A Sustainable Approach: Increasing Students’ Information-Technology Competences and Job-Seeking Capabilities through Course Redesign Using FIT Framework and Active Learning Pedagogy

Abstract

FIT, Fluency with Information Technology, was developed by the National Research Council, USA in 1999. A FIT individual is defined as someone who can build new knowledge based on his/her prior knowledge, be self-sustaining when changes happen, and find solutions creatively to solve more complicated problems. Using FIT framework and active learning concept to restructure an information technology (IT) course is a sustainable approach to helping students learn, think, and adapt to the constant changes of technology. This article illustrates how FIT framework helped redesign a general education Network Resources and Applications course to enhance students’ IT competences and job-seeking capabilities. It describes (1) the importance of IT education in Taiwan to sustain its high-tech economy, (2) the trend of IT literacy education and active learning presented in literature, (3) how FIT intellectual framework was applied to redesign this course and how active learning strategies were incorporated into teaching, and (4) how pre-test, post-test, and Likert-Scale statistical methodology were used to measure the effectiveness of this new approach. Test results indicated that the new approach did effectively facilitate teaching and increase students’ learning performance, which is consistent with the findings presented in the literature.