A high-end academic forum titled “Transforming Teaching Methods of Higher Education in the Post-Epidemic Era” was recently held online by Central China Normal University (CCNU). Experts reviewed achievements of higher education reform during the period of epidemic prevention and control from different aspects and discussed the development of the reform of teaching methods in the period of regular epidemic prevention.

Zhao Lingyun, Party secretary of CCNU, said that we saw a large change in teaching methods from offline to online during the epidemic. In the regular epidemic prevention period, we will face a comprehensive transformation in education concepts, teaching platforms, teaching methods and teaching relationships.

Online teaching has become an ordinary state, said Huang Ronghuai, dean of the Smart Learning Institute of Beijing Normal University. In the construction of online teaching capacities, universities should regard fluent, convenient and appropriate platform resources and digital resources as their supports, develop flexible and diverse learning methods, and promote closer coordination between governments, enterprises and universities. We should redefine the form of universities, change the role of educators, integrate formal and informal study methods, and narrow the achievement gap between students. In addition, with the help of new technologies, we should develop personalized, situational, data-driven education.

Yang Zongkai, president of Xidian University, said that new technologies can provide individualized education for each learner through technical analysis, solving practical contradictions, such as large scale teaching and personalized teaching as well as high-quality and balanced teaching, which have confronted education circles for a long time, ultimately forming a new education ecology. It is necessary to realize the revolutionary impact of information technologies on education, systematically analyse the direction of education reform by means of new technologies, clarify the reconstruction path of educational ecology, promote talent training and construct a new type of learning society.