The Open University of China (OUC) held its second online workshop for teachers from the Institute of Teachers’ Professional Development of Mongolia (ITPD) on 16 March 2021, at the invitation of the UNESCO Beijing Office and ITPD. The workshop was themed around online course design with the aim of helping Mongolian teachers master the basic skills of online instruction and improve their online teaching abilities.

Since the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the UNESCO Beijing Office and the OUC in May 2020, this workshop has been held in order to implement the spirit of cooperation between the two sides and provide follow-up cooperation to support Mongolia in rebuilding its educational resilience after the pandemic. This also marks another round of in-depth cooperation following the first workshop in November 2020.

Mr Robert Parua, an education programme specialist from the UNESCO Beijing Office, delivered a speech. The training workshop was led by Shi Yunzhi, deputy director of the OUC International Department, with Mr Han Yanui from the OUC Faculty of Foreign Languages giving a lecture. The training focused on methods of online course design, with an emphasis on introducing Mr Han’s experiences of and reflections on integrating degree education in the form of small private online courses (SPOC) and massive private online courses (MOPC) with non-degree education in the form of MOOC through his explorations of an online course called "Computer Assisted English Teaching and Learning.”

The teachers from ITPD actively interacted with Mr Han while listening to the lecture, and said that they have gained a lot from the training. In the future, they will apply the OUC's online teaching methods and the practices they learned to improve their abilities in this field.

At the invitation of Mongolia, the OUC will cooperate with Beijing Yuying School to carry out further training on 25 March 2021, with the goal of  spreading experience and practices of epidemic prevention and control as well as “teaching and learning during school closures” in primary and middle schools in the context of COVID-19 in China.

By Miao Miao, OUC