







































 

 

 

 

 

 

A Review of the Largest Online Teaching in 

China for Elementary and Middle School 

Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Longjun Zhou,
1,2

 Fangmei Li
3
 

 
1. Jiangsu Second Normal University, Nanjing 211200, Jiangsu, China 

2. Engineering Research Center of Digital Learning Support Technology, Ministry of 

Education, Changchun 130000, Jilin, China 

3. Nanjing Dianji Institute of Psychological Education, Nanjing 210000, Jiangsu, China 

Abstract. In order to reduce the impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on 
teaching, online teaching with the goal of “School is Out, but Class is 

On” was launched throughout China, and had achieved the “School is 
Out, but Class is On” of more than 200 million people. This special pe-

riod of education has attracted great attention from Chinese scholars, 

and has conducted research on the theme of online teaching during the 
pandemic. Based on the relevant data of CNKI and other foreign open 

databases, this article reviewed and summarized the relevant researches 

of COVID-19 pandemic online teaching by survey and analysis. Through 
the statistical analysis of related research, the current research on 

online teaching mainly focuses on the selection of online teaching plat-
forms and resources, the overview of online teaching organization, the 

implementation and the evaluation of problems. 

Best Evid Chin Edu 2020; 5(1):549-567. 

Doi: 10.15354/bece.20.re040. 

Keywords: COVID-19; “School is Out, but Class is On”; Chinese Elementary and 

Middle School; Online Teaching

 
 

 

About the Author: Fangmei Li, Nanjing Dianji Institute of Psychological Education, Nanjing 210000, Jiangsu, 

China. Email: 1037576462@qq.com; 

Correspondence to: Longjun Zhou, Professor, Jiangsu Second Normal University, Nanjing 211200, Jiangsu; and 

Research Scientist, Engineering Research Center of Digital Learning Support Technology, Ministry of Education, 
Changchun 130000, Jilin, China. Email: 294437034@qq.com. 

Conflict of Interests: None. 



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Vol.5, No. 1, 2020 550 

Background 

OVID-19 has engulfed most countries and regions in the world. According to 

the statistics of the World Health Organization (WHO), as of April 20, 2020, 

211 countries and regions have reported confirmed cases, and the cumulative 

number of confirmed cases has reached more than 2.3 million (WHO, 2020). Affected 

by COVID-19 pandemic, a record number of students worldwide cannot continue their 

normal school life. According to the monitoring of the United Nations Educational, Sci-

entific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), as of April 20, Beijing time, 191 coun-

tries have implemented nationwide school suspensions, affecting approximately 1.575 

billion students which accounting for 91.3% of the total number of registered students 

worldwide (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2020). 

Because of it, countries began to seek respond ways actively to minimize the 

impact of the pandemic on education. Among them, online teaching has become an im-

portant measure for many countries to learn during the school suspension. They had 

deployed distance education and tried to solve its complexity to promote the “Class is 

On” during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this process, from elementary, middle school 

to college, from Europe, Asia to North America, all countries affected by the pandemic 

have become large-scale experimental sites for online teaching. 

The Chinese government launched “School is Out, but Class is On”, integrating 

all teaching resources, using the Internet and informatization technology, implementing 

distance learning and home learning for over 200 million students during the delayed 

spring semester period, which greatly guarantees the continuity of learning during the 

pandemic (Ding & Yu, 2020). 

With the continuous spread of the pandemic, the global school suspension has 

become server. Many countries and education researchers pay attention to how China 

conducts online teaching during the pandemic, and it has become a hotspot in the fields 

of education management, information technology, policy science and decision-making 

consulting around the world. 

Based on this, the research on Chinese online teaching during COVID-19 pan-

demic needs to be analyzed and reviewed. So that to further summarize the hotspots, 

difficulties and the existing problems during the pandemic, and to reflect on the weak 

points in order to conduct a more in-depth study. This review is based on the published 

data from CNKI, foreign open databases, and relevant official websites of China. It 

combined with relevant research reports, and provides a reference for the current im-

plementation of global online teaching. 

Literature Retrieval 

This article reviewed and summarized the relevant researches of COVID-19 pandemic 

online teaching by survey and analysis. 

We conducted research on the CNKI database and foreign open databases rep-

resented by SSRN, use “School is Out, but Class is On”, “COVID-19”, and “Online 

C 



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Vol.5, No. 1, 2020 551 

Teaching” as keywords to search public information on other related websites. After 

screening irrelevant documents, as of April 18, 2020, a total of 156 articles were ob-

tained (103 from CNKI, 42 from foreign open database, and 11 from other valid docu-

ments), of which there are 105 articles related to “elementary and middle school”. After 

reviewed and analyzed these 156 articles, we found that the research on online teaching 

has developed rapidly and continuously. 

