Remote Co-teaching in Rural Classroom: Current Practices, Impacts, and Challenges

TL;DR

This study examines remote co-teaching practices in rural China, highlighting its impacts on teachers and students, and discusses challenges and design implications for sustainable ICT-based education in underdeveloped areas.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of current remote co-teaching practices, impacts, and challenges, offering insights for improving ICT4D educational programs in rural settings.

Findings

Remote co-teaching improves local teachers' instructional quality.

Local teachers actively adapt remote resources for student engagement.

Challenges include technological, pedagogical, and coordination issues.

Abstract

The shortage of high-quality teachers is one of the biggest educational problems faced by underdeveloped areas. With the development of information and communication technologies (ICTs), China has begun a remote co-teaching intervention program using ICTs for rural classes, forming a unique co-teaching classroom. We conducted semi-structured interviews with nine remote urban teachers and twelve local rural teachers. We identified the remote co-teaching classes standard practices and co-teachers collaborative work process. We also found that remote teachers high-quality class directly impacted local teachers and students. Furthermore, interestingly, local teachers were also actively involved in making indirect impacts on their students by deeply coordinating with remote teachers and adapting the resources offered by the remote teachers. We conclude by summarizing and discussing the challenges faced by teachers, lessons learned from the current program, and related design implications to achieve a more adaptive and sustainable ICT4D program design.