How Online Classes Continue to Boost Teaching and Learning
On January 6, at the 433rd press conference on the prevention and control of the novel coronavirus infection in Beijing, Li Yi, deputy secretary of the Education Work Committee of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee and spokesperson of the Beijing Municipal Education Commission, introduced the recently drafted "Beijing School Novel Coronavirus Infection Prevention and Control Work Plan”, the plan proposes that when the epidemic is not prevalent, schools and kindergartens will carry out normal offline teaching activities.
As the end of the term approaches, offline teaching activities have been resumed in an orderly manner in the third and third grades in many places across the country. The "Work Plan for the Prevention and Control of Novel Coronavirus Infection in Schools" issued by the Ministry of Education also clearly stated that schools without epidemics should carry out normal teaching activities. Online teaching.
Since the beginning of "suspending classes without stopping learning" in early 2020, online education has accompanied teachers and students for three years, and has carried out "the world's largest online education experiment". "Go for the long run.
Zhang Yu, a second-grade teacher at a school in Dongcheng District, Beijing, still remembers that when SARS was raging in 2003, he, as a teacher representative, recorded "audio-based teaching videos" for students whose classes were suspended, so that students could watch them on TV.
Today, nearly 20 years have passed, and informatization has long been with us and has become an essential tool for learning.
However, Zhang Yu felt that after repeated adjustments, the two sides of the study still had not fully adapted to the changes brought about by online education.
In the future, as my country's epidemic prevention and control enters a new stage, how can online education be optimized and adjusted to better integrate into daily life and play a greater role in teaching work?
After three years of running-in, some teachers and students still feel uncomfortable
The reporter interviewed some students and parents at random, and many of them still said they felt uncomfortable with online teaching.
At the end of the semester, Fang Lin, the parent of a student in Dongcheng District, Beijing, was not very happy because his child's grades did not meet expectations.
Fang Lin told reporters that his emotions came from the changes in his daughter.
After the online teaching started, he took his wife and two daughters back to his hometown in Miyun to live.
"Opening the door is the mountain, and the natural scenery is so beautiful. My original intention is to 'hands down family farming and study'. Children can work and exercise in their spare time. Who knows that children only have time to 'study' and have no time to 'plow'." Fang Lin said, "The eldest daughter is in the second grade of junior high school. Every day at 7 o'clock, she has to sit at the computer desk in the study room. She sits for a whole day, and we have to prepare meals and send them to the study room. Every day at 7 o'clock in the morning, the camera is turned on for roll call, and she can only rest for a while at noon. , Classes continued in the afternoon, and there was also self-study in the evening. After more than ten hours a day, I feel that the students, teachers, and parents are very tired, but they can’t grasp the knowledge learned. Why is learning more difficult with advanced equipment? "
The cumbersome procedures are the second problem reported by parents.
Since the start of online teaching in 2020, Mr. Wang, the parent of a third-grade primary school student in Chaoyang District, Beijing, has successively purchased printers, tablet computers, and live streaming platforms.
Mr. Wang told reporters that since his children took online classes, all the tasks of "checking in" have fallen on him.
"After the teacher sends out the learning materials in the group, printing, supervising and previewing, and completing the homework are the tasks of the parents. For example, in sports, the teacher asked us to use a software to clock in and do radio gymnastics, but that software can only shoot at one angle. If you accidentally move it, you have to start over. For this reason, I bought a "cloud platform" device for my child to keep it stable during live broadcast. Another example is the "Rising Sun" martial arts to be learned in physical education class. The physical education teacher only needs to Can introduce the main points remotely. If children want to practice to a standard, they need a little guidance from their parents, which takes a lot of time. Parents need to master relevant knowledge for art painting homework and music singing videos. It is too difficult to be a parent now. To digest and absorb."
"Fragmentation" and "poor grasp of knowledge" are the intuitive feelings of Li Yun (pseudonym), a second-grade parent of a primary school in Xicheng District, Beijing.
"Teachers are very responsible, but if the parents are not around in the live broadcast class, the effect of children's self-learning will be compromised. Later, the teacher also discovered this problem and began to use the short video teaching, so that parents can take it with them after work. When children watch short videos together, their knowledge will be firmly grasped." Li Yun said.
But, slowly, she found that the child can only do the questions, and does not know the basic steps.
"For example, children can write new characters in Chinese class, but the stroke order is wrong. Children can do math problems, but they can't speak them out. I think this is because the knowledge is too fragmented. After the teacher corrects the homework, he will tell the parents and let the parents guide the revision. Parents put down the work at hand and call the children who are playing to correct their homework. After the children have finished correcting, the parents take photos and upload them. This process often takes two to three times. I think that with this teaching method, children can only remember the answers.”
Online teaching should be "stocked" rather than "captive"
During the interview, the reporter found that even though the parents had all kinds of complaints, some parents still found that their children did improve their learning efficiency in online learning.