As far as research objects, they include national or local education departments, 

college education researchers, elementary and middle school teachers, and social educa-

tion researchers. Among them, college educators, elementary and middle school teach-

ers are the major. 

As far as the number of journal articles, before March 2020, there were 34 rel-

evant articles in the CNKI database, only 8 were journal articles, and most of them were 

reported by newspapers. However, after a month and a half, the number of related re-

search journal articles had reached 48, and there were 8 research reports published on 

related websites. So we can see that the number of research about COVID-19 had de-

veloped rapidly, and the research quantity and quality had also increased constantly. 

As far as the research types, they were more diversified, including research on 

the specific description of online education, survey reports through questionnaires on 

the implementation of online teaching, and experimental research on the effects of 

online teaching. 

As far as the research content, the main points were the construction of online 

teaching environment and resources, and how to carry out teaching guidance. “Cloud 

classroom”, “Network environment”, “Live broadcast class”, and “Teaching strategy” 

are high-frequency keywords, which indicate that the teaching platform, resource con-

tent, school (teacher) and family-related guidance were the primary concern during the 

pandemic. 

Online Teaching Platform and Resources 

As a new type of teaching method, online teaching provided students with real-time and 

non-real-time teaching guidance. In this pandemic, national, local or educational 

informatization companies had provided a variety of platforms and resources, and pro-

vided teachers with different possibilities. Therefore, it is one of the research key points. 

Classification of Online Platform  

The rich types of online teaching platforms allow teachers to have more choices. 

Teachers can choose different types of platforms to carry out teaching activities accord-

ing to their individual teaching needs and preferences. 

Yutong Zhao once divided common online teaching platforms into three types 

in his research: Communication platforms, such as QQ, WeChat, etc.; Document deliv-

ery platforms, such as email, Dingtalk, Moodle, Micro-classes, etc; and Webcast plat-

forms, Such as TikTok, Kuaishou, OBS, Zoom, etc. (Zhao, 2017) 



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The outbreak of the pandemic has made online teaching more popular. There-

fore, the researchers have further subdivided their classification. For example, in a re-

port on interactive research on online education jointly published by the New Media 

Communication Research Center of Beijing Normal University and Guangming Daily 

Educational Research Center, 39 online education products that are widely used in the 

market are divided into the following seven categories: 

(i) Social tool: Social software that supports daily communication and corpo-

rate office. A variety of teaching functions such as WeChat, QQ, and 

Dingtalk are realized through the integration of group chats, video and au-

dio conferences, and extension programs. 

(ii) Communication tool: With online video conference as the core, it supports 

simultaneous live teaching, such as Zoom and Xiaoyu link. 

(iii) Platform service: Provide a digital teaching environment to assist teachers 

to complete the entire process of online teaching, and realize functions 

such as course selection, course scheduling, announcement, online interac-

tion, batch assignments, data management and analysis, such as Seewo 

and Xueleyun Platform etc. 

(iv) Teaching tool: A tool that assists offline or online teaching to realize the 

digitization and high efficiency of one or several links in teaching, such as 

17zuoye. 

(v) Public resource: Provide digital public teaching resources such as micro-

classrooms and teaching materials, the national elementary and middle 

school network platform and the People’s Education TV station. 

(vi) Subject content: Subjects’ Online learning resources which based on the 

learning courses, such as Tencent Classroom and People’s Open Class. 

(vii) Comprehensive tutoring: Online education institutions independently de-

veloped online teaching platforms, teaching aids and curriculum systems. 

It integrates education and scientific research and teaching together, and 

the institutional teaching team provides students with a comprehensive 

learning experience, such as Zhibozuoyebang, TAL Education etc. 

According to this statistic (teacher’s choice of educational products are multi-

ple choices), among these seven types of online teaching platforms, social communica-

tion software such as WeChat and QQ, mobile office platforms represented by Dingtalk 

and National elementary and middle school network platforms, became the first choice 

for teachers to carry out online teaching. In addition, Zuoyebang, Tencent classrooms, 

TAL Education, and electronic textbooks from People’s Education Press have all be-

come important products for the online teaching (New Media Communication Research 

Center of Beijing Normal University, Guangming Daily Education Research Center, 

2020). The specific analysis statistics are shown in Figure 1: 

