Chinese senior executives' feedback on online course – after two consecutive days of ZOOM course (first part)
Interviewees:
The whole student group with the average age about 45 years old. They are company executives, entrepreneurs and investors. The ratio of men to women is about the same. Basically, they all have skills of using online meeting software such as ZOOM, WeChat classroom, WeChat meeting. One third of them have been trained in delivering speeches and conducting digital lecturers, and a few are corporate coaches, and most participants usually give public speeches in varies occasions.
Background：
From April 10, 2020 to April 12, 2020, a DBA Qualitative Research Methods Course at one business school was conducted online using ZOOM software. The time was 9: 00-12: 30 in the morning and 2: 00-5: 00 in the afternoon.
This course is a course for 2019 intake students, but there was a total of 25, 26 students from the three cohorts of 2019, 2018 and 2017 online. It was a required course for 2019 students, so they were always online and listening carefully. Students from 2018 and 2017 intakes were signing up to listen, and they were often going in and out of the online classroom. The students all entered the conference room silently, trying not to make any noise.
The whole process was not too smooth. The teacher was disconnected once every hour, and he needed to restart ZOOM and came back. It is not known whether it is the cause of the network or the software itself, or the cause of account permissions. The teacher was meeting trouble when switching avatars, PPT sharing, and word sharing. The teacher was very serious and hard working but the results were not ideal. The slightly older students are not very patient.
Student A: (working as an Associate Professor in a college in Shenzhen, female, about 40 years old)
Courses that require in-depth thinking and discussion are not suitable online.
Student B: (resident in Singapore, traveling in and out Silicon Valley, Southeast Asia, mainland China, investor, female, 55 years old)
Very sleepy, the effect is very general. The customer experience is not good, and teachers and students cannot interact with each other.
Student C: (resident in Hong Kong, travel in and out Hong Kong, Mainland China, investor, male, 50 years old)
The benefit of the online course for me is that it saves a lot of my commuting time on transportation. In this case, I can turn on the computer at an appointed time and go online.
Of course, online also has its limitations. I think it is more convenient for one kind of courses that only transfer knowledge. Just because one person speaks, it feels like a speech. So, transferring knowledge is to deal with knowledge only in it's technical aspect, or just talking about some examples, it is easy to do it online. However, it is inconvenient to interact online, when the class needs to involve interaction, that situation will turn to be more complicated. So an online speech is not easy to carry the latter responsibility.
In addition, there are many auxiliary requirements in online courses, including platforms and networks. Also, I think they need someone else besides the teacher act as a coordinator on the platform, able to coordinate the content and technique inside. For example, online courses and online lectures are different. There may be a lot of people in the online lectures, some people may speak and some people may ask questions, it is more normative. However, in the online class, if interaction is needed, then teacher is not easy to arrange and to manage or the software is lacking of ready functions.
At the same time, because it is an online class, if there is only the teacher who deals with not only the students but also the software by himself, it is very challenging for the teacher. He needs to pay attention to a lot of issues. So, I think the school has two possibilities. Teacher may go back to school, and there are some studios ready for professors who will deliver lectures. In that case, his class material and anything else needed can be typed up online and prepared well in advance, including microphones, studio systems, computers and so on.
But if studio is not ready in the school, I suggest that the school should send professional staff to the teacher's house and help him arrange the whole set of equipment. In that case, teach him to use it once. I believe this is more improved for the whole process.
At the same time, it is necessary to distribute the teaching materials to students in advance. Course readings are needed during the class. And I would highly recommend that students can print them out. In the online case, on one hand, we have the computer with teacher presenting, on the other hand, we have the course material on hand to turn pages. Otherwise, the students, while looking at the mobile phone or the computer to listen to the course, they still need to open the software including PPT and word files. This will be too complicated.
In general, I really like online courses. Suppose that the arrangement of the course is that you have taken three days of online courses with three sessions per day. Each session is about two hours. Then, there may be a section that can be interactive. What we call the "blended approach" is a hybrid or integrated approach to training or education, which may be ideal.
There are several observations:
Ideas: Those who doing marketing is faster than those who doing business models
Conditions for successful online courses:
1. Content has structure and logic
2. Do not pursue in-depth, but be clear about the concept
3. Chart thoroughly defeat words (courseware can be text)
4. The voice should be slow, and the language should be pure.
5. Don't speech too loud to break the Microphone
Course Design: Building blocks in the way of stacking wood and practice hand-in-hand. This is the teaching method of solution focus. It is very suitable for DBA.
Student D: (resident in Shanghai, coach for executives of multinational companies, female, 47 years old)
Online is uncomfortable, there is no interaction, and there is no concentration, and the insight of deep thinking cannot be triggered out by the classmates.
Personally, I feel that if I take classes online, the time needs to be set up relatively short, and I am able to concentrate. Especially if I don’t turn on the video function, every time I went out for a break, I am not willing to come back to the class. Therefore, the constraints of classroom are not for us this time.
