摘 要

长期以来，中国政府一直致力于推进高等教育改革，实现高等教育现代化。其中一个推行的措施是结合了互联网、信息技术和大学课程的SPOC嵌入式混合学习模式。通过在部分课程中加入课堂内外的在线学习活动，混合式学习正在取代传统的面对面式教学。本文旨在探讨英语专业学生对英语精读课中SPOC嵌入式混合学习模式的态度。提出了两个研究问题: 1)学生对SPOC嵌入式混合学习模式的态度; 2)各年级学生对此学习模式态度的异同点。本文对武汉理工大学在读本科生采用该模型的调查问卷结果进行分析，调查问卷的对象为190名至少完成一个学期的英语精读课程学习的英语专业学生。结果表明，与传统课堂教学相比，大多数受访学生更喜欢SPOC嵌入式混合学习方法，超过60%的受访学生对自己在该模型中的状态感到满意并认为学习目标完成良好。本文提出了一些可行的建议和教学启示，希望能更好地理解混合式学习和以学生为中心的高等教育学习环境。

关键词：SPOC；混合式学习；学生反馈；英语精读课程

Abstract

Chinese government has been working to promote the higher education reforms in order to modernize the college education over the long time. One of the released measures is the SPOC embedded blended learning which combined the computer-assisted technology and college face-to-face sessions. Blended learning is replacing the traditional face-to-face teaching and learning with engaging in-class and pre- and post-class work online in some courses. This thesis aimed to investigate English major’s attitudes towards the SPOC embedded blended learning model for the English Intensive Reading course. Two research questions were addressed: 1) what are the students’ attitudes towards the SPOC embedded blended learning model; and 2) what are the similarities and differences of students’ attitudes towards the proposed model across different grades. The study conducted an analysis of the questionnaire results of Chinese students who got engaged with the new approach in the Wuhan University of Technology. The questionnaire was completed by 190 English majors who had finished at least one semester’s learning of the English Intensive Reading course. The results revealed that the majority of respondents preferred the SPOC embedded blended learning method over the traditional classroom teaching, and more than 60% of the surveyed students felt that they had achieved their goals and they were satisfied with their learning outcomes through this model. This thesis provided three feasible suggestions and also addressed pedagogical implications. It hoped to reach a better understanding of blended learning and student-centered learning environment of higher education.

Key Words: SPOC; blended learning; students’ feedback; English Intensive Reading course

Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 Literature Review 5

2.1 Blended learning and SPOCs 5

2.2 Students’ attitudes towards the SPOC model 7

3 Research Methodology 10

3.1 Research questions 10

3.2 Participants 10

3.3 The course structure 10

3.4 Instrument and procedures 12

4 Results 15

4.1 Students’ attitudes towards the SPOC embedded blended learning model 15

4.2 Students’ satisfaction of the SPOC embedded blended learning model 17

4.3 Students’ perceived progress 18

4.4 Time spent on online learning 19

5 Discussion 21

6 Conclusion 24

References 26

Appendix 28

Acknowledgements 33

An Empirical Study of a SPOC Embedded Blended Learning Model for Intensive English Reading:

The college English Majors’ attitudes

1 Introduction

Since 1999, China’s Ministry of Education has implemented an educational reform policy to increase the number of students enrolled in colleges and universities. Higher education begins to transform from an elite educational system to a stage of massification in China, so that a large number of students have access to receive it. However, larger class sizes and student numbers pose great challenges to the allocation of teaching resources and teaching time. With the globalization today, both higher education itself and enterprises demand a higher request on students' comprehensive learning ability, which requires universities to provide students with more teaching materials and learning methods keeping up. However, traditional classroom teaching is increasingly difficult to meet these requirements, which increases the teaching burden of college teachers. Therefore, the reform of higher education in China needs constant innovation in teaching methods urgently.

College English, a compulsory course in all higher education curriculum in China, is undergoing reforms in both content and teaching pedagogy. According to College English Teaching Guide issued by the Ministry of Education (2017), college foreign language education is an important part of China's higher education, which is of great significance to promote the coordinated development of college students' knowledge, ability, and comprehensive quality. As a language science, English learning needs constant input of language materials including reading, listening, speaking and translating, so it requests universities to create a positive language learning environment for students to obtain enough learning resources no matter in class or after class.

In all college English courses in China, reading course has been set as a basic course all the time as the reading ability is an important reflection of comprehensive level in English learning. For English majors, Intensive Reading is a compulsory course from their first year in universities. The tests for English Majors, including TEM-4 in their sophomore and TEM-8 in their senior, also demand higher requests for their performance of reading competence. In terms of academic pressure, course requirements, and personal development, English learning is badly in need of a good environment and vast amount of materials for reading. However, in traditional face-to-face classrooms, teachers tend to provide all teaching clues including problem-solving, presentation, discussion and debate with students within only 45 minutes in one session. Part of study asks need to be divided into the pre-class and post-class activities, so that students have opportunities to receive more teaching resources available without the limitation of time and space and focus more on target learning items in class. Otherwise, it is difficult to satisfy the students’ demands if a new teaching approach cannot be applied in English Reading courses.

Besides, it also needs to notice that students need to adjust to the students-centered new learning approach when entering the university. In Mainland China, face-to-face classrooms and teacher-centered instruction occupy the mainstream at secondary schools. Compared to secondary education with teacher-centered models, higher education requests students to take the responsibility of self-driven study where teachers play a role as facilitators. For students, the challenges from role change press them to study more actively and consciously and not only rely on teachers. They need to adjust themselves in learning approach to obtain more needed resources.

It is necessary to solve the existing problems in the traditional teaching model with the help of information technologies. In the 1990s, western scholars put forward the concept of hybrid learning in the continuous improvement of E-Learning, that is, the combination of online learning and offline learning (Gou amp; Zeng, 2018). According to Shantakumari and Sajith (2015), blended learning is defined as "a way of meeting the challenges of tailoring learning and development to the needs of individuals by integrating the innovative and technological advances offered by online learning with the interaction and participation offered in the best of traditional learning" (p 1). He (2003) formally initiated the ‘blended learning’ in China at the Seventh Global Conference on Computer Education Applications, and opened the prelude of ‘blended learning’ in China. In 2007, the College English Curriculum Requirements, commissioned by the Ministry for Higher Education, advocate “a computer-assisted and classroom-based teaching model” (p. 8). Wang and Wang (2011) points out that computer and information technology can assist student-centered and teacher-facilitated teaching models at the tertiary level.

Blended learning has been already applied into two forms at least for now. The most widely spread one is called Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). The MOOC, is the most widely used method of online teaching in blended learning and brings a shock to college English teaching with its advantages of being massive, open and online, which provides a great number of learners with more opportunities to study without the limitation of time and space as they are free to choose the course they are interested in. However, it did not make a big breakthrough for its single platform mode. Through previous research and practice, researchers have gradually discovered some shortcomings of MOOCs, such as high registration rate, low completion rate, course and credit certification, and high turnover rate. The quality of learners is uneven, and cheating is difficult to prevent (Gou et al., 2018). Due to the lack of direct interaction between teachers and students and not being conducive to deep learning compared with traditional classroom-based teaching way, the application effect of the MOOC in practical teaching is not considered optimistic (Wang, 2017).