At the same time, the East China Normal University Curriculum and Teaching 

Research Institute also investigated the specific use of online teaching platforms by el-

ementary and middle school teachers. According to the questionnaire analysis of ele-

mentary and middle school teachers in 23 provinces and cities in the report, 



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Dingtalk(56.65%) and WeChat group (52.75%) were the primary choices for teachers’ 

online communication and management; As far as live broadcast platforms, more 

teachers chosed platforms such as Tencent Classroom (36.95%), Zoom (27.72%), 

Tencent Conference (26.01%), Mooc(13.55%), CCTalk (8.54%). (Yang & Zhang, 2020) 

Through the above several research reports, it can be seen that before the 

“School is Out, but Class is On”, online education platforms and related tools had been 

enriched and expanded. In addition to the country, more education information compa-

nies focused on online teaching environment and the development of tools, provided a 

richer supplement to the online teaching support platform during the pandemic. In addi-

tion, teachers had a deeper understanding of the new online teaching technology and 

functions. In addition to common social tools such as WeChat and QQ, Dingtalk and 

the National elementary and middle school network platform, Tencent Classroom, etc. 

had also become the main choice (Figure 1). 

Strategy Selection of Online Teaching Platform 

Huang (2020) believed that the choice of online teaching tools should consider the con-

venience, that is, the tools should help teachers to quickly and easily produce and man-

age resources, publish notifications and manage students; Help students obtain re-

sources and participate in learning activities quickly and easily; Help teachers and stu-

dents to communicate conveniently and quickly; Help teachers, parents, and schools to 

keep updated of students’ learning dynamics, and better communications. 

From the perspective of overall regional planning, Qing Zhang and others be-

lieved that the network platform was the carrier and means of online teaching. Choosing 

a suitable platform and being able to operate proficiently have a great significant mean-

ing for smoothly developing online teaching. Therefore, it is recommended that each 

subject in the same grade of each school can only use one platform for online teaching, 

to avoid switching back and forth during learning, increasing the difficulty of operation, 

but meanwhile it is allowed one or two assistant platforms for announcement (Zhang & 

Wu, 2020). 

More research was focus on how online education was implemented in schools. 

For example, Daxiang Dai’s research specifically explained how the school used the 

teaching platforms at all levels to solve the learning needs of different grades during the 

outbreak (Dai & Lin, 2020). The article introduced that for the review stage of the first 

and second year of middle school students, they were required to watch the local TV 

education channel (Jiangsu Education Channel) and listen to the “Gulou Online Review 

Course” to conduct home-based independent review. For ninth grade students （the last 

year of middle school), the school organized students to learn independently by watch-

ing the news channels of local TV stations. In the new content teaching stage, on the 

one hand, the school used the teaching platform like “Jiangling Teachers’ Class in the 

air-Jinling Micro School” in Jiangsu Province, “Pukou Eqixiao” in Pukou District, and 

the online learning mobile app “Wosu” in Jiangsu to conduct online teaching, on the 

other hand, use the office communication platform “Dingtalk” to carry out online group 

live broadcasting, and online interactive teaching through the network live broadcasting 



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Figure 1. Statistics of Online Learning Platforms in China. 

 

 

 

 

platform. At the same time, the school also used public communication platforms such 

as QQ or WeChat to establish a communication group for each class, so that teachers 

can answer and solve questions in a timely manner. 

The Construction and Development of Online Resources 



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Vol.5, No. 1, 2020 555 

The quality of teaching resources has an important influence on the effect of online 

teaching. Therefore, in addition to online teaching platforms, the development and inte-

gration of online teaching resources had also attracted the attention of researchers. 

The construction of online teaching resources was not an overnight effort. 

Some scholars had done research on the basis of online teaching resources in China this 

time. According to the data of the Ministry of Education’s Cyber Security and 

Informatization Leading Group in 2020 quoted by Longjun Zhou, as of 2019, the na-

tional system has launched a comprehensive collection of high-quality basic education 

resources for the entire society, bringing 290 units together and a total of 457 teaching 

applications. Through the activity of “One Teacher One Excellent Class, One Excellent 

Teacher One Class”, it attracted more than 2.28 million teachers to participate, collected 

3.14 million online courses, recommended 17,312 provincial excellent courses, and 

selected 1,005 ministerial excellent courses, and generated 8 million resources. There-

fore, the article claimed that the achievements of the construction of digital teaching 

resources from the beginning of this century have provided strong resource support for 

the large-scale online teaching activities during the pandemic (Zhou, et al, 2020). 

Researchers have also seen that during the pandemic, the large-scale online 

teaching has benefited from the interaction of various parties in the society. In order to 

provide rich online teaching resources, the state, local governments and enterprises had 

made efforts. 

