A Comparative Study of Distance Teaching in Elementary Schools Between China and the United States Under COVID-19

Abstract

The outbreak and quick spread of COVID-19 quickly shut down almost all educational institutions in different parts the world by mid-March, 2020, presenting severe challenges to educators all over the world. The paper investigated the teaching situation of elementary schools in China and the United States during the epidemic period. The results show that the common challenges faced by the two countries in distance education are: 1) Elementary school students are young and have poor self-control ability, which requires close supervision and cooperation from parents; 2) Teachers’ information technology level is limited, lack of network teaching ability. There are some problems in Distance Education in American elementary schools, such as parents can’t urge students to study at home, digital technology inequality, low online attendance rate and so on, which further exposed the unfair problems in education. The problem of distance learning in elementary schools in China is that the learning resources are mainly subject knowledge, and the ability and methods of teachers to serve students’ autonomous learning are insufficient. American distance learning experience is to make full use of the rich network learning resources and professional distance teaching platform, and pay attention to the cultivation of students’ network autonomous learning ability. China’s distance teaching experience is to give play to the advantages of centralized management, organize famous teachers to record high quality courses, establish the Air Classroom platform, and provide high-quality classroom teaching resources. Therefore, basic education institutions in both countries should strengthen the training of teachers’ distance learning ability, improve the information-based teaching environment, learn from the experiences of both sides, and explore an effective mode of integrating online and offline education resources, so as to meet the challenges of basic education in the post epidemic era.