Online Teaching Practice under the Epidemic Situation of Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia

Liwen LIU, Xiquan CHEN, Xiaoyun LI, Yan ZENG, Chunying ZHANG

1. College of City Construction, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang 330022, China; 2. Jiangxi College of Applied Technology, Ganzhou 341000, China; 3. Guilin University of Technology, Guilin 541004, China

Abstract In the context of preventing and controlling novel coronavirus pneumonia, how to ensure the quality of higher education has become a hot issue of social concern in China. In this article, the problems and challenges are analyzed from teacher, student and technology levels, the teaching pattern of "re-flipped classroom" and the teaching model of "SPOC+MOOC+live broadcast" are proposed, the three teaching methods of PBL, OBE and mind mapping are integrated, the teaching evaluation is introduced to teaching design, and finally, the implementation suggestions are put forward to ensure the quality of teaching.

Key words Online classroom, Flipped classroom, Mind mapping, Epidemic situation, Teaching practice

1 Introduction

In December 2019, the novel coronavirus pneumonia began to rage across China, affecting the normal life order and learning order of Chinese students. In order to prevent and control the spread of the epidemic, the Ministry of Education of China issued a special notice requesting the postponement of the start of school in the spring of 2020, and "suspension of classes without stopping teaching, suspension of classes without stopping school". Multiple platforms including MOOC, icourse, Rain Classroom, Xueyin Online, Zhihuishu and Chaoxing Xuexi provide free training and services, and Cloud Classroom, Chaoxing Live, DingTalk, QQ and other live broadcast software are all in the battle, escorting for suspension of classes without stopping learning. Online teaching is often considered to be supported by a tall platform and rich in video resources, but how to make good use of technology and resources, give full play to the guiding role of teachers, and achieve better online teaching effects has become a common problem faced by educators, parents and students. In recent years, Online and offline hybrid teaching such as MOOC, SPOC, SPOC+PAD and Chaoxing Xuexi has become the focus of teaching in colleges and universities[1-2]. Student-centered flipped classroom with first learning and then teaching[3-5]makes classroom learning from shallow learning to deep learning[6]. The output-orientated, student-centered and continuously improving OBE concept promotes the improvement of professional education quality in colleges and universities[7]. The teaching pattern of PAD class of presentation, assimilation and discussion has become the mainstream model of informationized teaching in colleges and universities.

The hybrid teaching design model integrating BOPPPS and APT teaching patterns is studied, the teaching pattern of "re-flipped classroom" is proposed, and in teaching, the mind mapping and PBL teaching methods are used to integrate existing resources, teaching methods and patterns, improve the effectiveness of teaching in online education, abandon the teaching design of "teaching centered by teachers", discuss the practical teaching of online courses in the context of the epidemic, and enhance students’ learning enthusiasm and learning effect, thereby providing reference for follow-up research.

2 Analysis of problems and challenges

2.1 Teachers’ perspectiveCompared with traditional teaching, in response to the epidemic, the whole network teaching pattern puts forward higher requirements for teachers. There are also some teachers who have never started online teaching. Many colleges and universities are also just experimenting with online and offline hybrid teaching patterns. Teachers face unprecedented challenges. (i) Course content design. Online courses are not about moving regular classrooms to the Internet and conducting full-class teaching. Instead, teachers need to think about how to divide teaching content into teaching tasks. Only then can students be willing to learn and complete remotely. (ii) Exploring teaching methods. Teachers can’t know whether students are attentive during video playback and live broadcast. If they are distracted, the delivery effect of online courses will become very low. Therefore, teachers need to explore teaching methods such as output-oriented and problem-oriented and guide students to think about, analyze and solve problems in the teaching process. (iii) Self-informationized teaching ability. Teachers need to have proficient online teaching operation skills and the ability to coordinate online and offline teaching. For SPOC teaching plans, courseware production, script writing, and video recording, teachers all need to improve the ability of informationized teaching. It is quite difficult to build synchronous SPOC and record and produce animated videos in the short term. (iv) Exploring teaching patterns. The traditional teaching pattern is indoctrination and passive acceptance centered on teacher’s teaching. Few students can enter the classroom with in-depth questions about knowledge through preview. Students have poor self-learning ability. Teachers need to change roles, explore teaching patterns such as flipped classrooms, discover students’ problems through interaction, recognize the progress of students and improve their ability to think and learn independently.