As reported in the 11th edition of the People’s Daily on February 3, the Chi-

nese government has, since February 17, opened the national elementary and middle 

school network cloud platform and online courses for free to students from elementary 

to high school. 

On the other hand, China Education Television provided to nationwide elemen-

tary students, 8th and 12th grade students with free “New Education Elementary School 

Edition Textbook Synchronization Class”, “Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry courses”. 

At the same time, for some rural areas and remote poverty-stricken areas where there is 

no Internet or slow Internet speed, courses and resources will be broadcast through TV 

channels to ensure that the essence and effect of online and offline teaching are the 

same (Zhao, 2020). 

In addition, local governments have also organized teaching and research teams 

to study teaching methods and learning resources suitable for the region. For example, 

Tianjin Municipality organized kindergarten teachers and researchers in response to the 

needs of young children’s family education, based on “Guidelines to Learning and De-

velopment for Children Aged 3-6”; they recorded 10 video games for young children 

(Tianjin Education Commission, 2020). For the 8th and 12th grading student, Fujian 

Province organized teaching and research teams to develop suitable teaching methods 

and learning resources, and sent the course content to students as “curriculum” to en-

sure that those students can successfully pass the End of Grade test (Fujian Education 

Department, 2020). 

In addition to national and local governments, educational information-based 

enterprises such as Bytedance, Yuanfudao, Zhibozuoyebang, VipKid and other compa-



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Vol.5, No. 1, 2020 556 

nies provided free online live teaching systems to all elementary and middle students. 

The provision of a large number of high-quality online teaching resources provided a 

solid foundation for this large-scale online teaching activity (Zhao, 2020). 

The Selection Strategy of Online Teaching Resources 

High-quality and rich learning resources were not equivalent to effective learning. They 

need to be closely related to the teaching object and content, and match the physical and 

mental characteristics of the learner. Therefore, how to choose appropriate online teach-

ing resources was also one of the major focuses. 

Regarding how to select appropriate online teaching resources, Huang et al. 

(2020) believed that the following points should be considered: 

(i) Appropriate content, that is, the learning resources must be highly related 

to the learning object and content and can arise the interest of the students, 

or they are necessary to solve the problems; 

(ii) Appropriate difficulty, that is, the content is moderate in difficulty and 

moderate in size, and will not make students overloaded; 

(iii) Appropriate structure, that is, the structure of the learning content is clear 

and the organization is reasonable, and it will not make students confused;  

(iv) Appropriate media, the presentation form of the media is easily accepted 

by students to prevent visual fatigue, especially for young students; 

(v) Proper resource organization. That is to effectively organize the selected 

learning resources (such as video, animation, text, electronic textbooks, 

virtual reality, etc.) to ensure that the navigation layout is clear and the 

depth is moderate, and the students will not lose their way. 

In the specific implementation process, different schools have integrated and 

enriched online resources according to their own conditions. For example, the Zhen-

jiang Experimental School in Jiangsu Province digitized the textbook guidance materi-

als to form a digital guidance draft, which provided more targeted teaching materials 

(Xia, 2020); The No. 2 Daxie Elementary School in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province orga-

nized each teacher to design a guidance program (task list) based on the learning objects 

and the students’ learning situation, which made the knowledge organized and system-

atic (Xie & Yang, 2020); The Second Experimental Middle School of Henan Province 

independently developed online curriculum resources during the pandemic. The 164 

online courses not only enriched online learning resources, but also allowed the 12th 

grade students to further adapt to online learning (Zhou, 2020). 

The Organization and Implementation of Online 

Teaching 

Teachers, students and parents are the main participants in education. Under the impact 

of the pandemic, normal classroom teaching could not be carried out, and it shifted 

from offline to online. The change of learning methods, the assistance and cooperation 



Zhou & Li. A Review of the Largest Online Teaching in China during the COVID-19. 

Vol.5, No. 1, 2020 557 

of parents are important guarantees for online teaching. Therefore, how to organize and 

implement online teaching has become a topic 

Online Teaching Methods 

The form of teaching organization is a link between teachers and students, and it is a 

way to organize teaching activities according to certain teaching ideas, purposes, con-

tent, and subjective and objective of teaching conditions. The emergence of online 

teaching in the pandemic relies on the strength of teachers, demonstrating their practical 

ability and real level. 

Implementation Overview of Online Teaching 

At the beginning of this large-scale online teaching development, the teaching and re-

search of Education department of the Zhejiang Province organized all provincial teach-

ing and research departments to carry out a survey on the online learning of middle and 

ordinary high school students in the province. The results showed that 96.0% of the 

students who have participated or are participating in online teaching activities orga-

nized by the school, while only 4.0% have not participated. This showed that online 

teaching has become the main method of education and teaching for the middle and 

high school during the pandemic in Zhejiang Province (The Education Department of 

Zhejiang Province, 2020). 