Then, in terms of content, if it is "what" content, it is easier to take classes. Well, if it is a course of "why" and "how", it is impossible to take classes online, even if there are some online discussions, I think it is impossible. Moreover, many modern people's learning methods are different now. Many people used to study by reading. Some students input by listening, and some students input by feeling. Letting alone senior executives, even the college students, their input patterns are perceptual. In that case, only listing and seeing online, but there is no way to arise other feelings, he cannot learn.
Then some teachers are an inspiration style. If the teacher only teaches the knowledge of ‘what’, I think online is ok. However, when the teacher wants to inspire us, let us concentrate, drive us, open our sub-consciousness to learn deeply, there is no way to achieve this effects online while the teacher can only sit there, not moving at all. Some teachers' outputs are in different ways, by saying, looking, feeling, and some teachers can only take classes by walking around with students to exchange.
As for the teacher, he can only "speak" now in an online environment. In fact, there are quite a few pedagogies by teachers. We are now advancing the coaching style and facilitation style into the classroom. But in this case, nothing on the Internet can be carried out. The teachers originally had 365 skills kits, but now, he has only one trick: he can only attract the students’ attention by speaking. Moreover, none of our teachers have received professional training on delivering good speeches. In fact, some of their voices are very unpleasant. If he has only one trick, it is difficult for him to impress the students online, and he cannot call on the students to study with him.
Student E: (resident in Shanghai, multinational company Asia-Pacific purchasing executive, partner of a private fashion service company, female, 45 years old)
Let me talk about my perception of online courses and online meetings. We had several online meeting for business purpose before. In most of my business meeting cases, I just need to listen to the content. It feels like you are listening. But in fact, the absorption ratio is discounted. If there is live discussion in the online meeting, then you are participating and the efficiency is achieved. As for online courses, last night, I listened to Mr. Feng Lun's lecture on "Transformation of Real Estate after the Epidemic, and Innovation Opportunities". Listening to this kind of lecture, even if you are listening, you may still be doing other at the same time, but it does not matter. There is no problem in listening to such a course to just catch some new information. But as today, the content is relatively new and deep, and there is a need for pretty strong thinking, which requires concentration. This logic is too strong, layer by layer. As yesterday's words, you can easily absorb them when you hear them, it is easy for a brain to absorb them; but as today, if you want to touch those deeper layers, if you go down layer by layer, it is a bit deep for only listening, the effect is really general.
The issue about the class schedule is really a bit long, especially to the extent that it is three days of logical discussions, which is too long. We started work around February 10th, all online. Many corporate studies, many discussions, many meetings are just too exhausting. Day after day, if the time is too long, it is particularly tiring. When you started, you were sitting right there. Maybe the next day I need to walk around the room with my computer. It is really tired, very tired.
Today’s course is indeed a case study. If the course material you printed is over on the desk, it might be better, otherwise you can’t see clearly from the screen. Did you really listen? It seems like you understand, but if you really want to do it, there still be a huge gap.
There is another problem. We seem to be only listening to the lessons. The students of 2019 will be more attentive than us when they are participating. Our starting point may also be a problem.
If I do online courses, I will arrange the syllabus. It needs to be very clear. I may speak for an hour. There is a period of discussion in the between. I will tell you clearly what will be discussed at the very beginning. Finally, how would I evaluate the performance of each person, the performance of each group, and give all the materials, that is, to constantly grab everyone, to constantly give opportunities, to show their faces, so that they will catch up the schedule. Speaking stage by stage, then the students knows what he or she is going to do immediately. Students need to listen to it and output it immediately after digestion. Always inputting without outputting will not work.
Student F: (resident in Shanghai, owner of OEM clothing manufacturing company, partner of several consulting companies, trainer, male, 55 years old)
To be honest, I think online courses still have a certain technical bar. It's not simply moving offline to online. What is this online course suitable for? For example, universal knowledge and one-way communication, such as some knowledge points and trends, some personal opinions, judgments, and sharing, I think they are all suitable for an online format.
But frankly speaking, I don’t think I ’m very satisfied with the past two-day online courses. There are several aspects: First, online teachers can't see students' expressions. Teachers should know the kind of expectation of the offline students who are listening to the class. What do they want to hear? How can it be expressed more clearly? I think this is a very high need from teachers. For our course, the reason why this course is not good may be that the teacher is not very familiar with the network, electronic equipment, and online teaching tools.
Secondly, in fact, this teacher is a classic academic professor, usually taking off-line classes more often. But after switching to online classes, he copied the teaching methods of offline courses to online, asking do you understand, is that clear, in fact, this is a waste of time. I think online courses are not very suitable for interaction. In fact, the lectures of the online courses should be more precise and concise and refined, because time management, energy management, and concentration management are all important.
Online courses usually can’t take too long. A lot of information will be attacked after a too-long course, it will easy to absorb them. Unlike our offline courses, if you don't understand, you can ask immediately. If there is interaction, an explanation from teacher will make the question clear. But online, we all can't see each other and there is no way to interact. I think that online courses require teachers to clarify their knowledge and then make some demonstrations for everyone. I think this will be better. All in all, I think the online courses are still a bit tricky.