Design and implementation effects of SPOC-based blended teaching from the perspective of deep teaching: a case study of EFL students

ABSTRACT

While blended teaching approaches are becoming more common in some higher educational institutes, their consistency in aligning with higher-level learning objectives varies The current study aims to explore the design and effectiveness of Small Private Online Course (SPOC)-based blended teaching in fostering deep learning among English as a Foreign Language students in Higher Vocational Colleges in Guangdong, China. We develop a systematically designed SPOC-based blended teaching approach tailored for deep learning promotion and compare it with a non-systematic SPOC-based design. The study then implements the SPOC-based blended teaching approach to promote deep learning and collects relevant data for analysis. Our results show significant improvements in students’ knowledge acquisition, skill development, and overall satisfaction compared to the non-systematic approach. This study provides valuable insights into deep blended teaching and underscores the necessity of a systematic shift in teaching methodologies through SPOC-based blended learning to optimise deep learning outcomes.

KEYWORDS:

• SPOC
• deep learning
• EFL students
• higher vocational colleges
• teaching effectiveness

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Guangdong Education Science Planning Project (Special program for Higher Education) [2023GXJK711].

Notes on contributors

Liping Jiang

Jiang Liping is currently a professor and a PhD in Education; his research fields include Business English research, Cognitive linguistics, and higher education. He published more than 90 academic papers, some of them indexed by SSCI Q1 and CSSCI.

Menglei Lv

Menglei Lv is a lecturer and her main research interests include English translation, higher education teaching, and corpus research.

Mengmeng Cheng

Cheng Mengmeng is a lecturer and her main research interests include higher education teaching, English teaching, and translation.

Xia Chen

Xia Chen is a lecturer and her main research interests include blended teaching and English translation.