In 2010, people would make some assumptions about ten year later in 2020: cars can drive in the sky and people can learn or work sitting at home instead of gathering in the classroom and tall buildings. Obviously, cars are still being driven on the road. But the second one, it seems like it is already happening during the spread of coronavirus.
As schools closed their doors and online education forced to proceed, China was the first one to test its implementability. Basically there are three forms of online teaching in China during this period. One is live streaming teaching, one is teachers record the video beforehand and send the link to students. The last one is all the students learning the universal video material.
How is the online course going?
Take one student’s online learning timetable as an example.
The beginning time for classes in the morning has been delayed 30 mins. The quantity of knowledge input decreases, every day it goes from seven lessons to five. At the same time, there is less time for mandatory collective exercise time. In general, it can be seen that the time spent on compulsory learning at home is reduced and the time of self-study is more.
We also interview two young students below 18 year old and a teacher with the online education experience. Be self-discipline and social communication is the main two part that students think they need to have more during this period. “I find it hard to focus on the screen to learn, it used to be a playing tool but now I have to regard it as a learning device.” Lily Liu, a third-year middle school student in China said, she also prepared for her senior school entrance exam in July. For the younger students like Sam in the kindergarten, the lonely feeling makes him feel bad. Actually, teacher also find hard to get in touch with their young audience through the phone, a teacher teaching art said her students ask her how to draw a bird she literally don’t know how to teach her through language.
Some social reality behind the online education
These experimental teachings have exposed many problems and proved that online teaching has a long time to develop. For example, the family economic level and parents’ level of education. News reports say children in the countryside don’t have a device for Internet classes, such as laptops or iPads.
Some parents with lower levels of education also pay less attention to their children’s learning. In comparison, the children in the city are paid more attention by their parents. Their parents will question the quality of this online course teaching and further promote the optimisation of online courses, but also frequent communication with teachers to urge children to learn. However, there are teachers who reflect the issue that children’s learning autonomy be transferred to the parents, parents take the role of study instead of their children. Among them, multiple transitions make the cost of learning time double, but also let children not communicate with teachers better.
Students have young age aren’t suitable for online education
However, young elementary school students aren’t suitable for studying through the screen. Through this period, we can see that primary school students do not have enough self-discipline, and lack good communication with teachers and classmates. There are three benefits that cannot be replaced by online education.
1.Practice
Applying knowledge through practice is a very important part of primary education. It includes constant interaction, asking questions, quick resolution and summary. This includes listening and perceiving the emotional changes of each classmate in the class that are not available online. Through the video, we also unconsciously want to hide behind the screen, do not want to ask questions, and are not willing to think.
2.Social Communication
“I am a bit nervous going back to school after such a long time. It will take me some time to fit in the classroom.” Lily said. In just two months, students can feel alienation. Although students usually use social software to contact each other, they still feel some distance.
Face to face interaction can help them build their personality through communication and sharing information, and practicing emotional expression. This will also help them to communicate well in the society in the future.
3.Learning circumstance
They can motivate each other so that they can learn effectively in the classroom. Appropriate supervision is needed for young children. Teachers also play an important role to supervise students and make rules to create the learning atmosphere.