Innovative Explorations on Cross-region, One-stop Team-based Online Facilitation Mode: A Case Study of CALL Han Yanhui, the Open University of China, China Yu Yanxia, Doumen Radio and TV University, Zhuhai, China October 2016, Seoul
Outline 1
• Introduction
2
• Literature Review
3
• Research Methodology
4
• Data Analysis
5
• Discussion of Findings
6
• Conclusion
Introduction
With “Internet +” being upgraded for China’s national strategy in 2015, the new era of “Internet +” has come true all around the country. With online learning becoming a trend, basing on the web will be an effective way to promote lifelong learning, which is the responsibility and effort of OUC (Yang Zhijian, 2013).
“For the goal of developing a brand-new university, new web-based learning mode or teaching mode will be established in the process of explorations. Such a mode will be learner-centered, and combine learners’ active learning, distant support services, and face-toface teaching. Online teachers’ team will be set up based on subjects and courses in order to carry out online guidance and tutoring as well as such activities of online teaching and research, and online management”. (Yang Zhijian, 2013)
Dr. Yang Zhijian, from a strategic height, stressed the importance of online teachers’ team and online support services. The online teachers’ team and online support services based on core online courses are the key components of ‘Six-Online Integrations’, the OUC’s talent training mode proposed by Yang Zhijian.
‘Six-Online Integrations’ includes online core courses, online teachers’ team, online learning assessment, online learning support, online teaching management and online learning space.
Since the 2013 spring semester, CALL, a core online course of OUC, under the lead of Han Yanhui, has set up a cross-region online teachers’ team in the schooling system carrying out teaching reform on the mode of ‘Cross-region, One-stop Team-based Online Facilitation’ (CROSTEFA) proposed by Han Yanhui.
Both the quality of facilitation, building and working of the team, and online learning support has made great success. The mode has caused a good response inside and outside OUC. Then, what is the CROSTEFA mode?
The RTVU System Organizational Chart (Kang, 2009)
OUC
The NEW OUC System Organizational Chart under CROSTEFA
‘facilitation’ The expression of ‘facilitation’ is different from the conventional ‘teaching’. Traditional face-to-face ‘teaching is centered by ‘teaching’ or ‘lecturing’ by the teacher. The teacher acts as the dominant role, and students remain in a very passive ‘fed-up’ status. The expression of ‘tutoring’ in traditional discourse system is used against the expression of ‘teaching’ at the dominant position. Within the new discourse context of online learning, it is inappropriate to keep using ‘tutoring’ since it could be ‘dwarfed’.
‘facilitation’ To correspond to conventional ‘teaching’, Han Yanhui suggests using such an expression of ‘facilitation’. Although it facilitates learning, in terms of significance, it would not be ‘dwarfed’ or regarded as ‘inferior’. In online education, teachers’ ‘facilitation’ and students’ ‘learning’ is kept at the same level, and the ‘facilitation’ is definitely student-centered.
‘facilitation’ “In the (online learning) environment centered by students’ self-regulation, the traditional role of teachers’ ‘teaching’ will be greatly weakened, that is, the main role of the teacher is to provide students with guidance, counseling, assistance and support helping them complete online learning, that is, a role of e-facilitator” (Han, 2011), where the role of ‘e-facilitator’ is in fact ‘to facilitate’ instead of ‘to teach’.
Literature Review
A literature review indicates that most of domestic “one-stop” teaching modes are still based on the traditional face-to-face education, and have a greater difference with the CROSTEFA mode based on the OUC learning platform. Except most literature based on conventional education involving no cross-region studies, we did find six studies with a strong correlation to our research. However, it also shows that, at home and abroad, such research is very scarce focusing on studies into the CROSTEFA mode targeting traditional RTVU system with administrative divisions being independent of human resources, finance and infrastructure.
Zhang Weiyuan (2011) made a more macro analysis into open universities discussing the status, philosophy and schooling strategy of open universities in China.
He stressed that “open universities need to design and develop online platform systems for one-stop services with powerful functions”. But the author did not specify how such a one-stop service platform would be designed and run, and how the one-stop online teaching mode based on such platform systems could be implemented smoothly.
