How can we stimulate the vitality of online teaching via scientific adjustment and enable learning at home through multiple platforms? In order to cope with a sudden rise in the demand for home-based learning during the epidemic, Harbin Radio and TV University (RTVU) has enacted a series of powerful measures to provide services for more than 40,000 open education students and more than 100,000 citizens with online learning needs to study at home while school is closed during the period of epidemic prevention and control, which enabled education and teaching to develop at an accelerated rate.
Despite the impact of the epidemic, Harbin RTVU has created wider channels for enrolment with its wide variety of high-quality teaching resources and thoughtful and careful support services, improving its social reputation and degree of recognition. In spring 2020, the open education enrolment at Harbin RTVU increased, with a total of 5,431 students registered for RTVU programmes, an increase of 10.25% on the same period last year.
"I was worried that the epidemic would delay my study and affect my graduation. I didn't expect that the university would ‘transfer’ face-to-face teaching to online courses before school began,” Li Jingzhe, a student majoring in the preschool education junior college programme at Harbin RTVU said. “Now, I feel reassured since I am able to successfully study at home.”
Taking into account the need to contain the epidemic along with the actual needs of teaching, Harbin RTVU quickly decided to switch from face-to-face classes to teaching via pre-recorded videos that could be shared by all teachers and students. Thirty-eight hours of teaching videos for 14 undergraduate and 16 junior college courses were recorded. At the beginning of the semester, the courses were launched via the Education Information column on the official website of Harbin RTVU. Students can complete all of the courses and any other materials from their major with the help of the online platform.
In response to the public demand for home-based learning and epidemic prevention and control knowledge, since 1 February, Harbin RTVU has also organised for community education colleges to use the online education resources of the university and Harbin Lifelong Learning platform to develop online learning support services for residents. An online live stream of “Classes in the Air” was organised and online classes were set up so people could interact over their learning outcomes. In addition, 60 public welfare online micro courses on epidemic control and prevention, including knowledge related to COVID-19, personal and group protection, psychological counselling and intervention for the public and medical staff, and rumour analysis were also launched in order to provide professional and scientific knowledge for the prevention and control of coronavirus. Four hundred and twenty-five teachers served community students attentively b offering learning guidance and answering questions online, meeting the students’ needs to stay safe at home and diversify their learning.
In order to help the majority of students and citizens feel at ease with study and epidemic prevention, the university made full use of its online course resources, gave full play to the role of its teaching team, carefully planned online teaching activities, stimulated the vitality of online teaching, and fully met the learning needs of students, which has not only enabled residents to learn at home but has also helped with epidemic prevention and control. To date, the total number of online learning courses offered by Harbin RTVU has reached 103,000, spanning courses for majors, community education, vocational skills training, and more.
Although going back to the grass-roots level to conduct publicity is not allowed during the epidemic, the advantages of distance education and the coverage of its teaching system have helped the university to turn crisis into opportunity. Open education and community education support each other. The advantages of online teaching technology and the development of learning support services have not only brought enrolment work a step forward and have also had a positive effect on recruitment.
By OUC News Network, reprinted from Heilongjiang Daily