2.2 Students’ perspectiveSince all courses are launched online. Students may passively watch the videos. Even if there is interaction, the interaction between teachers and students in special times can only be done online. In the learning process, the following dilemmas may be encountered. (i) Insufficient learning motivation. If teachers do not change the teaching method and still use traditional teaching method to broadcast lively or record video simply, the atmosphere in the classroom will be boring, and teachers can’t observe the students’ performance in class. The knowledge may not be assimilated by students, and teacher-student and student-student interaction is poor, so that students’ learning enthusiasm will be greatly reduced. (ii) Self-management ability. Under whole online teaching, students will face electronic products such as computers and mobile phones every day. If there is no clear learning task, students are easy to get lost online, or even be addicted to online games, TV video and other activities outside of learning. (iii) Numerous learning platforms. Each grade has different courses and teachers, and teaching platforms chosen by teachers are different, so students need to go to multiple platforms and multiple channels to receive information. At the same time, due to network congestion during the epidemic, teachers also need to adjust the teaching platform and teaching time. This process increases the cost of tool learning.

2.3 Technology levelOnline teaching has high requirements for technology and equipment. For teachers starting from scratch, online course construction, video recording, post-processing, online course framework building, content maintenance, data processing,etc. are more difficult, and the workload is increased. In the epidemic period, if PPT is directly used for recording, animation and post-processing is lacked, and it is difficult to enhance the attractiveness for students. It is also difficult to form a technical team during the epidemic. The release of tasks such as video recording mainly depends on teachers, and is limited by technology and equipment. Video recording and production are at the preliminary stage, dominated by simple video recording, of which the rendering effect is relatively poor.

3 Teaching design ideas

While doing something, you can succeed if you are prepared beforehand, and you will fail if you don’t. Plan is required for action, as well as for teaching. Especially during the epidemic, careful planning is needed. Teachers should think about teaching design concepts, methods, patterns,etc., in order to achieve the expected goals, and blind teaching will not be worth the loss. Teachers should grasp the main points of teaching, shifting focus from recording videos or opening live online courses to shortcomings of online learning itself, changing thinking, changing roles, and focusing on students. A suitable online teaching platform should be chosen guided by teachers. APT and BOPPPS teaching patterns can be integrated. A teaching pattern based on "SPOC+MOOC" is put forward. The teaching patterns of PAD classroom and flipped classroom can be integrated to propose a re-flipped classroom teaching pattern. It is divided into five teaching processes: pre-class preview, interactive discussion, presentation, assimilation and problem review. The teaching methods of mind mapping, PBL discussion and OBE (outcome-based education) are sorted out. Finally, the machine and the teacher make the teaching evaluation, respectively. Thus, a holistic and systematic teaching idea (Fig.1) is constructed.

Fig.1 Map of teaching ideas

3.1 Centered by students and led by teachersTeachers and students have equal status in the whole teaching activities. Teachers are the guiders in the construction of the knowledge framework, and students are the explorers of information acquisition and the main body of learning. It is easier to cultivate students’ information literacy in the teaching process to obtain good education and teaching effects. The student’s dominant position is highlighted. Every link in the teaching process requires students to actively participate and think actively. Students need to read the materials pushed by teachers before class, complete reading notes, think and solve the problems raised by teachers, communicate and interact with teachers in the classroom, participate in Q&A and group discussions, and complete self-learning and reflective reading after class. Teachers play an active guiding role. Establishing a good teacher-student relationship will promote the smooth development of teaching, and encourage students to discover, think about, and solve problems on their own, eventually completing the construction of knowledge.

