Education+in+China

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Education in China is very different from America. I had the opportunity to speak with Jason who works in a Chinese Middle School at length via Skype on October 12, 2011. I also spoke with Jaime Ketchen who taught in China for a year and also led a group from the USA to China a few years ago.

Jason talked about how education in China is very different and thus that impacts how technology is used in instruction. Education in China is very much based on relaying knowledge to students. There is very little student to student interaction because collaboration is not valued in the educational system. Instead, teachers relay most of the information and students learn it.

Students generally attend boarding schools during the week (arrive on Sunday evening and go through Friday afternoon). During the week, students attend classes both during the day and the evening, and the extracurricular activities such as sports are not generally offered except at special academies. Jaime talked a lot about how students are very competitive when it comes to academics, as getting into the best colleges is the ultimate goal. Students can figure out what they want to do once they get into college.

Because of the emphasis on knowledge consumption and memorization, technology, and especially collaborative techology, is not used in the classroom in the hands of students. Also, because class sizes can be up to 60 to 80 students, student collaboration and interaction is difficult if not impossible. Therefore, the teachers are the users of most of the technology. Some classrooms are equipped with SMART Boards and others have portable SMART Boards. There is no desktop computer in the classroom but teachers have a laptop they bring with them to class, in addition to a desktop in their office. Wireless coverage is spotty and is generally more available in the buildings that house exchange teachers.

Students did have computer classes as part of their curriculum, but it seems that most of the classes are probably geared towards learning Office Suites.

When you talk about a Global World being offered to students in China, from my discussions with Jason and Jaime, it sounds like very little collaboration between students of different schools or countries is being offered. Much of it depends on what the teacher chooses to relay to the students. Jason said teachers can collaborate with each other online, but it sounded as if that was only within the school and not outside of the building.

Overall, from my discussions with these two individuals, I felt like technology is very underutilized in Chinese education, mostly because of the style of education that they have.