was responsible for planning the classes while the virtual institute focused on teaching the students with our plans. Since this is a one-on-one lesson, the kids are more willing to ask questions unlike in regular classes where they are under constant peer pressure. The final 30 minutes of these classes are scheduled for the students to teach their instructors. Not only did the students review and make sure that they understood the course, they also became more willing to participate in the event.

Figure 6 |The picture was taken during a class of Cschool program. They were talking about viruses.

4. Hualien Lehe Elementary School Camp

We collaborated with Lehe Elementary School in Hualien City, originally planning to hold a science camp and cultural exchange fair during the summer vacation. Lehe Elementary School in Hualien City is not only a rural elementary school certified by the government, but also an aboriginal elementary school. We have initially arranged a two-day science-related course–including molecular biology, nutrition, sports health knowledge, understanding the human body, etc–and spend one day to experience the native Taiwanese culture in order to have a deeper understanding of them. However, unexpectedly, the event coincided with the outbreak of the epidemic. As the epidemic prevention policies were tightened, the original plan had to be postponed. We have reached an agreement with the school to execute our original plan during the winter break. Although the camp has not yet been successfully held, I believe that both the children and us can benefit a lot from it.

How to join us

Do you care about elementary children’s lack of resources as well? Do you also favor giving more underprivileged kids the opportunity to engage in science so that their underlying talents aren’t wasted? If that's what you have in mind, our team has noted down several suggestions according to our experiences. Hope it would be helpful!

1. Contact and communicate with the school teacher first. Get a general grasp of the schooling environment–the teaching situation and academic level of students vary from school to school. For example, in the three plans we actually implemented this time, significant differences exist due to factors such as the course length and the nature of the camp. Therefore, we recommend all members to have sufficient understanding about the school’s educational conditions.
2. Advices on physical classes

(1.)Sparking children’s interest in the lesson through conducting experiments. We've discovered that children find interactive classes the most enjoyable, so ensuring their full participation in the experiment makes the subsequent lessons proceed smoothly.

(2.) Incorporate videos into the lessons. Even high school seniors can’t bear dull lectures, so it is always a good idea to enhance children’s attention through the implementation of several videos in the lesson.

(3.) Create easy-to-understand slides. In the briefings we used for the elementary school camp, there was some content that was criticized for being naive and ridiculous, but they were greatly appreciated by the elementary school teachers. Teachers said that children tend to focus more on presentations or lessons when they see funny, plain pictures.

(4.) Always throw out questions. We have observed that children tend to subconsciously nod their heads when they receive a question, but they may have not really thought about the question. Therefore, it is recommended to ask short answer questions, rather than yes-no ones, there will be a better effect.

(5.) Don't skimp on prizes. With rewards such as candy and biscuits, children tend to be more active in class, but be aware of each child's answering frequency, try to avoid giving them to the same kids all the time, so as not to make them lack self-confidence.

3. Advices for online classes

(1.) Pay more attention to what the kids are doing. Since computers must be used in class, the kids are more likely to be distracted. It’s a good idea to ask more questions to catch the kids’ attention.

(2.) Make use of online resources. Take ourselves as an example, we often use different websites to interact with the kids, such as Kahoot, jamboard, etc. They were so interested and more concentrated in class when such websites were used.

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The two slides above are the slides we used in the Elementary School Summer Camp (Chinese ver.) and we have translated it into English (English ver.) as an example of interesting slides which can catch children’s eyes.

Reference

1. Yu-Fang Chen. The Influence of Family Socioeconomic Background and Self Confidence on Science Achievement-An Example of Taiwan Fourth Graders from TIMSS 2015. Jun 19, 2017