Received: 15 March 2020Revised: 19 March 2020Accepted: 20 March 2020

DOI: 10.1002/hbe2.191

CASE STUD Y

COVID-19 and online teaching in higher education:

A case study of Peking University

Wei Bao

Graduate School of Education, Institute of

Education Economy, Peking University, Abstract
Beijing, China Starting from the spring of 2020, the outbreak of the COVID-19 caused Chinese
Correspondence universities to close the campuses and forced them to initiate online teaching.
Wei Bao, Graduate School of Education, This paper focuses on a case of Peking University's online education. Six specific
Institute of Education Economy, Peking
University, Beijing 100871, China. instructional strategies are presented to summarize current online teaching
Email: [email protected] experi- ences for university instructors who might conduct online education in
Funding information similar circumstances. The study concludes with five high-impact principles for
Ministry of Education of China and the project online education: (a) high relevance between online instructional design and
The Research of Faculty Development
student learning, (b) effective delivery on online instructional information, (c)
Peer Review adequate support provided by faculty and teaching assistants to students; (d)
The peer review history for this article is
available at https://publons.com/publon/10. high-quality participation to improve the breadth and depth of student's
1002/hbe2.191. learning, and
(e) contingency plan to deal with unexpected incidents of online education
platforms.

KE YWOR DS

COVID-19, instructional strategies, online education

1 | INTRODUCTION
2 | CASE CONTEXT

Since the early spring of 2020, Chinese universities have been

Since the beginning of the 21st century, Chinese universities have
experiencing an unprecedented massive “migration” from
launched online education reforms to form an open education net-
traditional in-class face-to-face education to online education. Due
work based on information and network technologies. With the
to the widespread of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in China,
rapid development of Massive Open Online Courses, the number of
following the government's requirements of “nonstop teaching and
these online courses offered by Chinese universities has exceeded
learning,” most Chinese universities have started online education.
500, and nearly 3 million people have participated in these courses
In a short time period, millions of faculty members started to
(Shang & Cao, 2017). As the forerunner of online education in
teach in front of a computer screen, and their students have to
Chinese universi- ties, Peking University has offered about one
stay at home and take the courses through the internet. Beyond
hundred online courses. However, compared to the face to face
China, with the spread of COVID-19 across the world, as of March
courses offered by universi- ties, the proportion of online courses
13, 61 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, North
is still low, and most of the online courses are taken by adult
America, and South America have announced or implemented
vocational students who have not registered at Peking University.
school and university closures and most of universities have
The outbreak of COVID-19 was unexpected and it forced Peking
enforced localized closures (UNESCO, 2020). This paper therefore
University to launch live online programs of a total of 2,613 under-
identifies the high-impact practice principles of online higher
graduate online courses and 1,824 graduate online courses in order
education and provides a case study for colleagues at universities
to ensure the normal teaching operation, with 44,700 students stay
to consider conducting online education in similar circumstances.
at homes or dorms (Lei, 2020).
Hum Behav & Emerg Tech. 2020;2:113–115. © 2020 Wiley Periodicals LLC113
 114 BAO

3 | CASE FOCUS reasonably break down the

It is a massive, disruptive shift to move all the existing courses

online in a matter of days. In general, a complete online course
requires an elaborate lesson plan design, teaching materials such
as audio and video contents, as well as technology support teams.
However, due to the sudden emergence of the COVID-19, most
faculty members are facing the challenges of lacking online
teaching experience, early prep- aration, or support from
educational technology teams.
In addition to the challenges to the faculty, existing research
indicates that more than 60% of Chinese college students have a
tendency to have ambiguous future career goals, lack active
academic involvement, and spend more time in-class study
compared with out-class study according to their study time (the
average total graduation credit requirement for Chinese universities
is 163 credits) (Bao, 2019; Bao & Zhang, 2012). In addition, based on
an analysis of students' responses in social media, for such a large-
scale online teaching, the challenges for students did not come from
technical operational obstacles. Instead, they have difficulties due to
the lack of a good learning attitude. Students often have problems
such as lack of self-discipline, suitable learning materials, or good
learning environments when they are self-isolated at home.
The present case study will focus on those problems presented
above, and discuss how faculty can implement effective
instructional strategies to prevent negative learning attitudes of
college students and ensure the effectiveness of online education.

4 | INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES

Based on observations of online teaching at Peking University, this

paper classifies six instructional strategies to improve students'
learn- ing concentration and engagement in order to achieve a
smooth tran- sition to online learning.