3.2 Teaching modelThe characteristic of the APT model is the organic integration of the three components of teaching evaluation, teaching methods and modern technology. The BOPPPS teaching model is based on constructivism and communicative approach. It is popularized among prestigious universities in North America, and is divided into six stages: introduction, learning objectives, pre-examination, participatory learning, post-examination, and summary. The characteristic is that it is student-centered and emphasizes practicality and operability. The BOPPPS model helps to realize the systematization, organization and rationalization of classroom teaching, but it lacks teaching methods and teaching evaluation. Therefore, in this study, the teaching models of APT and BOPPPS are integrated, and a teaching model based on "SPOC+MOOC+live broadcast" (Table 1) is proposed.

Table 1 Teaching model based on "SPOC+MOOC+live broadcast"

3.3 Teaching patternFlipped classroom was the teaching pattern that first appeared in the United States. The pattern is to use modern network technology to build MOOC or SPOC courses. It publishes learning resources such as videos and PPT on the Internet before class. Students can preview in advance through mobile phones or computers to complete the original basic theoretical knowledge that needs to be taught in the class. Students can study courseware or video resources independently. The flipped classroom has the characteristics of allowing students to study and preview themselves before class, and allowing teachers to answer doubts in the class to help students assimilate and absorb knowledge. PAD was proposed by Professor Zhang Xuexin of Fudan University in 2014. Its core idea is to divide the time, that is, half of the time is used for teacher-guided teaching, and the other half of the time is used for discussion-style interactive learning, and a certain time of interval (within a week) is required for students’ assimilation. The characteristic lies in staggering the lecture and discussion time. Students can interact targetedly with questions and insights in class, through the learning process of independent learning, presentation and assimilation. The PAD classroom has three links of presentation, assimilation and discussion. Its purpose is to give play to the guiding role of teachers, while emphasizing the initiative and enthusiasm of students. It integrates the two teaching patterns of flipped classroom and PAD classroom, clarifies the teaching objectives, sorts out the content of the course, organizes efficient teaching activities by sorting out the teaching content and decomposing learning tasks with the goal of achieving teaching goals, and proposes the "re-flipped classroom" teaching pattern integrating pre-class preview, interactive discussion, presentation, assimilation and discussion. The basic idea is to move the basic knowledge in the traditional classroom to the pre-class, halve the classroom time, strengthen students’ assimilation of course content, and continue to review the problems after class, check vacancies, and make up omissions and answer questions, without leaving any problems. It helps to improve students’ ability for independent learning, independent thinking and exploration and cultivate students’ lifelong learning ability.

3.4 Teaching methodsTeaching method is the means by which teachers and students complete the content of teaching activities and realize the teaching goals and tasks. The current three more important teaching methods are sorted out and adopted, including PBL (problem-based learning) method, OBE (outcome-based education) and mind mapping method. Under the heuristic teaching method of student-centered and teacher-led, the OBE method is explored to enhance students’ hands-on practical ability. At the same time, mind mapping is introduced to teaching. Through mind maps, students’ brains are stimulated, and their divergent and overall thinking ability is cultivated.

PBL is a problem-oriented teaching method, emphasizing that teachers ask questions and students think, discuss and solve problems. After the discussion process, teachers give guidance and enlightenment. Under the guidance of teachers, students complete learning tasks easily and happily and achieve teaching goals. The characteristic lies in the heuristic teaching with students as the main body and teacher as the guidance. Through PBL discussion, students can exercise their abilities of independent thinking, active exploration, inductive summary, logical reasoning and lifelong learning.

OBE is an outcome-based teaching method (Outcome Based Education). It was first proposed by American scholar William G. Spady in 1981, and is an educational philosophy oriented to students’ learning outcomes. OBE has the characteristics of output-oriented, student-centered and continuous improvement. It was first applied to the training of talents in the engineering field and other fields such as computer technology and economic management later. Since 2016, OBE education has become the core concept of China’s engineering education professional certification. However, the current domestic research on OBE mainly lies in macro aspects such as talent training patterns. It is rarely used in teaching design, especially in the teaching of engineering majors with strong practicality.

Mind map is also called brain map and mental map. It is invented by Tony Buzan who proposed that the human brain’s ability to accept pictures and information is much higher than that to text information. Mind mapping is a way of displaying information, that is, using graphical methods to display the thinking process and information from the inside to the outside divergently.

