The Microcourse entitled “Mixed Chorus — Voice Constitution and Formation Arrangement,” designed and made by the Ministry of Education Research & Training Centre for Community Education, has achieved recently the second prize of “the First National Microcourse Contest”. 

“The First National Microcourse Contest” was jointly sponsored by the China Education Technology Association, the Modern Distance Education Group of National Universities and the China Learning & Development Association. The contest is aimed at promoting education digitization, deepening the reform of classroom teaching, exploiting new ways of teaching effectively in the environment of education digitization, enhancing technological instruction of front-line teachers and students, advancing microcourse construction, increasing teaching quality, establishing an application platform to exhibit, exchange and popularize microcourses, and providing an open, positive and creative environment. 

The contest included 1,572 entries selected from nationwide universities, vocational institutions, basic education institutions and educational institutions affiliated to  industry. 18 First Prizes, 55 Second Prizes and 98 Third Prizes were awarded in the end. 

The target students for “Mixed Chorus: Voice Constitution and Formation Arrangement” are the vast majority of community residents and lovers of chorus generally. By adapting a modern version of the Socratic method and selecting and incorporating domestic and international community music video resources, this course helps the community’s chorus lovers study more intuitively, and more effectively acquire choral knowledge and skills. Also, this course design breaks through traditional curriculum design’s reliance on academism, integrating a variety of teaching resources while combining practice with theory by providing a three-dimensional knowledge display system for choral courses. Reports indicate that in order to better serve community residents, the Chorus Knowledge Microcourses will be developed into a series of community education curriculum for the Open University of China.

Additionally, there were five other radio and television universities that earned prizes from the contest, among them, first prizes for Tianjin Radio and TV University (Tianjin RTVU)-Hongqiao Branch’s “Scenario Testing Method for Strangers” and Tianjin RTVU-Nankai Branch’s “Reverse Deduction for Binary Trees in Data Structure.” Among those winning second prizes awards were: Xi’an RTVU’s “Foundations of Accounting” and “Numerals and Quantifiers,”  Changchun RTVU’s “Chinese Zodiac,” as well as “Quotation of Cells” by Zhongshan RTVU. Several third prizes went to Xian RTVU, once each for “Layout of Terrace Structure”, “Human Physiology—Blood Volume and Type”, the “Cardio-pulmonary Cerebral Resuscitation” and “Three Fundamental Operations of Logical Algebra.” Anhui RTVU picked up third prize as well, for “Microcourse on English Language and Culture—Idiom: Achilles’ Heel,” Guangdong RTVU, for “Series of Micro videos of FAQ Regarding Computerized Accounting Experiments (CD-ROM version, online version).” Rounding out the third prizes were the “B2B of Transaction Modes in E-Commerce” and the “Interlinking and Setting of Actuators in Stepping Motors” by Tianjin RTVU-Hebei Branch, “Sin—Subjective Aspects of Crime” by Tianjin RTVU-Nankai Branch, “Conference Content” and “Conference Process” by Tianjin RTVU, “Understanding Main Points of CIF Trade Terms” and “Chinese Character on the Tip of One’s Tongue” by Zhuhai RTVU, and finally “Jump Smash” by Foshan RTVU.   

By Meng Jia