On November 13, 2025, the Integrated Primary and Secondary School at WUIS held a classroom teaching and research activity with the theme of “Student-Centered Learning · Confident Expression”. Four characteristic courses and one feedback meeting helped put into practice the concept of “taking students as the main body and promoting thinking through expression”.
An effective classroom must be student-centered, and this activity has set two core goals:
Highlighting students’ subject status: Optimize the classroom structure, ensure that the time for students’ independent inquiry and cooperative learning accounts for no less than 50%, and promote the active construction of knowledge.
Strengthening expression skills: Through structured tasks (viewpoint explanation, achievement presentation) and expression scaffolds (sentence pattern templates for lower grades, evaluation scales), realize the goal of “promoting thinking through speech and promoting learning through thinking”.
The activity also clarifies the principle of “alignment of teaching, learning and assessment”, and establishes evaluation criteria from two dimensions: the “student learning dimension” (including goal achievement, depth of participation, and quality of expression) and the “teacher design dimension” (including time allocation, task design, and thinking cultivation).
The four lessons closely focus on “student-centeredness” and “free expression”, covering multiple grade levels and subjects:
With The Duck Farmer as the teaching vehicle, students’ interest was sparked through “imitating animal sounds”, while the teaching process was advanced via “picture observation” and “group creative writing”. Independent activities accounted for over 60% of the class time, and the teacher provided a writing template featuring “actions + language” to support expression for lower-grade students.
Centered on “character creation”, the class progressed from open discussions on “good stories/good characters” to the group task of “creating a character with 3 items”, with students taking the lead throughout the entire process. Each group was required to present their character profile and explain the design, which helped practice students’ English expression and logical thinking.
Taking “using coupons in a fast-food restaurant” as the scenario, students analyzed rules and solved problems through the “Think-Pair-Share” model. Core vocabulary such as “coupon” was emphasized to help students move from “being able to speak English” to “being able to use English in practice”.
Focusing on “the adaptation of plants and animals”, the teaching was carried out through Padlet collaboration, role division, and Gallery Walk. Students’ independent activities accounted for 70% of the class time, and the teachers provided bilingual sentence pattern scaffolds, balancing the teaching of scientific knowledge and bilingual expression.
In the afternoon, the department specially organized a joint seminar, where the four teachers shared their insights with everyone from perspectives including factors to consider during lesson preparation, post-class gains, and curriculum reconstruction.
The core takeaway of this lesson is “deepening understanding through collaboration and creation”. When addressing the key plot of “how small animals drive away the farmer”, I guided students to think from different perspectives through “role-based questioning”, and then used “actions + language” as a scaffold to enable groups to collaborate in creating dialogues and performing the plot. This process—from “observation” to “thinking” and then to “creation”—not only honed students’ expression skills, but also allowed them to experience the power of unity and mutual assistance in practice.
Aled：This demo lesson was a valuable exercise in the dynamics of active learning. Although timing posed a challenge from my perspective as a teacher, the classroom itself was abuzz with high-level discourse. Students collaboratively debated nuanced character traits and motivations, while justifying their inferences with evidence. The session afforded them the opportunity to flex both their critical-thinking skills and creativity, which was the true objective of the lesson.
The greatest insight this lesson gave me is: In instructional design, we must truly stand from the students’ perspective, stimulate their desire to explore through core questions like “How can we use the coupon?”, and guide them to think proactively. When students engage in cooperative learning in groups and teachers dare to let go of “control”, authentic and in-depth learning will occur naturally.
This lesson was successful as students were actively engaged as young scientists rather than passive receivers. Bilingual scaffolding and structured cooperative learning roles ensured all students, including lower-proficiency English learners, participated meaningfully in understanding adaptation.The inquiry approach (P-O-E) helped students build knowledge from real examples, and Padlet made thinking visible, increasing motivation and accountability. The classroom climate was focused and collaborative, with groups showing clear reasoning about survival features.
Vice Principal Ella delivered a thematic sharing on “Student-Centered Learning” based on the four lessons. Starting from the three core elements of student-centered learning—”sufficient learning time, diverse learning methods, and visible learning outcomes”—Principal Zhang analyzed the relationship between students’ participation time and effective learning time with everyone. He also suggested that teachers reasonably apply inductive and deductive teaching methods, design driving questions, and use major tasks to promote classroom learning. Regarding the presentation of learning outcomes, he emphasized evaluating the effectiveness of outcomes through meaning understanding and transfer application to ensure that authentic learning takes place.
This event is a collision of educational concepts. In the future, the Integrated Primary and Secondary School at WUIS will continue to focus on students’ growth, integrate “student-centered learning” into every classroom, and enable “free expression” to become an essential ability for students.