"During the epidemic, we can listen to live lectures given by teachers in Beijing at home. The live courses have helped solve some of the psychological problems encountered by elderly people during this crisis, and offered us an effective ‘psychological prescription.’ I think this format is very suitable for elderly people." Wu Zhenping, a student from Inner Mongolia, shared these thoughts after watching the live online course organised by the Open University for Older Adults.
In order to ensure that elderly students "suspend classes but not learning" and to meet the learning needs of the people during the epidemic, the Open University for Older Adults launched the "Happy Learning and Epidemic Prevention" joint action and planned live online courses under the matle of “Happy Learning, Good Courses.” On 18 March 2020, the first phase of the "Happy Learning and Epidemic Prevention" live online courses were launched. Liu Caimei, Doctor of psychology, University of Edinburgh, UK, led students in considering the common psychological problems caused by the epidemic and provided practical methods to relieve them, including adopting the "10 second rule" to restrain the impulse to forward unconfirmed information, relieving excess anxiety by maintaining a normal pace of life, dealing with interpersonal relationships during these exceptional times, and looking at the sudden outbreak of COVID-19 in a positive light. More than 3,800 students from 22 provinces (districts and cities) watched the live broadcast.
Live online courses by the Open University for Older Adults
The live courses can be watched on a live broadcasting platform after registering through a WeChat group. The students took notes while listening and actively interacted with the teacher and other students on the message board. After the live broadcast, the students were able to review the course and consolidate the knowledge that has been learned, and share their learning experiences in the WeChat groups. A survey after the class showed that the satisfaction rate for this course reached 98%. The majority of elderly students are using the "WeChat group + live teaching” learning method, which is easy to operate and is a good experience, making it suitable for their demographic and meeting their desire to participate in learning all the time.
Since the establishment of the Open University for Older Adults in 2015, the Open University of China (OUC) has made full use of its school running system that covers both urban and rural areas across China, its advanced ability to apply modern information technology, and its rich and high-quality open education resources to carry out online and offline education for the elderly and has actively explored a "Health Preservation and Study Tour" integrated development model. At present, provincial open universities or education institutions for the elderly have been established in 29 OUC branches. Tutorial centres for elderly people have been set up in 8,741 villages (communities), 2,675 towns (sub-districts), 389 county-level cities or districts, and 127 prefecture-level cities, demonstrating the practice of bringing universities for the elderly right into their communities and neighbourhoods.
During the period of epidemic prevention and control, the Open University for Older Adults heeded the call of the Ministry of Education to "suspend classes but not learning" and launched the "Happy Learning and Epidemic Prevention" joint action on 3 February. Open universities for older adults, community education institutions, and some pension institutions and businesses in all provinces joined together and 31 free learning platforms were opened for free for elderly people in China. A series of public welfare lectures under the mantle of “Happy Learning and Epidemic Prevention”, integrating a total of 41,000 courses, were launched. Tens of thousands of e-books were released for free. A total of 9 million visits have been recorded across all the learning platforms.
By the Open University for Older Adults