Abstract
English-medium instruction (EMI) physics courses often bring together students with diverse academic backgrounds and uneven levels of prior knowledge, creating challenges for maintaining both learning outcomes and classroom engagement. To address these challenges, we implemented a teaching framework integrating Just-in-Time Teaching (JiTT) with Peer Instruction (PI) in an EMI general physics course.
JiTT diagnosed students’ conceptual difficulties through pre-class videos and WarmUp Exercises, enabling the instructor to target conceptual gaps during class, while Peer Instruction promoted conceptual reasoning through ConcepTests and structured peer discussion. Using both quantitative and qualitative analyses of students’ learning outcomes and learning motivation, we examined the impact of this instructional intervention. The results show that after the implementation of JiTT, the performance gap between the EMI and Chinese-medium sections was substantially reduced, with the largest improvement observed among lower-performing students.
Survey evidence further suggests increased use of active learning strategies related to conceptual integration and self-reflection.
Academic bio
Pei-Yun Yang has been a Project Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics at National Taiwan University since 2021. She received her PhD in Physics from National Cheng Kung University in 2016. She subsequently held postdoctoral research positions at National Cheng Kung University, the National Center for Theoretical Sciences at National Tsing Hua University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Beijing Computational Science Research Center. Her research focuses on quantum many-body physics and open quantum systems. In recent years, she has also been engaged in physics education research, investigating active learning strategies for English-medium instruction in large introductory physics courses.