Qingshan Junior High School, New Taipei City - "Amplify Interpretation: Using AI to Amplify My Imagination and Expression"
This program utilizes generative AI as a bridge, attempting to transcend the limitations of traditional language interpretation, allowing students to deepen their understanding through technology and embark on creative journeys in the performing arts. Using "The Ballad of Mulan" as its core text, the course, through the collaboration of AI, guides students through a multi-layered learning process: language comprehension → visual construction → vocal expression → performance interpretation, cultivating cross-disciplinary literacy and artistic perception.
During the learning process, students are required to first translate classical Chinese texts into precise vernacular sentences, then input them into generative AI imaging tools (such as Bing and Canva) to generate concrete images. This process echoes the core tenet of Generative Learning Theory: learning is not about passive reception, but about learners' ability to "select, organize, and integrate" information, deepening their understanding through active "generation." The goal is to cultivate students' understanding that AI-generated images are not the final answer, but rather a medium for comparison, verification, and critical thinking, thereby fostering a critical attitude towards technology and understanding that "AI does not equal truth."
Furthermore, the course extends its focus to "sound and audience understanding." The power of theater comes from the body, as well as from the clarity and emotional expression of sound. Students record their performances on tablets and use AI speech-to-text tools to check whether their pronunciation and volume are clear. If the translation is accurate, it means the performance is understandable. If there are many errors, students are prompted to improve their expression. AI plays the role of a "real but neutral audience," providing instant feedback to students on "whether my performance was heard." At the same time, students' group improvisations are reviewed by ChatGPT to ensure that they do not deviate from the original meaning of "The Ballad of Mulan." It also reminds students whether the wording is too stiff or the emotions are out of focus, allowing students to learn to revise the script from the audience's perspective, especially to meet the understanding needs of elementary and middle school audiences.
In teaching practice, we designed a variety of "generative" activities based on generative learning theory:
⚫ Paraphrase: Explain the ancient text in your own words to confirm your understanding.
⚫ Visualization: Use AI to generate images and make abstract text concrete.
⚫ Questioning and inference: Ask questions based on the context and infer the characters’ situations.
⚫ Voice verification: Use AI speech-to-text tools to check whether the expression is clear.
⚫ Script creation and revision: Convert impromptu dialogues into written scripts, and then collaborate with AI to review them.
⚫ Performance and Creation: Using storytelling theatre to transform images, sounds and scripts into stage interpretations.
⚫ Peer review: Use the Padlet platform to upload, co-edit, and provide feedback on your work, creating a group dialogue.
Ultimately, students will present their work in the form of "storytelling theater," a prop-free, costume-free performance method that emphasizes the performer's narrative, body language, and imagination. Students will transform AI-inspired imagery and revised scripts into concrete stage performances, truly experiencing "being understood" and "being felt" through the clarity of their voices and the emotional communication they convey.
The core concepts of this course can be summarized into three points:
1. Technology as a bridge: Generative AI serves as a medium for understanding texts and fosters critical thinking through comparison and reflection.
2. Collaboration-driven: Through co-editing and peer review on Padlet, learning can be expanded from individual understanding to group co-construction.
3. Verification through performance: Through stage interpretation in storytelling theatre, students can transform words and images into concrete sounds and body expressions, deepening their experience of the text.
Through this design, students can not only transcend disciplinary boundaries and connect Chinese literature, performing arts and technology in the course, but also cultivate the cross-domain learning ability, performance literacy and audience awareness of the new generation in the cycle of criticism and creation.
