In order to promote the various education-reform initiatives currently underway at the OUC, its Faculty of Education held a forum, the first of its kind, on 23 December 2021, and invited discipline leaders and course leaders to discuss the topic in relation to majors, curriculum-resource construction, curriculum-evaluation design, team teaching, and other areas. Li Song, OUC vice president, delivered a speech, and the forum was chaired by Zhang Xia, vice dean of the Faculty of Education.
Li Song stressed that teaching reforms in open education should be solution oriented, with attention paid to the needs of learners, to cultivating their learning, independent-thinking, and problem-solving abilities, to construction of majors and courses, and to teaching materials and methods, with the aim of promoting open education and establishing a world-class open university with Chinese characteristics.
Jia Yuchao gave a speech titled "Teaching, National Standards, and Training Reforms in Primary Education", in which Jia outlined how the Primary Education major should set up a modular curriculum system based on the professional levels attained by teachers. Jia stated that, in order to implement the Ministry of Education's "Plan on Enhancing Education of Rural Teachers", Primary Education should focus on training rural teachers willing to stay in rural areas. In a speech titled "Construction of an Achievement-oriented Curriculum for Physical Education Majors", Ma Tengfei discussed how the Sports Operation and Management major could satisfy the job requirements of planning sporting events and activities, maintaining and managing stadiums and gymnasiums, marketing sporting goods, and so on, on the basis of achievement-oriented education.
In relation to curriculum-resource construction, Zhang Feng gave a speech titled "Exploring Flexible Training of Preschool Education Majors", giving examples of how on-the-job training would work, such as through simulation-based resources. Ma Tengfei spoke on "Exploration of Network-based Curriculum Design Inspired by Loose-leaf Textbooks", and giving the example of an "Adolescent Mental-health Education" course discussed how, in order to improve student satisfaction, it used "loose-leaf" textbook design as the basis of developing online courses through task guidance, knowledge maps, highlighting of notes, and visual presentation of multiple media resources. Exploring "Student-centred Curriculum Construction", Zeng Yangxuan described a student-centred childhood-development course focused on situational-learning analysis, and integrating multiple media in an innovative manner.
In relation to course-evaluation design, Lin Xiuqin recommended targeting evaluation methods to skills, grading them by level of difficulty, and using peer evaluation in Education Management courses, accompanied by self-testing, phased exercises, practical tasks, reflections, case analyses, scheme designs, small papers, and group tasks, to guide students in self-directed and participatory learning, reflection, hands-on work, and teamwork in order to promote evaluation.
Zhao Jia lectured on building teaching teams to address student needs and teacher development, referring to how the team for Foundation of Economic Mathematics in continuing education in Beijing has optimised curriculum design, shared resources and teachers, and enhanced student satisfaction and the professional development of teachers through effective teamwork and research, video teaching, and Q & A sessions.
The forum introduced the teaching reforms in the Faculty of Education and provided a venue for discussing experiences and practices. A number of course leaders from the International Department and Faculty of Political Science and Law engaged in exchanges with the lecturers on the topics of the forum.
By Faculty of Education, OUC