We continue with responses to the new readings I’ve pulled, this time with the articles dealing with the use of educational technology in China.
- Gu, Y. (2006). An ecological model of e-learning in a Chinese context: critical reflections of five years’ practice of e-learning management in the BIOE. Studies in Continuing Education, 28(2), 99-120.
This article is not a research study, but a commentary/reflection on the experience of a Chinese educational administrator, who was tasked with setting up an institute of online education in Beijing, which after 5 years, had 15,000 registered students. Although the author did not present this as research, it was in interesting insight into the mindset of an indigenous Chinese educator in China.
Something intriguing was that he tried to implement many constructivist methods, especially because this is how the educational community in language studies most commonly believes that instruction should be presented. But, this did not work as well as he would have hoped, attributing difficulties to general busyness of the students, and the poor quality of online curriculum materials, which were simply transferred into digital format from traditional materials. Also, as he acknowledges, “implementation requires the adoption of new practices and/or learning styles or attitudes which are in conflict with existing ones.”
The author reports that through the experiences of those 5 years, he found that students needed much more support than initially thought — “It will never do that students are simply given the resources with the cheapest form of service, such as ‘Here you are. Help yourself please!’” This is notable, as it could have resulted from a desire to have students more self-directed, however, as some other studies have found, particularly in China, students need more structure and support, especially when adopting learning approaches they are not accustomed to.
- Huiyu, Z., Yan, D., & Geng, C. (2005). Educational technology training for higher education teachers in China and some suggestions for improving it. Chinese Education and Society, 38(6), 69-78.
This article was translated from Chinese, and is a survey study of attitudes of Chinese teachers towards CAI, and ways to improve this. The study did not provide much discussion of the data, other than reporting actual raw results, so it is a little hard without more background on the study to figure out the larger implications. However, it does point to current attitudes of teachers as being overwhelmingly positive towards using computer technology, and a rising percentage of educators who feel comfortable using computer technology in the classroom. This seems to point to tangible results from the Chinese Ministry of Education’s initiatives to technologize the Chinese classroom and train teachers for technology use.
- Forrester, G, Motteram, G., & Bangxiang, L. Transforming Chinese teachers’ thinking, learning and understanding via e-learning. Journal of Education for Teaching, 32(2), 197-212.
This article discusses a collaborative effort between UK and Chinese educators to create an e-learning curriculum and program at Beijing Normal University. From the tone of the article, though, it sounds like the UK educators played more of a lead and advisory role. It was my impression as well that there was a bit of an assumption that the UK educators knew the “best” way, and that they were helping their fellow Chinese teachers. For example, when commenting on Chinese learning preferences, the UK authors quote Woodrow & Shaw (2001): “[Chinese reverence for facts and the teacher's authority] contrasts strongly with the concentration on the individual and the nurturing of personal learning which dominates much of secondary education in Britain.” I don’t know if it’s just me, but the quote seems to have a negative attitude towards Chinese pedagogy.
The authors do recognize that the development of an e-learning in China needs to be “sympathetic to Chinese cultural values and existing methods of teaching and learning.” But even in the way this is phrased, it places the foreign teachers in the superior role, urging the foreign educator to be patient and understanding with backwards Chinese educational thinking. Maybe I am reading too much in between the lines, though.
One finding of the authors was that to their surprise, Chinese educators were much more willing and flexible to accommodate new approaches. This gives credence to some other researchers’ claim that Westerners tend to make overarching judgments about Chinese pedagogy on the basis of only surface practices. Because of the structure of the Chinese classroom and viewing interactions through a cultural lens, Westerners might view Chinese educators as being inflexible or even uncaring to their students, when in fact the teacher-student relationship goes much deeper than this.
What is promising is the authors’ finding that Chinese educators truly valued the new opportunities that an e-learning approach was providing them, and that there was great potential for further development and exploration.
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