Later, a survey report issued by the Academy of Educational Sciences of Hu-

nan Province involving 31 provinces, cites, autonomous regions and Hong Kong, Ma-

cao and Taiwan regions also responded. In this report, 79.34% of the research objects 

had already conducted online teaching, urban area is 83.41% and urban area is 77.42%. 

It was concluded that online teaching had become very norm in China during the pan-

demic. About 80% of schools in Hunan Province, whether it is urban or rural, had 

launched online teaching, and teachers had tried every method to teach students. Teach-

ing methods was also diverse. The data showed that 36.48% of the schools were mainly 

relied on “learning public teaching resources”, 31.56% were “teacher recording or using 

existing resources”, 11.6% were “teacher live teaching” (Academy of Educational Sci-

ences of Hunan Province, 2020). 

Classification of Online Teaching Organizations 

Some scholars believed that the organizational form of online teaching should follow 

the idea of “flexible teaching”. Each element in teaching does not stick to the inherent 

model, and makes corresponding adjustments according to the actual situation, to be 

able to learn easily, devotedly and effectively (Ma & Du, 2002). Some scholars summa-

rized the online teaching mode of this period. For example, Zhiting Zhu and Hongchao 

Peng (2020) had proposed three application modes – Direct teaching, Self-learning, and 

Flip learning; Jianli Jiao and Xiaoqing Zhou (2020) had summarized several typical 

solutions – Online courses, Online live broadcast teaching, Student self-learning, and 

Television air classroom, etc ; Dongdong Wang et al. (2020) proposed four common 



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Vol.5, No. 1, 2020 558 

online teaching and service models based on platform selection: “TV teaching video”, 

“Live classroom”, “Resource class communication” and “Self-selected resources + 

Online Q & A”. 

Selection Strategies of Online Teaching Organization 

Regarding the selection of teaching organization methods, some scholars pointed out: 

“Schools should allow teachers to flexibly choose suitable teaching organization forms 

for different learning contents according to the teaching resources and local network 

facility (Huang, 2020) . For example, the First Middle School in Changyuan City, He-

nan Province, through a guided learning program, launched online teaching activities, 

combined with students ‘independent learning methods, created a six-step teaching 

method (Cai & Wang, 2020); The Experimental Elementary School of Xiamen did not 

blindly follow the advanced educational products at the beginning of online teaching, 

but required all teachers and students to use QQ groups as an platform to ensure that 

them can be smoothly involved in a short time. After a stable period, the school encour-

aged everyone to try other systems such as the National Education Digital Resource 

Network to ensure that online education activities can be carried out more efficiently 

and stably (Liu, 2020). 

The combination of reality, innovation, and development of distinctive teach-

ing organizations guaranteed the quality of online teaching. 

Online Learning Methods 

Learning methods refer to all learning methods and forms adopted by learners in vari-

ous learning situations with different motivational orientations, mental processing levels 

and learning effects. It includes not only the learning methods and strategies that focus 

on the individual level of students, but also the learning methods of teachers and stu-

dents (Pang, 2010). Affected by the pandemic, classroom teaching could not be carried 

out under normal circumstances, the learning environment had changed, and the learn-

ing methods had also been changed. Therefore, how to divide learning methods, which 

learning methods are mainly adopted by students, and how to let students to choose dif-

ferent learning methods according to their learning characteristics had become a topic. 

Some scholars believed that different learning methods are suitable for differ-

ent scenarios and students, and the tools they rely on are also different. Based on this, 

the online learning methods during the pandemic are divided. For example, Huang 

(2020) believed that the choice of learning methods should considered the characteris-

tics of the learner, the level of cognitive processing, learning participation and etc. 

Based on this, relevant education departments represented by Beijing city had 

advocated teachers screened learning resources and guided learning content according 

to the learning characteristics of their students. Teachers should strengthen offline guid-

ance to students, and especially use this opportunity to guide students to try offline self-

learning (Shi, 2020). 

Parents Cooperating with Online Teaching 



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Vol.5, No. 1, 2020 559 

Family and school co-education is to cultivate students through family education and 

school education, to promote the overall development and healthy growth of students. 

During the postpone school period, the family has become the only place for students to 

learn, and parents have become an important partner in student learning. Communica-

tion and cooperation between school and family is an important measure to promote 

“School is Out, but Class is On” (Cheng, 2020). Therefore, parents’ knowledge of 

online teaching and how to strengthen cooperation had become one of the research top-

ics. 