Jia Guoxiang and Ma Rong (2009), Sun Wenzhu, Chen Fulong and Hu Zhinong (2011) and Yang Hongyu and Zhao Jing (2013) presented their deeper understanding of defects of the teaching mode based on three-level platforms of the Central Radio and TV University (CRTVU).
CRTVU, 44 provincial RTVUs and thousands of branches have to install the appropriate teaching platforms with large investment into software and hardware, and high maintenance costs; three-level platforms independent of each other cause a series of problems: it is hard to share resources between different levels of learning platforms and update resources synchronously in an accurate and timely way resulting in duplication of resources development; it is not easy for the interactions and communications between teachers, between teachers and students, and among students at all levels;
it is difficult to conduct comprehensive statistical analysis into online teaching and learning behaviours of teachers and students on learning platforms bringing about rather limited evaluation methods for the quality of curriculum resources and teaching effect; course management is based on resources delivery and presenting leading to weak interactions in teaching process; decentralized teaching information and multi-direction guidance causes students to “get lost”; the problem that dispersion of three-level platforms results in weakened faculty is more prominent.
But, in fact, the “one-stop” teaching mode suggested by Jia Guoxiang and Ma Rong (2009) is confined to provincial RTVUs. It is really convenient for students’ learning; however, from the perspective of teaching and management, it is actually two-stop, that is, the platform of CRTVU and platforms of dozens of provincial RTVUs. It fails to achieve true “one-stop” teaching and learning as well as management, so there exist limitations. In addition, barriers in communication between teachers and students from different provinces are still not eliminated.
The physical one-stop suggested by Sun Wenzhu, Chen Fu Long and Hu Zhinong (2011) is actually based on the traditional three-level platforms logically, and does not achieve both physical and logical one-stop teaching and learning mode. Moreover, their thinking is still based on developing resources separately, and there is no unified thinking of curriculum concept. Obviously, it is not appropriate for the transformation of OUC to web-based teaching or learning.
In contrast, it should be Yang Hongyu and Zhao Jing (2013) who conducted research into defects of the RTVU system with a more systematic and thorough perspective. Their one-stop “Three-dimension Collaboration” teaching mode is closer to our CROSTEFA mode. however, their understanding is still limited to “resources” rather than “courses”. Changes of connotation of learning should be based on the “curriculum”.
The two scholars’ explorations into one-stop teaching mode is meaningful, and the proposed “Threedimension Collaboration” teaching mode also has certain reference value, but their studies just stay at the ideological level without the test of practice, and there is no specific methods and procedures for implementation in practice.
So, does the CROSTEFA mode by the teachers’ team of CALL help overcome some long-standing defects of the RTVU system and give full play to advantages of the schooling system in order to achieve a higher quality of education?
Research Methodology
The research combines questionnaires and interviews, the internationally recognized quantitative and qualitative methods. Especially, the authors conducted questionnaire surveys of students of the 2014 spring semester to 2016 spring semester consecutively. In addition, students of the latest semester, the 2016 spring semester were interviewed. Thus, rich and objective research data has been collected.
Data Analysis
In this part, an analysis of the questionnaire data obtained from the five consecutive semesters will be conducted focusing on three aspects: learning effect, learning support services and course design. The analysis will be combined with the data obtained from the interviews.
Learning Effect The analysis was done around three key questions:
1. I’ve mastered the skills of designing and producing CALL courseware. 2. Based on learning the course, I think online learning is not inferior to face-to-face learning. 3. I think the quality of online learning is assured. The first question reflects the main learning objective of the course; the second one is a comparison between online learning and traditional face-to-face learning, while the third one involves the lifeline of education, namely, quality assurance.
Learning Effect 120% 100%
100% 95%
97% 80%
87%
80%
100%100% 94% 86%
100% 91%
86% 86%
89% 89%
60% 40% 20% 0%
2014 Spring Semester
2014 Autumn Semester Question 1
2015 Spring Semester Question 2
2015 Autumn Semester Question 3
2016 Spring Semester
Learning Support Services Three key questions: 1.The learning support by the teachers’ team helps me maintain learning motivation.
