Chinese teachers ‘open’ to less hierarchical relationships

Chinese lecturers are becoming increasingly open to the idea that their students should be seen as partners in teaching and learning, a recent study has indicated.

Researchers interviewed 20 lecturers working at a Beijing-based research-intensive university and found that many of them viewed learning as a two-way street where students shaped instruction and contributed to research.

The lecturers interviewed were “willing to accept the idea” of more active collaboration between teachers and students, wrote paper co-authors Kun Dai, a researcher at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Kelly Matthews, an associate professor at the University of Queensland.

Views expressed by the lecturers “challenge the dominant narrative about educators in the Chinese cultural context as the authority in the classroom, who prefer passive and docile students”, the authors said.

While the study – published in Higher Education Research and Development – was small in scope, Dr Dai told Times Higher Education that he believes the findings point to a broader shift in beliefs over who holds and shapes knowledge in academia.

“I think students as partners in [the] Chinese higher education context will become…a new way to reform teaching and learning practices,” he said.

Dr Dai said that in the Chinese context the Confucian tradition, which promotes respect for teachers, is typically associated with a more rigid pedagogical pecking order.

“Based on many existing studies, most people seem to believe that student-teacher in China has clear hierarchy; for example, students are usually ‘listeners’ and ‘followers’,” he said.

But Confucianism also lends support to the idea that all parties can learn from one another, he pointed out: “It suggests ‘when three men meet together, one of them who is anxious to learn can always learn something of the other two.’”

Already, there is evidence that students’ views are starting to be taken more seriously by faculty, he said. Many universities have put in place policies encouraging undergraduate students to engage in research, for instance.

Still, administrators “may need to encourage” lecturers to allow student partnerships in a “more systemic way”, said Dr Dai.

He noted hurdles within and beyond lecturers’ control preventing them making more use of student feedback, including pre-existing pedagogical preferences and research-focused reward systems.

“Lecturers cannot change the ‘rules of the game’…some may want to reform their teaching practices. However, such reforms may not be considered as ‘valuable’ or ‘meanable’ academic contributions to universities in chasing domestic and global rankings,” he said.

In his own teaching though, Dr Dai has embraced the approach. He says he usually introduces his “teaching philosophy” to students in the first week to get their feedback and continues to ask their thoughts on his performance throughout the semester.

While he is in favour of formalised tools including student evaluations of teaching to solicit feedback, he stressed that lecturers must take the initiative if they want to see students contribute more to instruction.

“I think the mechanism should be something from the teacher’s mind. Teachers should have an intention to hear students’ voices,” he said.

pola.lem@timeshighereducation.com