From classic classrooms to computers

The university's chancellor Yang Zongkai shared the school's experience of adapting to the virtual world at an international education conference Microsoft Research Asia hosted in late October.

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"What's special about CCNU is that most of our (recent) graduates, who are in their 20s, will become basic education teachers," Yang says.

"This means they'll instruct a generation of students born in the digital age. But the teachers are still what can be called 'digital immigrants'. They still have a lot to learn."

Tang Bin, a 38-year-old teacher at the university, started teaching online courses four years ago.

Tang says this has made his workload heavier.

"The form of traditional teaching is simple and clear," he says.

"Getting control of the whole class is not complicated. But keeping everyone's attention remains one of the biggest challenges in online courses.

"It's hard to know if the student is still there and willing to participate in online discussions. How can we know the student isn’t skipping class and doing something else?"

There are about 50 students in every basics of educational theory class Tang teaches. The course is compulsory for education majors.

Tang divides his students into groups to encourage group discussions.

He has been pleasantly surprised to discover his shier and quieter students become talkative online.

"Student participation is much better online than in traditional classrooms," he says.

"We university teachers have long faced headaches when trying to get students to express their views in class. This problem is resolved when we move online."

But he has also faced such tech problems as computer crashes and Internet disconnections during classes.