From May 16^th to June 29^th , the College of Education held an online exchange program on the theme of “Curriculum and Learning Sciences” This program was hosted by Dr. ZHAI Xuesong, research professor of the College. The program has invited experts and scholars in the field of curriculum and learning sciences from the United States, Australia, Pakistan, Japan and Taiwan to give lectures and conduct academic exchanges.

The lecture series contains various topics such as SCI,SSCI paper writing and publication, measurement and statistics of educational research, online education during the epidemic, innovative research topic selection strategies, technical means and strategies of language learning, deep learning and instructional design. More than 400 students and teachers participated in this program.

On May 16^th, professor Minjuan Wang from San Diego State University delivered a lecture on “Writing and Publishing Educational Research in SSCI and SCI Journals”. From the perspective of a professional editor, professor Wang introduced the main types of paper publication, and explained the four steps that authors generally go through from writing to being accepted.

On May 19^th, Assistant Professor Usman Ghani from University of Ikra, Pakistan, gave a speech on “The Validation of Scale in Survey from The Perspective of Online Knowledge Hiding”. He first introduced the scale and its related knowledge and then took one research paper as an example to explain the creation of an online knowledge concealment scale. Finally, he used real research data to operate on SPSS and AMOS.

On May 29^th , Professor Chin-Chung Tsai from Taiwan Normal University delivered a lecture on “Massive distance education in formal schooling during Pandemic: Barriers, Challenges and Potential”. In the post-epidemic, it is important for scholars to know more about students’ beliefs and perceptions of learning. Moreover, he described three recently published studies that showed how K-12 students in Taiwan viewed learning.

On  June 3^rd, Professor Dorian Roehrs from the University of North Texas delivered a lecture on “Researching the Unexpected -Think Like a Linguist”. He mainly introduced the basic process and important steps of academic research. Firstly, he talked about how to choose a research question and the ways to narrow down the scope of a topic. Then he pointed out that argument was the core of a paper and listed different forms of arguments. In the end, he encouraged students to do better research.

On June 5^th, Professor Gwo-Jen Hwang from Taiwan University of Science and Technology delivered a lecture on “Key to the success of e-learning studies - Strategies of finding innovative research topics”. Professor Hwang pointed out that the first criteria for implementing successful research of e-learning was determining a good research topic. He then listed some titles of e-learning studies and asked students to judge whether it was innovative or not. Besides, he introduced some effective methods such as brainstorming, knowing more learning strategies, research issues and educational theories via reading papers.

On June 8^th , Professor Nian-Shing Chen from Taiwan Yunlin University of Science and Technology delivered a lecture on “Emulating real-world environments for interactive and embodied learning using social robots and IoT-based tangible objects”. Professor Chen mainly focused on the language learning of mixed-race children. He firstly analyzed three theories of children development and then tried to apply social robots to language development and tangible objects to cognition development. After that, Professor Chen also demonstrated the practical operation of the social robot designed by his team.

On June 16^th , associate professor Jun Shen from University of Wollongong, Australia delivered a lecture on Micro-learning based on machine intelligence. Dr. Shen, who has a research background both in computer science and education, reported and shared his research results combining machine learning and education. At the beginning of the lecture, Dr. Shen focused on hot topics and introduced the current situation of open education at home and abroad. Then he put forward the definition, framework, online and offline explanation of micro-learning as a service. At the same time, combined with some up-to-date applications, for instance Tik Tok, he drew an analogy between learning in educational field and social field.

On June 23^rd , Professor Xiaopeng Ni from Franklin University delivered a lecture on “Research Based on Instructional Design”. Professor Ni first introduced what design was and the goal of design. Then he explained the basic epistemology of research based on instructional design: Learning theory is jointly shaped by researchers and practitioners in the context; the goal of research instructional design is to solve problems encountered in the classroom and to provide information for future classroom decisions and broader use. Finally, Professor Ni enriched and deepened the lecture with Exploring Atlantis and other cases.

On June 29th, Yuri Uesaka, Associate Professor of University of Tokyo, delivered a lecture on “How to Assess and Cultivate Students’ Deeper Learning and Competencies in School: Japanese Cases Toward the Realization of 21st Century Skills”. Dr. Uesaka pointed out that in the face of changing educational aims and current situations of teachers and students, Japanese primary and secondary schools were making corresponding changes, such as reforming the educational evaluation system, changing the teaching forms and methods, and implementing deep learning.

“It is a feast of knowledge”, a student said. During the seven-week program, students listened to lectures on curriculum and learning science and had an active interaction with the speakers. The students not only had closer contact with the field of curriculum and learning science, but also improved their professional literacy and cross-cultural communication ability.

 Photo by CHEN Lu & ZHANG Enming

Auther: CHEN Lu & HE Tianxi