Editor's note: On the occasion of the 37th Teachers' Day, in order to promote teachers at the Open University of China (OUC) loyal to the educational cause of the Communist Party of China (CPC), and rich in enthusiasm and perseverance, the OUC News Network is launching a column featuring some of the past year’s award winners, showcasing their wisdom and dedication, publishing their stories, and promoting them as models of competence and ethical conduct.
Zhao Tingting holds a doctorate in Management from the School of Resources and Environment at China Agricultural University (CAU), and since 2010 has served as a full-time teacher and researcher in the Faculty of Agroforestry and Medicine of the Open University of China (OUC), where she is an associate professor. Her research focuses on special planning of national lands, rural revitalisation planning, and rural online education. She is responsible for the undergraduate Rural Regional Development and junior-college Agricultural Economic Management programmes at the OUC, while also overseeing the teaching, resource-construction, and team operations for 7 agriculture-related courses. Finally, she is master's programme thesis-defence expert in Land-resources Management at CAU, and a director of the Beijing Land-sciences Society.
One of her courses was named an Excellent Resource-sharing Course by the Ministry of Education (MOE) in 2017, and a textbook of which she was chief editor was selected for the 13th Five-year Plan of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs in 2019. She came first in 2010 and second in 2013 in the Advances in Science and Technology competition of the Ministry of Land and Resources (now the Ministry of Natural Resources), won the OUC Teaching-skills Competition in 2021, and was invited to attend the 24th and 28th International Distance Education Conference in 2011 and 2019 respectively to share her research on rural online education in China. She is also an important participant in the OUC "One College Student Per Village" programme, which was given a UNESCO King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa Prize for the Use of Information and Communication Technologies in Education in 2021. Finally, she was honoured in the 5th Young-teacher Awards for Institutions of Higher Learning in Beijing.
She has stayed committed to improving her political literacy and promoting ideological and political education in her courses.
As a member of the CPC, Ms. Zhao has displayed high ideological and political awareness, remained firm in her ideals and beliefs, held herself to the standard of a teacher with "Four Qualities", and insisted on fostering virtue and political awareness through her teaching. She is also a student, seeking personal growth through education, and is dedicated to the nearly 300,000 rural students enrolled at the OUC, integrating the guiding principles of the national rural revitalisation strategy and document No. 1 of the CPC Central Committee into her teaching. These efforts are behind her many awards.
She remains committed to grass-roots research and teaching.
Ms. Zhao, as a leader of the undergraduate Rural Regional Development and Administration (Village and Town Management) programme at the OUC, has always focused on the needs of teachers and students in terms of system operations and teaching, and constantly worked toward enhancing quality. While engaged in the heavy task of overseeing seven undergraduate and junior-college degree courses, she also puts unremitting effort into researching grass-roots issues every year, and delivering education to rural students. In December 2020, in particular, she taught in a programme for enhancing the education of cadres in the two village committees in Lvliang, Shanxi Province, attracting about 10,000 participants.
She continuously enhances her professional abilities and in-depth participation in land planning at all levels.
During her 11 years of teaching, Zhao Tingting has made full use of her professional expertise, cooperating with Beijing Normal University, CAU, the Shunyi and Pinggu District People’s Governments of Beijing Municipality, and the People’s Government of Shenyang Municipality in Liaoning Province, participating in land-use and urban planning, and integrating cutting-edge technology into her online teaching. As a technical director of Geographic-information System (GIS) technology, she has put GIS land-resource spatial calculations and allocation to use within land-use planning. She has also published more than 20 academic papers (including 4 in the Science Citation and Engineering indices), and 1 academic monograph, in domestic and international journals. The textbook Land-use Planning, of which she is chief editor, has an annual publication run of over 19,000 volumes.
She is devoted to online educational technology and promoting the Chinese paradigm of rural online education.
Ms. Zhao has been devoted for many years to the studies of teaching patterns and IT applications of using the online educational technology to develop professionals in the rural areas of China. In 2015, she was selected to take part in a visiting-scholar programme at the Institute of Education (IOE) of University College London (UCL) to study advanced educational technology and gain an understanding of international achievements in the field. Her researches for a key MOE planning project (Research on Distance Education Supporting Vocational Education, No. GJA104027) and a project of the Education Leading Group of the CPC Central Committee (Research on Building a Lifelong-learning System for All, No. 19JGWT0024) have gained influential results. She has been invited to attend the International Distance Education Conference in 2011 and 2019, in Indonesia and Ireland respectively, to introduce her online teaching of farmers in China. The "One College Student Per Village" programme, of which she is an important participant, has given technical training to more than 550,000 junior-college and undergraduate students in initiatives related to "Agriculture, Rural Areas and Farmers" in China. The programme, awarded a UNESCO King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa Prize for the Use of Information and Communication Technologies in Education in 2021, has made China's rural online-education paradigm accessible worldwide.
By OUC News Network