The mother of Li Qi, a fifth-grade primary school student in Xicheng District, Beijing, found that her child's homework efficiency and grades have improved significantly.
She believes that the biggest contributor is Li Qi's teacher.
"Online teaching definitely requires more patience than offline teaching. Our teachers are very serious and responsible in the classroom. They pay attention to every student when asking questions in the classroom. Basically, everyone has the opportunity to answer questions, so the classroom order is very good. There are very few cases where the child's mind is distracted. Moreover, she not only gives the score for each quiz, but also gives us a more detailed report, including which knowledge points are relatively weak, etc. "
Yu Xiaobing, a teacher at the Experimental Middle School Affiliated to Beijing Normal University, taught a third-year Chinese class. He told reporters that in his class, students are rarely asked to turn on their cameras.
"From the first grade of junior high school, I told my classmates that learning is their own business and they should be responsible for themselves. And I am opposed to only focusing on grades, educating people is more important than improving scores. Parents are already very anxious when studying at home. If the teacher If there is anxiety again, conflicts between home and school will easily arise, and the consequence is that parents and teachers will 'coddle' together. It must not be the result of parents and teachers 'dealing' with children."
Through classroom questions and tests, Yu Xiaobing found that children's learning efficiency is steadily increasing. He believes that online "stocking" is easier to improve efficiency than "captive breeding".
Liu Yu, a parent of a fourth-grade primary school student in Dongcheng District, Beijing, has also gradually figured out the knack for online classes.
She found that the teacher had to play the teaching video every time in class, and first summarize the knowledge points of a class.
"It's the same as taking an offline class. During the parent's day at school, I heard the teacher's offline get out of class, and they also played the teaching video first. The difference is that after the teaching video of the offline get out of class, the teacher began to emphasize the importance of this class. Key points and difficulties. During online classes, the teacher uses PPT to show these key points. In fact, whether children can grasp them firmly depends on these points. Offline teachers can "teach them by ear", and I will save the PPT first online, and then Repeatedly emphasize it to the children. In this way, if you have a good 'combined punch' with the teacher, the children's grades will improve."
Improving autonomous learning ability is the direction of future efforts
Why is the "run-in period" of online education longer than expected?
Lu Wenqing, the former head of the academic committee of Zhongguancun College, believes that this is due to the different evaluation systems that teachers and parents pay attention to.
After the lack of face-to-face teaching, what teachers pay attention to is the child's homework, grades and other achievement data, but what parents see is the child's overall growth and mental outlook.
The measurement standards are also different. Teachers pay attention to students’ ability to collect information, ability to complete homework, and ability to learn independently. Parents pay attention to more detailed changes in children. There are some contradictions."
Lu Wenqing said.
At the same time, Lu Wenqing believes that the pillar content of online teaching lies in students' "self-learning ability".
"If the self-learning ability is not improved, the effect of online classes is definitely not as good as offline teaching." Lu Wenqing said, "Students must learn by themselves, know what to learn and how to learn, and the teacher is the assistant who provides information and advice. .”
"Whether online or offline, the purpose of learning is to improve children's ability to solve problems, so as to become a kind of quality and way of thinking for them. But the ability to solve problems is not only the ability to answer questions, but also not only the ability to write homework At this stage, many teachers do not distinguish the difference between the two, nor the similarities and differences between online and offline teaching, but simply use their own experience to move offline teaching to online." Lu Wenqing told reporters.
Lu Wenqing believes that in recent years, the Ministry of Education has included teachers' online teaching skills into teachers' basic skills, and mixed teaching has become the norm. However, there are still some problems that plague primary and secondary school teachers.
Offline, even if students have different learning levels, teachers can check for gaps and fill in gaps when teaching face-to-face.
"But online, children have different family environments, different levels of understanding of the curriculum, and different levels of mastery of the materials. At least 40% more personalized content needs to be prepared. Whether the teacher grasps this part of the content will test the quality of teaching. "Lu Wenqing said.
At the same time, he believes that the degree of personalization of the overall resources for teacher preparation also needs to be improved urgently.
"These resources should be provided by researchers and research-oriented teachers, rather than massive teaching resources for teachers to choose independently. For example, in the identification of high-quality teaching resources, not all teachers can use the best teaching videos in primary and secondary schools , Those teaching videos are only aimed at the students of the school, how to customize them? Some teachers can only use the introduction part of the teaching videos, but they cannot re-edit, combine and make the videos, so they cannot obtain truly appropriate resources .” Lu Wenqing told reporters.
Chu Zhaohui, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Educational Sciences, believes that online teaching needs to pay more attention to the cultivation of students' practical ability and the improvement of their independent learning ability.
"From the results of the college entrance examination in the past two years, it can be seen that if students' independent learning ability is strong enough, their online learning efficiency can be better than offline. Because they can get inspiration and guidance at any time in their independent research, which is exactly what we directions for future efforts.”
(Our reporter Yao Xiaodan)