Middle School Physics Experiment Teaching Within “Internet Plus”: From the Status Quo to Implications

Middle school physics experiment is a significant basic course with extensive content and strong practicability. This course has high requirements for students to master and understand the background and basic principles of various physical experiments, as well as the working principles and the use of various experimental devices. Based on the importance of physics experiment teaching and the limitations of the traditional experiment teaching mode, this paper first reviews the traditional mode in the context of the Internet and puts forward the new physics experiment teaching mode within "Internet Plus" in the new era, including theoretical guidance of constructing the experimental teaching mode, the innovation of teaching methods and examination methods, and the prospect of promoting the development of education industry. At the same time, this paper puts forward the network teaching platform system that can implement the new physics experiment teaching, including exercises, flipped classroom, and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC), and discusses them separately, hoping to provide research reference for middle school physics teaching and research in the future

Trialing project-based learning in a new EAP ESP course: A collaborative reflective practice of three college English teachers

Currently in many Chinese universities, the traditional College English course is facing the risk of being ‘marginalized’, replaced or even removed, and many hours previously allocated to the course are now being taken by EAP or ESP. At X University in northern China, a curriculum reform as such is taking place, as a result of which a new course has been created called ‘xue ke’ English. Despite the fact that ‘xue ke’ means subject literally, the course designer has made it clear that subject content is not the target, nor is the course the same as EAP or ESP. This curriculum initiative, while possibly having been justified with a rationale of some kind (e.g. to meet with changing social and/or academic needs of students and/or institutions), this is posing a great challenge for, as well as considerable pressure on, a number of College English teachers who have taught this single course for almost their entire teaching career. In such a context, three teachers formed a peer support group in Semester One this year, to work collaboratively co-tackling the challenge, and they chose Project-Based Learning (PBL) for the new course. This presentation will report on the implementation of this project, including the overall designing, operational procedure, and the teachers’ reflections. Based on discussion, pre-agreement was reached on the purpose and manner of collaboration as offering peer support for more effective teaching and learning and fulfilling and pleasant professional development. A WeChat group was set up as the chief platform for messaging, idea-sharing, and resource-exchanging. Physical meetings were supplementary, with sound agenda but flexible time, and venues. Mosoteach cloud class (lan mo yun ban ke) was established as a tool for virtual learning, employed both in and after class. Discussions were held at the beginning of the semester which determined only brief outlines for PBL implementation and allowed space for everyone to autonomously explore in their own way. Constant further discussions followed, which generated a great deal of opportunities for peer learning and lesson plan modifications. A reflective journal, in a greater or lesser detailed manner, was also kept by each teacher to record the journey of the collaboration. At the end of the semester, it was commonly recognized that, although challenges existed, the collaboration was overall a success and they were all willing to continue with it and endeavor to refine it to be a more professional and productive approach

Investigation into the Motives and Perceptions of Implementing Blended Teaching in a Chinese Higher Education Context

As a pedagogical approach in practice, blended teaching is generating unprecedented opportunities in higher education, but also poses new challenges. Whether teachers’ application of blended education can achieve steady and sustainable development is gaining increasing attention. This research examines whether teachers’ application of blended education shows sufficient motivation for sustainable development, by exploring the motives influencing blended teaching practices; examining the effectiveness of a blended course design that integrates automated essay scoring online; and describing the specific blended teaching situation in the given context. This can help develop knowledge of the motives affecting the implementation of a hybrid approach, improve teaching performance and quality in the given context, and add more value to the pedagogical practice by concentrating on its implementation. This dissertation includes a pilot study and three main experiments, as part of the project leading to a doctorate in Education. It employs quantitative and qualitative methods, and analyses the data collected from questionnaires, interviews, and triangular cross-verification of observations and informal conversations. The pilot study tested the feasibility of the intended qualitative thematic approach and provided parameters for designing the questions for the focus groups in the main study, through applying Creswell’s thematic analysis approach. Based on the pilot study results, the first experiment is a quantitative intervention in the given context. To apply the blended approach to college English writing as an intervention, a small-scale study involved 71 student participants divided into two groups, to compare an automated essay-scoring supported hybrid course design with traditional manual marking. This experiment examined the effectiveness of the blended approach and measured the attitudes of students with different scores. Statistical analysis reveals that students are not disadvantaged by the hybrid course (p<0.01). Both groups showed a significant improvement in performance (p<0.05). Students hold differentiated attitudes towards human scoring and automated essay scoring in a blended course design, correlating to their writing performances (p<0.05). The second experiment conducted two online focus groups with 14 teachers; it used thematic analysis and pattern identification techniques to identify the motives influencing the adoption and implementation of blended teaching, based on the participants’ narratives and descriptions. Between the two focus groups, the pandemic was found to affect the motive of technical skills, obliging all potentially suitable participants to practise online teaching for a whole semester. The two groups’ data were analysed separately before being combined to extract the results. Thus, the eight identified motives were inductively categorized into three dimensions (attitude, external environment, and subjective controllability). The analysis further explores the themes of conundrums and tentative countermeasures identified from the second focus group, observations, and informal online conversations. In the third experiment, a questionnaire survey, based on Neumeier’s parameters, was distributed to 166 teacher participants. The results presented the specific situation of implementing blended teaching, such as online platforms, time spent online, and mixed course design. The influencing motives were tested and measured by multiple linear regression methods in SPSS, with data collected from 187 valid questionnaires. Finally, a regression equation model identified the degrees and ranking order of influences, with the motive of self-efficacy being dominant (0.464), followed by social pressure (0.216), and perceived utility (0.183). Based on the research findings, this research proposes suggestions regarding blended teaching practices, such as resource construction and teachers’ professional development