4.1 | First, making emergency preparedness

plans for unexpected problems

Since all the courses were switched to online education mode, the
computer servers may not be able to host such a large scale of new
users, the online education platform may often shut down because
of overload. In order to solve all kinds of unexpected issues timely,
fac- ulty need to prepare Plan B or even Plan C before classes start
and inform students in advance.

4.2 | Second, dividing the teaching content into

smaller units to help students focus

Many Chinese college students have shown weak persistence in

online learning, which seriously restricted their learning
effectiveness (Li, Wu, Yao, & Zhu, 2013). In order to ensure that
students concen- trate on online study, faculty should
content of the in-class teaching into different topics and adopt a
mod- ular teaching method. In other words, on the basis of
ensuring a clear knowledge structure in the curriculum, faculty
divide the teaching content into several small modules with each
lasting approximately 20–25 min.

4.3 | Third, emphasizing the use of “voice”

in teaching

In traditional in-class teaching, body language, facial expressions,

and teachers' voice are all important teaching tools. However,
once a course is switched to online teaching, body language and
facial expressions are under restrictions as it is difficult to use
these tools through screens, and only “voice” could be fully
functioned. Therefore, in online teaching, faculty should
appropriately slow down their speech to allow students to
capture key knowledge points.

4.4 | Fourth, working with teaching assistants

and gain online supports from them

The technical requirements of online teaching are far greater

than tra- ditional in-class teaching for inexperienced faculty
members. In view of the fact that most of the faculty at our
university are insufficiently trained or supported to operate
online education platforms, the sup- port from teaching assistants
is particularly important. Faculty should fully communicate with
the teaching assistants before the class to make sure that they
understand the objectives, knowledge frame- work, and teaching
activities of each class. In this way, the teaching assistant can
provide effective support in online teaching. In addition, teaching
assistants can also provide consultations and answer ques- tions
for academically underprepared students by using email, WeChat,
and other social platforms after class.

4.5 | Fifth, strengthening students' active

learning ability outside of class

Compared with traditional in-class lectures, faculty have less

control over online teaching, and students are more likely to
“skip the class”. Therefore, the progress of online teaching and
its learning effective- ness largely depend on students' high-level
active learning outside of class. To this end, faculty should use
various methods to moderately modify students' homework and
reading requirements to strengthen students' active learning
outside of class.

4.6 | Sixth, combining online learning and

offline self-learning effectively

Insufficient pre-class study preparation, limited participation in

class discussions, and inadequate discussion depth are common
 BAO 115

phenomena in traditional in-class teaching, similarly, those issues

REFERENCES
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Bao, W., & Zhang, X. (2012). The multi-dimensional structure and
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cognitive levels of students. In this way, faculty are able to make teach- ing. Peking University News. Retrieved from
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Thus, students will not learn ambiguous, fragmented, and surface Shang, J., & Cao, P. (2017). “Internet plus” and the reform of higher
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response. Retrieved from https://en.unesco.org/themes/education-
emergencies/ coronavirus-school-closures
5 | CASE CONCLUSION

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
This paper concludes with five principles of high-impact teaching

s include college impacts on student learning outcomes, finance of higher

ial investment impact students' learning among higher education institutions in China. Her latest book, Unfinished Transformation: College Impacts on Stu- dent Development (Educatio

practice to effectively deliver large-scale online education,

through the case analysis of Peking University's online education.
First, the principle of appropriate relevance. The quantity,
difficulty, and length of teaching content should match with the How to cite this article: Bao W. COVID-19 and online
academic readi- ness and online learning behavior characteristics teaching in higher education: A case study of Peking
of students. Second, the principle of effective delivery. Due to University. Hum Behav & Emerg Tech. 2020;2:113–
students' charac- teristics of low concentration in online learning, 115. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbe2.191
it is essential to adjust the teaching speed in order to ensure the
effective delivery of teaching information. Third, the principle of
sufficient support. Faculty and teaching assistants need to provide
students with timely feedback, including online video tutoring and
email guidance after class. Fourth, the principle of high-quality
participation. It is necessary to adopt some measures to improve
the degree and depth of students' class participation. Last, the
principle of contin- gency plan preparation. In view of the
extraordinarily large scale of online education, it is necessary to
make contingency plans in advance for addressing possible
problems such as the traffic over- load issue of the online
education platform. Furthermore, since this online teaching
“migration” is implemented quickly during the outbreak of COVID-
19, students' anxiety needs to be relieved in various ways to ensure
that they can actively and effectively engage in online learning.

ORCID
Wei Bao https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4134-1667