To guide teacher development, enhance teaching and training reforms, and promote academic discussion, the Faculty of Education and the Learning Resources Department of the Open University of China (OUC) held an interactive workshop on teaching reforms on 2 Dec. 2022.

The workshop was presided over by Prof. Zhu Zhiyong from the College of Education Administration of the Faculty of Education of Beijing Normal University. He held in-depth exchanges with the participating teachers on issues such as classroom-teaching philosophy, self-improvement, classroom-teaching reforms, and teaching experiences. He also pointed out that teaching philosophy guides classroom behaviour to some extent, and that teachers must claim and share their own philosophies, and practise them in all aspects of their teaching. Originality, innovation and self-reflection are expected of teachers.

The workshop encouraged such reflection, leading participants to consider how to move from imparting knowledge to building teacher-student learning communities, inspiring students to participate actively in online and offline hybrid teaching, stimulating teacher-student and student-student interaction, and integrating the knowledge students bring to the classroom while designing the "content, form, opportunities, time and atmosphere" of classroom dialogue and using online-teaching tools to enhance classroom efficiency and coverage.

The participating teachers stated that self-improvement, facing up to problems, and working to enhance open-university degree education in all aspects – cooperation, projects, research, and so on – would be their constant aim.

The workshop was innovative, and inspired participants to reflect on their experience and look toward the future. 30 people attended online, including teachers from the OUC Faculty of Education and other departments, as well as full-time Education teachers from several branches.

Written by Zhang Huirui; photos by Xia Jie and Guo Xinyue, OUC