On October 21-23, 2014, the Open University of China (OUC) held the Seminar on the OUC Learner Support System Construction in Changsha City, Hunan Province, to explore the structure of the OUC learner support system construction, to make the online teaching process practical, and to improve online teaching quality.
The focus of the seminar was to discuss tentative ideas on the structure of the OUC learner support system construction, to make exchanges on the pilot work of the OUC learning network and online curricula, and to look into the thoughts and measures of online teaching team building. Forty-four people attended the seminar, including relevant leaders and some people in charge of educational administration and teaching from the OUC branch schools of Hunan, Liaoning, and Shenyang, a total of 16 national provinces. The seminar was chaired by OUC Vice President Li Linshu.
Director Liu Zhimin, of the OUC Learner Support and Student Affairs Centre, summarized the trial operation of the online curricula for the autumn 2013 semester and spring 2014 semester. She introduced the concept, aim, management, operation, team building, and its organization, effect, achievement and problems, as well as thoughts for the next step. She indicated the key issues concerning the construction of the OUC learner support system to begin with online curricula and to lead the corresponding platform construction, the organization of teaching teams and the transformation of learner support models.
OUC teachers Zhao Jian and Han Yanhui introduced the organization and practice of the trial operation of Basics of Economic Mathematics and Media-Assisted English Teaching. Representatives of the trial operation schools, Vice President Peng Simao from Hunan Branch School and Vice President Zhao Liling from Xi’an Branch School shared their experience and achievements in the organization of the trial work, as well as their thoughts and difficulties encountered in the process.
Deputy Director Cheng Gang of the OUC Learner Support and Student Affairs Centre delivered the special report entitled “Thought on the Construction of the OUC Learner Support System and Teaching Team. He said that the “systematic service concept” should be upheld for the OUC learner support system, beginning with serving the students’ autonomous learning, and to take into consideration several factors concerning teaching, management, and technology from the perspective of overall service. He talked of the conception for the OUC learner support system and made the proposal to develop a platform-based service system that is systematic and standardized to meet learners’ diversified service demands. He underlined the leading role of teaching team building in the construction of the learner support system.
All the people present at the seminar were involved in discussions related to the construction of the learner support system and focused on the exploration of teaching models and the building of teaching teams by integrating the OUC learning network and the experience of the two rounds of online curriculum trial operation. They praised the progress thus far and held that the two courses discussed at the seminar were typical and representative and that there were many shining points worth remembering and popularizing; the institutions participating in the trial have also done a lot of arduous and solid work, accumulating valuable experience for others to learn from. They thought that the top-down design of learner support system is indeed key to solving a number of problems, to improving teaching quality, and to forming system-wide synergy at this crucial transition period of the OUC. Meanwhile, the current concept of the learner support system is still clear on the whole, and is up to the school running characteristics and development trend. The focus in now on how to implement it step by step. On the premise of ensuring a basic teaching level, actual conditions of running the school in different areas are taken into consideration by maintaining certain flexibility.
According to what Li Linshu said in his summary, to strike a balance between the macro and micro aspects, inheritance and innovation, characteristics and brand creation in learner support system, the root lies in how to leverage the advantage of the system and how to implement information technology in teaching.
By Cui Naipeng, the OUC