From STEAM to CHEER: A Case Study of Design Education Development in Taiwan

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to provide other developing countries in the region a reference on the successful design education reformation in Taiwan. The study first reviews Taiwan’s economic and design development to show their interconnection with local culture and the global market. Next, the study explores Taiwan’s design education development which transforms from adopting STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) to STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, mathematics) in secondary school, and understands how it overcomes challenges by the help of both public and private sectors. Last, a conceptual framework is proposed to present and study Taiwan’s design education development. The result from case studies validates that STEAM can reach SAD (science, arts, and design) in higher education and CHEER (collaboration, humanity, empathy, ecology, and renaissance) in design practice. Therefore, the result and implications provided by this study can serve as a reference for other countries in the region who share similar cultural and socioeconomic development and future goals as Taiwan.

Exploring the Effectiveness of STEAM Integrated Approach via Scratch on Computational Thinking

“…Students gave feedback through comments on projects, worked together on collaborative projects, remixed one project with another, crowd-sourced artwork for their projects, and designed games to share their new knowledge. The female students' ability to acquire problem-solving skills in connecting with daily life and utilizing new technologies is valuable to meet the 21stcentury requirements (Lin et al, 2021). STEAM refers to the intersection of sciences and arts that incorporates skills, including languages and liberal arts, such as sociology, philosophy, history (Yakman, 2010), or specific artistic disciplines such as design, creative writing, or visual and performing arts (Iglesias et al, 2018).…”

Raising the quality of designers’ professional training through STEAM and CLIL

“…The current experiment was designed to prove that the English language could become an integral part of university curriculum, could be widely used in interdisciplinary tasks and thus it can contribute to developing both soft and hard skills. The experiment was based on the modern STEAM approach which emphasizes promotion of creativity with rationalization, this is interdisciplinary approach which focuses on creativity and problem-solving skills [8][9][10].…”

Sustainable Development in Local Culture Industries: A Case Study of Taiwan Aboriginal Communities

“…Consequently, emotional design has become a key factor in product innovation. Thus, the emphasis of design has shifted "from Function to Feeling", "from Use to User", and finally "from High-tech to High-touch" [12][13][14]. In discussing the respective demands of consumers and product designers, Lin et al [15] argue that in the evolution of the cultural and creative industries based on the 4C model (Creative, Cheerful, Collective, and Cultural), the emphasis of consumers has gradually shifted from physiological needs to aesthetic experience, while the emphasis of product designers has gradually shifted from function to experience, and is now in the process of shifting to culture, a process in which the 4C model is taking on a twin stage consisting of humanities and technology, beginning with creativity, and proceeding to enjoyment, choice, and culture, as shown in Figure 1 [11,15].…”