Parents’ Knowledge of Online Teaching 

The Department of Education of Heilongjiang Province conducted a questionnaire sur-

vey on the satisfaction with online teaching of parents across the province. According to 

the report, up to 39.84% were very satisfied, 19.71 % were less satisfied, 38.01% were 

relatively satisfied, and only 2.44% of were not satisfied (Figure 2). 92.33% of parents 

felt that “schools and teachers actively contacted them and communicated the cautions 

and arrangements for online learning.” They were very satisfied with it (Heilongjiang 

Provincial Department of Education, 2020). 

In Wang’s (2020) report, we can see that parents have another attitude towards 

online education: on the one hand, 49.2% of parents were expecting the school to take 

remedies for online teaching, but on the other hand, some parents worries for various 

reasons, such as the choice of online courses 64.1%, unfamiliar network operation 

52.4%, insufficient network and equipment conditions 14.7%, affected vision 59.9%, 

concertation 57.3%, online temptation 49.2%, unanswered questions 43.9%, and poor 

learning effectiveness 40.9% have all become concerns for parents. 

Measures for Home and School Cooperation 

In order to better manage home learning, the school organized room-teacher to establish 

a class communication management platform. Through multiple channels such as class 

QQ group, WeChat group or school platform, school official WeChat, etc., the school 

had established a positive, smooth and effective communication to maximize the sup-

port and cooperation of parents. And through the communication platform, the school 

can statistics and monitor the students’ online viewing of online courses and homework 

submissions to better control the students’ home learning (Cheng, 2020). For example, 

Jiangsu Zhenjiang Experimental School built a platform for online learning and a home-

school co-education network platform through the province, city and school platforms. 

In addition, it also realized remote interaction with parents through the public commu-

nication platform QQ and WeChat group. At the same time, the school replied on the 

Education Bureau of the Province and Cities to develop online learning resources to 

deeply dig out parent resources, and enrich home learning resources. In addition, in or-

der to better achieve home-school co-education, the school had specific requirements 

for teachers and parents to ensure the quality of online learning (Xia, 2020). 

 



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Figure 2. Satisfaction of Online Learning. 

 

 

 

 

The Achievements and Deficiencies of Online Teach-

ing Implementation 

With the pandemic situation getting better in China, education will gradually return to 

normal. As of April 20, 26 provinces in China have started back to school (Wang & 

Wang, 2020), and the implementation of “School is close, but Class is On” will also 

come to an end.  How effective it is and what are the deficiencies have become con-

cerns. 

The Effectiveness of Online Teaching 

Launching online teaching nationwide is the first attempt in Chinese education history. 

Compared with traditional teaching methods, can online teaching bring new enlighten-

ment to students in a home learning environment? Which teaching method can improve 

teaching efficiency? Can online teaching better promote individualized teaching and the 

balance of quality education? The effectiveness of online teaching has attracted the re-

searchers’ attention. 

For example, Yao used evidence-based research method to study 1,024 samples 

from No. 8 Guiyang Middle School and another school with the same educational con-

ditions and students. They analyzed the impact of two online teaching methods, record-

ing and broadcasting, and live broadcasting, on student performance, and concluded 



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Vol.5, No. 1, 2020 561 

that more get involved by teachers is an effective way to improve teaching efficiency. 

(Yao et al, 2020) 

Hui et al. (2020) also conducted research on the effect of technology on online 

teaching, and concluded that the accurate support of big data reduces the student’s aca-

demic burden, guarantees the normal development of teaching, and improves teaching 

efficiency. 

Although the research on this part is not sufficient at present, as the normal 

teaching gradually recovered, the research on the effectiveness of online teaching will 

also be continuously supplemented and enriched. 

The Problems Existing in Online Teaching 

Since the implementation of “School is Out, but Class is On” in China, large-scale 

online teaching had replaced the normal classroom teaching, and various regions had 

also taken actions to respond to this change, ensuring the continuity of learning. How-

ever, some scholars had seen that in the specific implementation process, the implemen-

tation of large-scale online education had been affected by infrastructure construction, 

unadoptable teaching methods, and unequal information literacy of the participants. 

The Infrastructure in A Few Areas is Weak that Affects the Implemen-

tation Effect 

Compared with developed regions, underdeveloped regions still have some problems in 

terms of home learning terminals and the coverage, availability and stability of network 

conditions. Some scholars said that it is the first time in China’s basic education that 

large-scale online teaching replaced normal school teaching. The infrastructure prepara-

tion for large-scale online education is insufficient, and large-scale concurrent accesses 

greatly exceeds the platform’s regular service capabilities, online teaching Platforms 

(such as Cloud classrooms, Rain classrooms, and Dangding Dong) were usually over-

whelmed (Zhang et al, 2020), and problems such as stuck and frequent offline seriously 

affected the learning experience (Li, 2020). In the later period, the power of the national 

social enterprise had greatly improved the network operation ability, and online teach-

ing support environment had been improved. 

