Introduction:

It has become a staggering challenge to stop classroom learning not yet teaching and learning in a scientific way given the large-scale battle waged against COVID-19 for a long period of time. The National Key Research Base of Humanity and Social Science in General Collages and Universities of the Ministry of Education in Beijing Normal University invites a constellation of experts in education fields and frontline teachers to voice their ideas to optimize your teaching and learning in such a special case.

To Change as Soon as Possible

With suddenly unexpected breakout of COVID-19, schools and teachers are confronted with severe hurdles. Since 29th, January, the Ministry of Education proposed that stopping classroom not yet teaching and learning, elementary and secondary schools, as well as educational organizations alike embarked on online education to offer a kaleidoscope of learning content ranging from subject-required materials, to home exercising, writing and plenty of after-school curriculum for free. There have been mixed opinions when it comes to this issue, however, mainly divided into technical and teacher aspects. The former is getting upbeat as the degree of national informatization on the whole increases while it’s not so for the latter, to address which entails in-depth thinking of our current teacher education system and corresponding practical refinement in a bid to tackle potential challenges in the process of school revolution in the future.

Considering lopsided distribution of education resources in China, it’s imperative to prioritize balanced development of locational education. The key to this problem is shortening the gap of teacher education in different locations. To achieve this is no easy task because for one thing, although the quantity of normal collages and universities is spectacular, the high quality of teacher education is concentrated in small numbers. For another, a low proportion of students choose education as their major even if they are admitted in normal universities, and education resources and atmosphere are inadequate. Over a long term, the only way to go is to establish online teacher education system with indispensable part of organizing and sharing quality resources driven by informatization.

Online teacher education system is government-dominated and society-engaged with high schools as its main body to ensure smooth online teaching and learning during epidemic prevention and control period. It stipulates that high schools including normal universities should make full use of Mook and quality online curriculum teaching resources at provincial and school level with help of other kinds of online teaching platform, in-campus internet learning zones, etc.

 It’s due to this epidemic that provides us with an opportunity to reflect improvement of current teacher education system. We now know that besides well-prepared teachers, the updating views of relationships between educational and technological revolution also counts.

To Jump out of Box

It should be clear that simple replacement of outdated teacher education system with a new one doesn’t work. The two share their original job of training teachers and divide in their implementing logic and organizing ability of teacher education resources. Transforming teacher education from ‘passive’ to ‘active’ cannot be neglected, meaning ideal online teacher education system can maximize flexibility and resource-sharing. Attempts should be made in triggering welcome changes in teaching and learning patterns and forms despite of technical changes on a superficial level.

Prerequisite

1)        Online teacher education system should be erected according to national standards and nation-recommended resource corpus;

2)        Online teacher education system should be based on online teacher education assessment institution;

3)        Innovation of teacher education forms to facilitate deep engagement of teacher learners;

4)        Provision of individualized learning environment for teacher learners;

5)        Establishment of local online teacher education learning community to propel teachers’ interaction and professional growth.

In summary, to face transformations of education patterns and forms brought out by COVID-19 and various possible changes in future society head-on, it’s advisable to better Chinese modern teacher education system by establishing online teacher education system with shortening gaps between teacher education in different locations and innovative teacher learning patterns.