Authentic Learning During the Outbreak

Dr. Shen Xiaomin

ICI, ECNU

Over the years, we have been promoting authentic learning, situational education, in-depth learning, as well as life-moral education and so on, hoping to cultivate civic literacy to adapt to the society of 21st century. The outbreak brought a great opportunity for educators to carry out real practice.

The outbreak provides teachers and students with a life situation for authentic learning, which is vivid, complex and “thrilling”, reflecting the brilliance and gloom of human nature. It reveals the causal relationship between things that we have not seen or ignored in the past, and makes us realize that people who have nothing to do with ourselves are actually in a community with a shared future.

The complex real situation is conducive to promoting students’ deep learning and high-order thinking skills. When they encounter the similar or new complex problems in the future, they will be able to make more informed choices.

So how to carry out authentic learning during the outbreak? Two frequently used words came to my mind: mask and isolation, which affect the lives of each and every one of us. I envisioned two learning themes based on the two words.

01 MASK

Masks have now become a rigid demand for each of us. If we take “mask” as the theme, and integrate various related phenomena and events during the outbreak into learning materials, and design some appropriate topics and learning tasks. Then, what will students learn?

If teachers respect and trust students and provide learning support appropriately to encourage their questioning and exploration, the students will have various kinds of wonderful ideas. For example:

1. Every family should store some masks, and once the virus strikes, everyone will wear a mask immediately, so that the spread of the virus can be stopped in time. Meanwhile, it still needs to be demonstrated scientifically that how many masks should a person keep.

2. Masks should become an important strategic material, and cities should increase its reserves so as not to be caught off guard by the virus.

3. In order to save mask resources and reduce environmental pollution, the regulations for wearing masks can also be improved.

4. In order to effectively increase the production of masks, the mode of production can be improved, so that the supply and distribution of masks can be more fairly and effectively.

Students could discuss the proposals made by themselves and their classmates.

In order to verify whether their ideas are feasible, to express their ideas more clearly and persuasively, and to win the support of more people, they have to acquire knowledge and skills in various disciplines. This is the situation-based authentic learning that we advocate, pointing to the teaching of key competency. With such teaching and learning, when these children grow up and become managers, and even national leaders, they will respond effectively to the outbreak in a more reasonable way.

02 ISOLATION

Some isolation measures have not effectively stopped the spread of the virus, why some of the hard-core isolation measures that were initially praised have been criticized, and why there exist differences between ancient and modern isolation measures at home and abroad. Children will have a more profound and comprehensive understanding of human nature, society and the interdependence between people. Based on this understanding, their generation may be able to create more effective and humane defenses against viruses in the future.

The epidemic is a living textbook, it puts students in real problem situations and “forces” them to think, explore, participate in discussion and solve problems. We should excavate its educational value, innovate curriculum instruction and teaching materials, and educate students in a way that we do not follow at ordinary times.

I need to admit that we need to do more professional research to make this textbook become effective. Therefore, the outbreak not only provides valuable teaching materials for primary and secondary school teachers, but also brings us researchers real and valuable research topics and experimental sites for educational research.