ONLINE MENTAL HEALTH TEACHING SYSTEM BASED ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF MASSIVE OPEN ONLINE COURSE

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Revista Argentina de Clínica Psicológica 2020, Vol. XXIX, N°1, 1338-1344

DOI: 10.24205/03276716.2020.193 1338

O

NLINE

M

ENTAL

H

EALTH

T

EACHING

S

YSTEM

B

ASED ON THE

P

HILOSOPHY OF

M

ASSIVE

O

PEN

O

NLINE

C

OURSE

Fuquan Ma

Abstract

In the multimedia era, the massive open online course (MOOC) can rekindle the learning enthusiasm of

today’s students. Considering the importance of mental health of college students, this paper aims to introduce the philosophy of the MOOC into the teaching of mental health courses. Thus, the author analysed the problems of mental health education in colleges and their causes, preliminarily surveyed the mental health courses in colleges, and discussed the influence of the MOOC on college courses and teaching behaviours. On this basis, an online teaching system for mental health was established, and applied to a 2 month-long contrastive experiment on college students of Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, with traditional classroom teaching as the contrastive method. The results show that the students trained by the MOOC-based online teaching system achieved higher average score in psychological test than those taught by classroom teaching, revealing the feasibility of our system. The research findings help to promote and apply the MOOC in mental health education.

Key words: Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), Teaching Philosophy, Mental Health Education, Online Teaching, Psychological Test.

Received: 18-04-19 | Accepted: 20-08-19

INTRODUCTION

With the development of the new era, the

requirements for college students’ overall

quality have been getting higher, and mental health education has increasingly become an important part of modern school education (Robinson, Kerski, Long et al., 2015). In recent years, the MOOC has gradually entered the higher education system of our country, which breaks the barriers of the university, adapts students to learn by mobile phone or computer, and transforms the teaching mode from traditional instilled teaching to student-centred teaching (Bousbahi & Chorfi, 2015). The higher education should not only focus on the study,

interpersonal communication, emotional

adjustment and self-improvement of students,

Education School of Nanyang Normal University, Nanyang 473061, China.

E-Mail: [email protected]

but also, on their growth of minds. Mental health education emphasizes students' perceptions and experiences, which need to be achieved in a certain atmosphere created through the network resources (Sun & Liu, 2017; Jung & Lee, 2018). The teaching philosophy of MOOC is the open network education concept based on

theory of connectionism. Its curriculum

objectives are consistent with the existing college curriculum. Currently, the MOOC teaching is mainly applied in the fields of engineering and sociology, but rarely in the humanities such as psychological education etc. (Guo, Mao, He et al., 2016).

Students spend most of the time in school. The establishment of mental health curriculum for schools is a very important way of mental health education. This curriculum is specialized and extensive in students' physical and mental

health, psychological behaviour, and

psychological development, which is

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(Kowalski, Attoe, Ekdawi et al., 2017; Odro, Dadzie, Ryan et al., 2014). At present, students'

academic pressure, study pressure and

curriculum schedule etc. make it difficult for many schools to arrange more mental health courses. Even if the relevant courses are arranged, they will be crowded out by other courses, resulting in limited contact and learning of students' mental education. (Bezyak & Clark, 2016). In line with the students' mobile phone-based learning method, the MOOC teaching is adopted for the mental health education on line. Students can study in the spare time, which can greatly improve the mental health education level of college students (Mendenhall & Jackson, 2013). Based on the MOOC teaching philosophy, this paper studies the promotion of online teaching system for mental health education, and evaluates its feasibility. This paper provides a theoretical basis for the promotion and application of MOOC teaching in mental health education.

PROBLEMS AND REASONS OF MENTAL HEALTH EDUCATION IN COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES

Mental health education in colleges and universities not only refers to the ideological and political education of college students, but also mainly their psychological health education, stress resistance education and psychological quality education (Gores, White, Whittaker et al., 2019). Currently, the emergence of MOOC teaching theory has provided useful clues for the development of mental health education in colleges. However, in the actual implementation process, it cannot be promoted and applied clearly, as well as not integrated sufficiently (Pmhcns-Bc, 2019). Mental health education is the use of psychology, pedagogy, sociology and behavioural sciences to integrate various theories and techniques, and generate impacts on college students in a planned manner, so that students can maintain an active and healthy mental state and achieve the harmonious development of mental health and personality (McCoy, 2017).