An O2O English Drama Course Instructional Design at Middle Schools Based on 4CID-FBL

With the rapid development of the information age and the increasing international exchanges, great changes have taken place in the instructional mode of middle schools. In 2020, in order to cope with the outbreak of the epidemic, it has become an inevitable trend for middle schools to implement O2O teaching. This paper integrates the four component instructional design mode and the problem-based instructional design mode in the overall task instructional design, explores the holistic instructional design based on the comprehensive learning task in the development of English drama curriculum at middle schools, and innovates the teaching strategies in the O2O course design. The O2O course design emphasizes the student-centered learning, and takes tasks and problems as driving forces to continue comprehensive learning. Teachers should pay more attention to the learning experience of students in the process of teaching courses, and make full use of all kinds of online and offline teaching resources to achieve the requirements of China’s students’ English abilities standard of compulsory education

MOOCKnowledge: Establishing a large-scale data-collection about participants of European Open Online Courses

While MOOCS have emerged as a new form of open online education around the world,there are still no cross- provider and large-scale data collections that provides reliable information about demographic details of the population of MOOC participants on the one hand, and their motivation, intentions, social context, lifelong learning profile and impact on study success and career development on the other hand. The MOOCKnowledge project is an initiative to establish a large-scale data-collection about participants of European MOOCs. In this paper we describe the motivation behind the project and discuss the research focus. We explain the structure of the survey instrument, report about the data collection process and provide an outlook on potential future developments of the project.JRC.J.3-Information Societ

Analysis of the Efficiency of China’s Distance Economic Education in Force Majeure Circumstances

Дана стаття присвячена новітнім підходам до ефективної організації дистанційної освіти студентів економічних спеціальностей у закладах вищої освіти Китаю в умовах форс-мажору, що було запроваджено через складну глобальну епідеміологічну ситуацію, непередбачувану для усього світу. Окреслено зростаючу роль та важливість дистанційного навчання в сучасній вищій освіті взагалі та освіті економістів зокрема, а також зосереджено увагу на необхідності використання та постійної модернізації програмного забезпечення та платформ дистанційного навчання. Представлено сучасні китайські підходи до організації дистанційної освіти економістів у закладах вищої освіти. Визначено та обґрунтовано чинники ефективності дистанційної освіти економістів у закладах вищої освіти Китаю, серед яких виокремлено важливість апробації та впровадження в освітній процес нових методів інтеракції між учасниками освітнього процесу, застосування ігрового підходу до навчання студентів задля формування мотивації до навчання, створення та постійного оновлення інформаційно-освітнього середовища університету, забезпечення вільного доступу до сучасної цифрової техніки та інформаційно-комунікаційних технологій для навчання, використання та вдалого комбінування платформ дистанційного навчання у викладанні навчальних дисциплін, формування цифрової компетентності студентів та викладачів, а також готовності керівників та науково-педагогічних працівників закладів вищої освіти до змін. Дослідження ефективності дистанційної освіти студентів-економістів експериментально підтверджено, результати навчання та викладання у дистанційній формі упродовж навчального семестру в умовах форс-мажору проаналізовано на основі емпіричних даних опитування студентів кафедри економіки китайського закладу вищої освіти державної форми власності. В результаті проведення дослідження підкреслено важливість вивчення та аналізу позитивного досвіду Китаю в організації економічної освіти в дистанційній формі в умовах форс-мажору. Розроблено та представлено рекомендації щодо імплементації досвіду Китаю до підготовки економістів в університетах країн Східної Європи.This article focuses on the latest approaches to the effective delivery of distance education for the students of economic specialties in China’s higher education institutions in force majeure circumstances. Distance education was introduced due to the complex global epidemiological situation, unpredictable for the entire world community. The growing role and importance of distance learning in contemporary higher education overall and the education of economists in particular have been outlined. The need to use and constantly upgrade software and distance learning platforms is emphasized. The current Chinese approaches to the provision of the economists’ distance education in higher education institutions are outlined. The efficiency factors of the economists’ distance education in China’s higher education institutions were determined and substantiated. Namely, the following efficiency factors were considered: importance of approbation and implementation of the new interaction methods among the participants of the teaching and learning process, game approach application aimed at the formation of motivation of students to study, the creation and continuous modernization of the informational and educational environment of the university, the provision of a free access to up-to-date digital technology and information and communication learning technologies, the use and efficient combination of distance learning platforms in teaching disciplines, the formation of digital competence of students and teachers, as well as the openness of the colleges and university management and faculty to change. The effectiveness study of distance education provision for the students of economics was experimentally tested. The results of distance learning and teaching during the semester in force majeure circumstances were analyzed on the basis of empirical data from the students’ survey at the Department of Economics of a state-owned Chinese higher education institution. The research findings emphasize the feasibility of studying and analyzing China’s positive experience in the provision of distance learning economic education in force majeure circumstances. Recommendations for the implementation of China's experience in economists’ training in Eastern European universities were elaborated and presented