The Lack of Scientific Property and Applicability of Some Teaching 

Plan Affected the Teaching Effect 

Teaching plan should be designed and implemented according to the actual situation of 

the school to ensure the pertinence and scientific property of teaching. However, in 

terms of specific implementation, some schools had a relatively simple practice model, 

especially in the early days of online teaching. They used the same teaching method as 

offline teaching, or the same time schedule as the original, without comprehensive con-

sideration, evaluation and design of the teaching content of different levels and different 

disciplines. 



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Vol.5, No. 1, 2020 562 

According to the questionnaire survey of the Education Research Office of the 

Department of Education of Zhejiang Province, there are 7 online learning methods 

(Live broadcast, Recording, Resource pack, Live broadcast + Recording, Live broadcast 

+ Resource pack, Recording + Resource pack, Live broadcasting + Recording + Re-

source package), Pure Live broadcast got the highest proportion, reaching 51.8%, but in 

a survey of student satisfaction, the Resource package (the teacher does not teach, just 

provides learning resources for students to learn by themselves) was the learning meth-

od with the highest student satisfaction. In addition, the questionnaire also counted the 

way students submit their homework, the number of daily courses, and the time of each 

course. From the survey, problems such as long class hours and study time, electronic 

homework, and online punch-in were still highlighted (The Research Office of the De-

partment of Education of Zhejiang Province, 2020). In this regard, the report recom-

mend that schools arrange and adjust online learning from the perspective of improving 

the physical and mental health of students, and design teaching programs that meet the 

actual situation. In addition, Wang also emphasized that during the implementation of 

online teaching, encourage “One school One Teaching Plan”, “One class One teaching 

plan”, “One teacher One Teaching Plan” (Wang et al, 2020). 

Inadequate Literacy of Some Subjects 

The lack of information literacy was another practical problem faced by this large-scale 

online teaching implementation. Some scholars said that many teachers, students and 

parents were unable to follow the online teaching. In the absence of relevant guidance 

from the school, the participants showed inordinate “out of control” and “anxiety” dur-

ing the implementation process (Jiao et al, 2020). More scholars have analyzed from the 

survey report that there may be problems in the information literacy of the subjects. 

Teachers’ Online Teaching Abilities are Different 

According to the relevant research report of the Institute of Curriculum and Teaching of 

East China Normal University, most teachers have self-study experience with online 

platforms (45.22% are frequently used and 37.69% are occasionally used). And most 

teachers are not stranger to online education (40.29% knew very well and 45.50% knew 

better). However, for large-scale teaching using online platforms, 41.26% of teachers 

still found it difficult, even 21.80% considered very difficult (Yang & & Zhang, 2020). 

In the relevant survey report of Beijing Normal University (Wang, et al, 2020), this sit-

uation had also been verified, and 42% of teachers were anxious about carrying out 

large-scale online education. The main reason does not know how to interact with stu-

dents online, how to organize teaching activities, and how to deal with equipment oper-

ations. Teachers also generally are lack of online teaching experience and cannot quick-

ly adapt to and exert the advantages of network technology. 

The Lack of Online Self-Learning Ability of Students and Difficult to 

Guarantee the Participation of Learning 



Zhou & Li. A Review of the Largest Online Teaching in China during the COVID-19. 

Vol.5, No. 1, 2020 563 

In the questionnaire survey of 9,824 parents of elementary students in 9 counties in Si-

chuan Province by Pu et al (2020), parent thought that children were not concentrate 

(44.48%) and irregular learning time (44.06%) are the main problems of online educa-

tion. The results showed that 38.54% of the students had insufficient confidence in 

adapting online learning quickly; 37.1% believed that they had poor initiative in online 

learning, and 45.79% considered that need the supervision of teachers and parents to 

complete the task of online learning. As a result, students’ independent learning ability 

had become an important factor that affects the final results of online learning.  

Insufficient Parents’ Ability to Assist Children in Online Learning 

Parental assistance is of great significance to online learning. According to a survey of 

elementary and middle school teachers, students, parents, and educational institutions in 

seven major regions including East, Central, and South China conducted by the 

Zhongguancun Internet Education Innovation and the Collaborative Innovation Center 

established by the Ministry of Education and the Balanced Development of 

Informatization and Basic Education in China, during the pandemic, 23.4% and 29.6% 

of the parents indicated that they have been or often accompanied their children for 

online learning, and 38.1% just occasionally, but 7.9% were not (Wang & Fu, 2020). 

