Using blended synchronous classroom approach to promote learning performance in rural area

The advancement of the Internet technology has changed the way how different types of classrooms can be created including the blending of multiple physical classrooms, synchronous cyber classrooms and asynchronous cyber classrooms. Classes in rural and urban schools could be fully integrated together by using various synchronous tools such as video conferencing systems, electronic whiteboards, interactive response systems, etc. The way of fully integrating two or more physical classrooms together to support online real-time interaction among teachers and students in different locations is called Blended Synchronous Classroom (BSC) in this study. Rural schools cannot attract enough number of good teachers which creates a serious problem of education inequality. A promising solution to this problem is to bring good teachers from urban schools to rural schools by using BSC approach. In this study, a two-year long project of applying BSC approach in two primary schools in Ningbo China is reported, and the effectiveness of BSC is explored through comparative analysis, questionnaire survey and classroom video analysis. The results of this study include: (1) students' learning performance in rural school was improved significantly after the two-year practice of BSC; (2) there are no significant differences in the perceptions of the efficiency of BSC between students in local class and remote class; (3) teachers pay equal attention to students in both local and remote classrooms is the key factor to the success of BSC implementation. The large-scale application of BSC to deal with urban-rural divide is discussed based on the results.