A preliminary survey was conducted on the establishment and application of mental health courses in colleges and universities. Figure 1 shows the class hours of the mental health course offered by the school. It can be clearly seen that 57.14% of the universities offer mental education courses only for one class hour each

two weeks, and some even did not offer any related course, indicating the current college

mental health education isn’t implemented

properly, and the curriculum is not arranged according to the needs of the student group. Figure 2 shows the evaluation method of mental health education courses in colleges and universities. It can be seen that 52.38% of universities thought it insignificant to evaluate the mental health education, so there was no

evaluation method, and they’re unclear about

whether students have serious mental health problems. Moreover, even with the evaluation method, the single method still fails to meet the evaluation requirements well. Thus, the existing problems in the mental health education mainly result from the teaching concept, and also teachers and education carriers etc. (George, Smith, O'Reilly et al., 2019; Vostanis, O"Reilly, Taylor et al., 2012).

Figure 1

.

Schools offer mental health

education courses

9.52% 57.14%

23.81% 4.76%

4.76%

More than two sections per week

Two sections per week Every monday sections Two-week section Others

Figure 2

.

Evaluation methods of mental

health education courses in Colleges and

Universities

9.52% 52.38%

14.29%

9.52%

Roll test Psychological test Activity observation No tests Others

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ONLINE MENTAL HEALTH TEACHING SYSTEM BASED ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF MASSIVE OPEN ONLINE COURSE ₁₃₄₀

THE INFLUENCE OF MOOC ON COLLEGE COURSES AND TEACHING BEHAVIOURS

The influence of MOOC on college courses

Figure 3

.

The basic operation mode of

MOOC in Colleges and Universities

Teacher Micro lesson

video

Classroom Student

Central platform Production / design

Lesson preparation / flipped class

Upload

Watch / work Mail

notification Feedback

By changing the traditional instilled

education, the MOOC teaching provides a platform for interaction and communication, on which the students can learn any course at any time using the mobile phone or computer, and

teachers and students can also make

communication. The curriculum setting and teaching behaviour of universities are biased, and the content of the curriculum determines the value orientation of the curriculum. Furthermore, the implementation of the curriculum is intertwined with theory and emotion, which determines its complexity and multi-directionality. The MOOC teaching reflects

the flipped classroom teaching mode. It’s

transformed from the in-class knowledge infusion and after-class knowledge consolidation through homework to the pre-class self-preparation and learning, and independent communication and discussion. Figure 3 shows

the basic operation mode of MOOC in colleges and universities, forming a process of interaction between teachers, central platform and students, in which the teacher is responsible for making/designing the micro-course video and uploading to the platform centre. Figure 4 shows the survey on the influence of MOOC education on the direct relationship between college students. It can be seen that 82% of students believe that MOOCs education enhances the relationship between them.

Figure 4

.

MOOC education enhances the

direct

relationship

between

College

Students

2.5% 4.5%

11% 59%

23%

Fully agree Agree General Disagree Very disagree

The influence of MOOC on college teachers' teaching behaviour

Figure 5 shows the workflow of mental health education in school. After the school formulates the teaching objectives of mental health education, the teacher team will implement the teaching objectives, and then the school will examine the psychological education teaching process and evaluate the teaching results. Mental health education teachers provide guidance, advice, counselling and decision-making services for school education and daily

Figure 5

.

School mental health education workflow

Feedback

Making the teaching goal of psychological education in school

Implementing the teaching target system of psychological education

Check the teaching process of psychological education

Evaluating the teaching results of psychological education

Participate

Cooperation

Proposal

School mental health

education

Mental health education for

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Figure 6

.

Schematic diagram of teachers' responsibilities in school mental health education

Responsibilities of school mental health educators

Serving the school

Serving students

Serving teachers and parents

Staff

Guidance

Decision

Prevention

Evaluation

Intervention

Consultation

Help

Train

Promoting students' mental health

management, so as to promote school education, teaching and management work more in line with the law of education. In the teaching of MOOC, the role of teachers is changed from active instructors and organizers and managers, into mentors and facilitators. Figure 6 shows the responsibilities of teachers in mental health education. The teachers serve the school, students, teachers and parents. They have the responsibility and obligation to cultivate the good psychological quality of college students and promote their mental health using relevant psychological education methods.

CASE ANALYSIS FOR THE INFLUENCE OF MOOC TEACHING ON MENTAL HEALTH EDUCATION

Case design of MOOC teaching

The teaching of MOOC is achieved mainly by playing short videos, or creating forums for students to learn and communicate online. Under the background of MOOC theory, students and teachers must have the ability to use network media flexibly. The online promotion and application of mental health education courses also requires the teachers to have the ability to improve their own literacy, change their ideas and offer MOOC courses. Figure 7 shows the main content of college students' mental health education, mainly including

mental health knowledge, interpersonal

communication, self-consciousness, emotion and feeling, learning to learn, life education and career planning. In order to explore the feasibility of promoting the online teaching for mental health education courses, we selected the college students of Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics as the research objects, and conducted two-month tests on these college students using the MOOC and

classroom teaching method respectively.