According to the survey results of Jiang et al. (2020), 52.4% of parents reported 

that they were not familiar with the operation of online learning, and there were no ac-

tive and effective solutions to the problems that may occur in online learning. 

Based on this, Xie suggested that in addition to strengthening technical guid-

ance and design theory guidance for teachers’ online teaching, schools should also pay 

attention to relevant guidance for students and parents. This can train students to learn 

and manage independently, and establish a good home-school collaboration mechanism. 

Under the premise of respecting different school periods, different grades, different stu-

dents’ cognition laws and home learning laws, according to the unevenness of parents’ 

education, experience, and ability, so as to ensure the implementation of online teaching 

(Xie et al. 2020). 

Perspective 

In this large-scale online teaching activity, the transformation of educational space 

forced the participants of various educations to quickly adjust and adapt to changes. 

This is not only a new problem that schools, families and students have ever encoun-

tered, but also an important challenge facing China’s basic education. 

It can be seen from the currently published studies that the content of online 

education research during the pandemic mainly focused on the following aspects. 

(i) The rich education platform and resources are the strong support for this 

online teaching. Based on this study, we can see that under the state of 

suspension of classes across China, the Chinese government has combined 

various forces to provide a diverse teaching platform and rich teaching re-

sources for online teaching, which has better supported the distance learn-



Zhou & Li. A Review of the Largest Online Teaching in China during the COVID-19. 

Vol.5, No. 1, 2020 564 

ing of students across the country. This ensures the continuity and scien-

tific property of education and teaching in an extraordinary environment, 

thereby promoting the healthy development of students’ physical and 

mental health at home. 

(ii) Teaching guidance and home-school cooperation are the guarantee of 

online teaching. At the same time, we also noticed that how to make edu-

cation technology and teaching more deeply integrated to better serve ed-

ucation and teaching, and then ensure the continuity of education in the 

abnormal environment has become the main problem of teaching. There-

fore, changes in the teaching environment have changed both teaching 

methods and learning methods. Appropriate guidance from teachers and 

autonomous learning of students has become a new model under the im-

plementation of online teaching. At the same time, parental assistance and 

joint participation ensure online teaching. 

(iii) Exerting effectiveness is fundamental to online teaching. After a period of 

implementation, we found that online teaching at this stage has achieved 

some results. The integration of educational technology and teaching 

makes the teaching more personalized, and the teacher’s online guidance 

makes online teaching more adaptable to students’ learning needs. Alt-

hough there is not much research on this aspect at present, we believe that 

with the continuous resumption of classes across the country, online 

teaching will enter the stage of convergence with classroom teaching, and 

research on its effectiveness will be supplemented and enriched. 

However, it should be pointed out that there are also limitations in the imple-

mentation of large-scale online teaching in the outbreak, such as: the infrastructure in a 

few areas is relatively weak; the teaching methods or contents are not suitable; and the 

level of informatization of some education participants was inferior.  

Existing research has certain limitations in terms of both research methods and 

research content. 

(i) Insufficient evidence-based research in education. From the perspective of 

research methods, the existing research is more qualitative research, and 

the evidence-based research in education is slightly insufficient. It can be 

seen from the literature that educational surveys and educational experi-

mental research account for less than 25%, which makes the research evi-

dence insufficient. 

(ii) Too much bias towards educational technology. From the literature, most 

of them were biased to educational technology, but less substantial discus-

sion of the implementation and operation of online education during the 

pandemic. 

These questions are also forcing us to keep thinking: how do we design top-

level education for similar public health emergencies? How can schools respond quick-

ly and comprehensively? How to formulate an adaptation plan based on actual needs? 



Zhou & Li. A Review of the Largest Online Teaching in China during the COVID-19. 

Vol.5, No. 1, 2020 565 

How to provide more professional guidance to teachers, students and families? These 

will become important issues for education after the epidemic. 

 

 

 

How to Cite: Zhou, L., Li, F. (2020) A review of the largest online teaching in china for elementary 

and middle school students during the COVID-19 pandemic. Best Evid Chin Edu, 5(1):549-567. Doi: 

10.15354/bece.20.re040. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Received: 22 April 2020 

Revised: 30 April 2020 

Accepted: 08 May 2020 

 

 


	Article-LongjunZhou-BECE_title_15May2020
	Article-LongjunZhou-BECE_Maintext15May2020