2. The teachers’ team provides proactive guidance. 3. I prefer the learning support based on cross-region teachers’ team. The first question is the key to the learning support services, which ensures that students would not fall behind and get through the course study. The second one indicates the consciousness of the teachers’ team actively providing students with learning support services, and the idea of being student-centered. The third one reflects the features of the CROSTEFA mode.
Learning Support
97%
100% 100%
2014 SPRING SEMESTER
95%
100%
95%
2014 AUTUMN SEMESTER
100%
94%
97%
94%
2015 SPRING SEMESTER
Question 1
Question 2
100% 100%
2015 AUTUMN SEMESTER
Question 3
100% 100% 100%
2016 SPRING SEMESTER
Course Design The following five questions: 1. The ‘Ice-breaking’ activity in Module 1 helps us get to know each other quickly for harmonious community atmosphere. 2. I think the Honor Roll makes a powerful incentive to me. 3. I prefer the conversation-style way of linking Learning Resources and Learning Tasks. 4. I prefer the Peer Assessment tasks. 5. I think 100% formative assessment is reasonable for this course.
The “Ice-breaking Activity” in Question 1 is designed to help the cross-region students who are unfamiliar with each other create an online learning atmosphere as soon as possible, which is very useful for the smooth implementation of students’ follow-up activities. The second question is designed to stimulate students and keep their learning motivation. The third one involves the presentation of the learning resources and learning tasks. Our course is studentcentered and the two parts are linked together by the equal conversation between teachers and students. The fourth one is designed for us to know more about students’ opinion about Peer Assessment tasks, which is a relatively new way of evaluation. The fifth one is about the overall assessment methods for the course with no examinations.
Course Design
80% 60% 40%
20% 0% 2014 Spring Semester Question 1
2014 Autumn Semester Question 2
2015 Spring Semester Question 3
2015 Autumn Semester Question 4
Question 5
2016 Spring Semester
95%
100%
95%
95%
95%
97%
94%
100% 86%
97%
89%
100%
94%
94%
100% 86%
93%
91%
86%
100%
90%
83%
93%
93%
100%
93%
120%
Discussion of Findings
We have found through the quantitative and qualitative research that the CROSTEFA mode would not have succeeded without the leading concept of course design and constant high-quality one-stop learning support services by the cross-region teachers’ team, which finally led to good learning effect.
In terms of learning effect, students can learn how to design and produce CALL courseware through studying the course and achieve the learning goal as well. As a matter of fact, it is the success of the course design. Moreover, students believe that the quality of online learning is assured and the corresponding learning effect is not inferior to that of face-to-face learning. Admittedly, such a learning effect is very exciting. The success is inseparable from the good course design and high-quality learning support.
What’s more, it also shows that the CROSTEFA mode we have been exploring is preponderant and powerful. It is because of the integration of the excellent teachers within the cross-region OUC schooling system and the one-stop, high-quality learning support services by the teachers through the OUC learning platform that the effectiveness and quality of online learning is ensured. The CROSTEFA mode is able to offer students powerful learning support services, give full play to the advantages of the teachers’ team, help students maintain learning motivation, provide proactive learning guidance to students and make sure the occurrence of the learning process and high quality of learning.
……by cross-region integration of teachers, the problem of the shortage of teachers or no teachers in local RTVUs could be well solved, so that students can be offered the guidance of the excellent teachers within the OUC schooling system and education equality is achieved.
Based on the online course, course integration is completed, thus the repeated development and waste of teaching resources is avoided. The mode has revolutionized the previous teaching mode based on the traditional three-level platforms of the RTVU system. What’s more, it has truly turned the one-stop facilitation as well as the cross-region integration of teachers and students into reality.
Conclusion
The analysis of the data obtained from the last five consecutive semesters by combing the quantitative and qualitative methods indicates that the CROSTEFA mode can achieve better learning effect and assure high quality of learning because of the true integration of teachers and students within the OUC schooling system and the capacity of offering one-stop, highquality learning support services. The mode helps to solve certain long-standing problems within the OUC schooling system and provides good reference for the transformation of OUC to web-based teaching or learning.
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