With the help of mind maps, it is helpful to form a systematic thinking mode, improve the efficiency of thinking problems, and brain accepts information more easily. With the continuous advancement of education and teaching reform, mind mapping technology is gradually being used in teaching, which helps to improve students’ interest in learning and ability of logical thinking and overall problem analysis[8].

3.5 Teaching evaluationCourse evaluation can be divided into two parts, online and offline,i.e., machine statistics, teacher statistics data evaluation, and student-student mutual evaluation. (i) Machine statistics mainly include data such as online video viewing time before class, unit examinations, speeches in the discussion area and exercises, discussions, and attendance in the MOOC classroom during the class. In the discussion session, the frequency and effectiveness of students’ speeches in the discussion area of the MOOC classroom are judged. (ii) Teacher evaluation is based on students’ performance in the live classroom, accuracy of the submitted homework and actual project completion status. (iii) Student-student mutual evaluation. For the completion of each assignment or discussion, the students will score and evaluate each other. Finally, the performance evaluation items and proportions are set, so that each student can get fair score.

4 Implementation recommendations

Under special circumstances, students and teachers need to adjust and adapt. Teachers need to face unfamiliar technology, students need to adapt to online learning and improve self-management. In order to improve the quality of teaching, the following strategies are proposed.

4.1 Choosing an effective online teaching platform based on teaching goalsThe Ministry of Education has organized 22 online platforms to open more than 24 000 online courses for free. It has also released information on these platforms to support online teaching service programs for colleges and universities during the epidemic prevention and control period. In order to effectively implement the flipped classroom teaching pattern, the first task is to choose an effective online teaching platform base on the teaching goals. After a suitable teaching platform is chosen, the unknown teaching effect has been largely guaranteed. Teachers should choose a suitable teaching platform and make full use of teaching videos for teaching. However, it is not advisable to let the students follow the open courses on the platform completely, because most of the online videos are short animations which are economical in terms of time and technology but have no customized teaching goals and teaching tasks. In addition, in order to avoid multiple courses on multiple platforms, it is recommended to target grade-based students, focus on one type of videos, one platform and one Q&A method, avoiding too many channels for students to receive information and reducing the cost of learning tools.

4.2 Sorting out teaching content and constructing a complete teaching mode implementation processIn the past, face-to-face teaching by teachers occupied an absolute dominant position. It is particularly important to balance online and offline teaching, sort out the teaching content and construct a complete teaching pattern. Complete teaching implementation process involves five links of pre-class preview, interactive discussion, classroom presentation, assimilation and problem review. According to the teaching tasks and teaching resources published by teachers before class, students log in to the platform and watch animations, videos, documents and other materials on the icourse platform. On MOOC classroom, focusing on teaching tasks, teachers adopt teaching methods such as roll call, discussion and examination to let students actively participate in classroom examination activities and discover the remaining problems in students’ self-study before class and live classroom. On live broadcast classroom, students’ questions are answered, the key points and difficult knowledge of the course tasks are elucidated, and the interaction between teachers and students is enhanced. The consolidation phase after class is the process of assimilating, absorbing, solidifying and upgrading the teaching content. It is an extension of classroom learning.

4.3 Integrating teaching methods to enhance learning motivationTeaching method is the means by which teachers and students complete the content of teaching activities in order to realize the teaching goals and tasks. This study sorts out and adopts the current three more important teaching methods. The problem-oriented PBL discussion method is tried. Teachers point out the possible or unsolved problems of the students through the discussion method to attract students to participate in the classroom. The outcome-oriented OBE method is explored to activate book theoretical knowledge and enhance students’ practical ability. Focus is placed on the application of mind mapping method. Combining pictures for knowledge transfer and explanation, boring and abstract teaching content will become more vivid and intuitive. The mind mapping method is concise and clear, making abstract concepts easier to understand and memorize. Through mind maps, students’ brains will be stimulated, and their divergent and holistic thinking ability will be cultivated.