Psychological testing method was adopted to test the main content of college students' mental health education. The basic information of the testers is shown in Table 1.

Figure 7

.

Main contents of college students'

mental health education

Contents of mental health education for College

Students

Mental health knowledge

Interpersonal communication

Self-consciousness

Vemotion and feeling

Learn to learn

Life education

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Table 1.

Basic information of tester

Types Classification Quantity Proportion

Gender

Male MOOC study 102 31.48%

Classroom teaching 75 23.15%

Female MOOC study 88 27.16%

Grade

Grade one MOOC study 44 13.58%

Grade two MOOC study 57 17.59%

Grade three MOOC study 59 18.21%

Grade four MOOC study 30 9.26%

Test results and analysis

Using the teaching philosophy of MOOC, on one hand, the students can focus on the teaching content and express their opinions on line, improving their participation in the mental health education; on the other hand, the on-line promotion of the mental health education does not mean that teachers give up supervision of students, but fully mobilize the enthusiasm of students, and teachers can regularly conduct assessment and assignment tasks on the platform of the MOOC system to ensure the efficiency of college students' learning. Figure 8 shows the evaluation scores of college students' mental health education in both MOOC and classroom teaching. It can be clearly seen that the average scores of psychological tests for college students in the MOOC teaching mode were higher than those in classroom teaching; the module of mental health knowledge scored the highest, followed by learning to learn and life education modules.

Figure 8

.

Evaluation score of mental health

education of college students in MOOC

teaching and classroom teaching

70 75 80 85 90

Average

evalua

tion score

MOOC study Classroom teaching

Self-consciousness

Emotion Learn to learn Life education

Career planning

Figure 9

.

The influence of various factors on

the evaluation score of College Students'

mental health education

70 75 80 85 90 95

Average

evalua

tion score

Male-MOOC study Male-Classroom teaching Female-MOOC study Female-Classroom teaching

Self-consciousness

Career planning

(a) Gender factors

70 75 80 85 90 95

Average

evalua

tion score

Grade one-MOOC study Grade one-Classroom teaching Grade two-MOOC study Grade two-Classroom teaching Grade three-MOOC study Grade three-Classroom teaching Grade four-MOOC study Grade four-Classroom teaching

Self-consciousness

Career planning

(b) Grade factors

Figure 9 shows the influence of various factors on the evaluation scores of college students' mental health education. Figure 9(a)

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shows the gender factor, indicating that male college students were more suitable for online system learning, and they scored higher than

female students in the interpersonal

communication and career planning modules. Figure 9(b) shows the grade factors, indicating that with the increase of grades, the modules of college students' mental health education scored higher; the scores of Grade 3 students were the highest in the modules of self-consciousness, emotions and feeling, and learning to learn; the scores of Grade 4 students in the career planning module were significantly higher than those in the other grades. To sum up, based on the teaching philosophy of MOOC, the online teaching system of mental health education is feasible. The average score of psychological testing for college students in MOOC education was higher than those in traditional classroom teaching, showing obvious superiority.

CONCLUSIONS

Based on the teaching philosophy of MOOC, this paper attempts to promote the online teaching system of mental health education curriculum, and evaluates its feasibility. The specific conclusions are as follows:

(1) The MOOC is mainly reflected in the

flipped classroom teaching mode. It’s

transformed from the in-class knowledge infusion and after-class knowledge consolidation through homework to the pre-class self-preparation and learning, and independent communication and discussion, which is conducive to enhancing the interaction between universities.

(2) The main contents of college students' mental health education include mental health knowledge, interpersonal communication, self-consciousness, emotion and feeling, learning to learn, life education and career planning.

(3) Based on the teaching philosophy of MOOC, the online teaching system of mental health education curriculum is feasible, and both male and female college students have strong applicability, especially for the students of higher grade; the average score of psychological testing for college students in MOOC education was higher than those in traditional classroom teaching, showing obvious superiority.

Acknowledgement

The Teacher Education Curriculum Reform Project in Henan Province: Three-dimensional model of Teacher Education and its practical application in Local Normal Universities, Project No. 2014-JSJYZD-045, Project Leader: Fuquan Ma.

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