Pod 8 Group Members:
Xu Chang (V00999059)
Jindi Chen (V00971475)
Ziwei Xiong (V00984087)
Yaqi Zhang (V00980068)
Ruoxi Guo (V00909991)
Kenzie Squirell(V00957135)
Persona
Name: Zhoudan Pan
Gender: Male
Age: 21
Birthday: June 8th, 2001
Lives in: Shanghai, China
Hobby: Basketball, programming
Photo:
Education and experience
Zhoudan Pan completed his high school education in a foreign language school located in Shanghai, China. He studied statistics at the University of Victoria after high school graduation. He is currently in his third year. Also, he is interested in mathematical programming and took some programming courses as elective courses. During the pandemic, he has been taking classes online in China. In his spare time, he has found a job teaching English to children.
Roles and responsibilities
Since Zhoudan does not have enough financial support from his family, he has a part-time job in an online English teaching institution in China. He has been working in the teaching institution for approximately one year, and his teaching ability has been recognized by Chinese parents. Also, he recently started a YouTube channel to teach beginners about basic programming and Statistics knowledge.
Technical Skills
Zhoudan is good at lots of programming software, such as RStudio, Python, and Java.
Because of his teaching experience, he is good at using a lot of teaching software, such as Zoom and G-classroom. He also practiced using social media, such as TikTok and Twitter, to share his ideas about programming. Being both a student and a teacher greatly improves his communication skills.
Subject domain skills and knowledge
His major at the University of Victoria is Statistics. As a result, he had
a great deal of statistical expertise. He is good at analyzing data and forecasting the trend of time series.
Motivation and desires
Zhoudan hopes to start his own business in online education after gaining a lot of work experience and improving his communication skills.
Goals and expectations
Since Zhoudan is lacking financial support, he is very unlikely to return to Canada to finish his fourth-year courses. He wants to find a less money-consuming way to study.
- Although Zhoudan tried his best to study Statistics courses, his grades are still not exceptional. He wants to find an effective and time-saving studying method.
Obstacles to his success
- Mental health problem: Since Zhoudan had to join the synchronous online course in China last year, his sleeping quality was hugely damaged because he has to wake up at 3 a.m. to attend the course. Also, since he had to sleep during the day last year, he missed the opportunities to play basketball and hang out with his friends.
- Although he has some teaching experience, he only stayed in Canada for approximately two years. Thus, his oral English was pretty poor. Also, he feels extremely stressed when he communicates with foreigners.
- Poor academic performance. Last year, because he had to wake up at the midnight to take courses, he found himself having difficulties concentrating in class. Thus, his academic performance is affected. Also, the majority of his exams were scheduled in the early morning which was also a factor that casused his poor grades.
Unique assets
- Zhoudan is willing to read lots of relative learning materials to achieve the expected Learning outcome. He has good memorization skill.
Chart
| Persona Characteristic | Barriers and Challenges | Face-to-Face environment | Distributed Environment | Open Environment |
| Lack of financial support. | The cost of returning to Canada in the last year is too high due to the cost of flight tickets and the isolation expenditure of China. | Since he cannot return to Canada, it is impossible for him to attend a face-to-face course. |
He can take synchronous or asynchronous online courses in uvic. |
|
| Mental health | He suffers from anxious emotions after the pandemic. He finds it is hard to find opportunities to communicate with peers and play basketball with peers. | Face-to-face courses can provide him with loads of opportunities to communicate and interact with his classmates and professors. |
|
Open learning provides him with more chances to communicate with people who are interested in Statistics and Maths. |
| Oral English |
Long time living in a Chinese environment, his oral English has been forgotten, not as good as before. |
Talking face-to-face with his classmates and professors can greatly improve his English speaking skill. | Both synchronous and asynchronous online courses give him chance to communicate in English more fluently, he can translate the word he does not know and the word he forgets how to pronounce immediately, which also helps him understand the content better.
Also, he can use other platforms to communicate with others, such as social media. |
An open environment can help him to improve his oral English deeper, with more communication from people who are not formal learners, Zhoudan can have more opportunities to practice his oral English. |
| Academic performance | Due to low sleeping quality, Zhoudan cannot focus on the class which influences his grades. | If Zhoudan can attend an in-person class, he can improve his grades by paying full attention to the learning materials. |
|
Zhoudan can discuss this with people who are experts in this field about his ideas and academic problems. |
Pitch Proposal
As an intentional student who does not come from a wealthy family, Zhoudan is facing some inequality issues. Firstly, due to the coronavirus pandemic, Zhoudan’s family has been taking financial pressure, which means he can not afford the flight back to Canada and can not participate in courses in a face-to-face environment. So, Zhoudan can only choose the distributed environment and open environment to study remotely in China. Secondly, although Zhoudan graduated from a foreign language high school and tried to improve his English speaking skill by teaching online English courses to kids in China, he still finds it difficult to express his ideas properly during class and group discussions. This affects his confidence in presenting his opinions and interacting with his peers. Also, the language barrier has a negative impact on his grades. As a Statistics student, the group project and in-class presentation account for a large proportion of his final grade. Thus, Zhoudan is struggling with the problems brought by the language barrier.
As mentioned before, because of the high cost of flight tickets and isolation fees and the huge innovations in technology, Zhoudan can choose between distributed learning and open learning. Compared to in-person learning, open learning and synchronous distributed learning, asynchronous distributed learning is the most effective way for him to gain enough credits and achieve the expected learning outcome.
Firstly, by choosing asynchronous distributed learning, Zhoudan can watch the recorded lectures any time he wants and schedule the course based on his time. Although open learning also has great advantages in flexibility, Zhoudan is very unlikely to gain enough credits for graduation. Also, Zhoudan might not achieve his expectations by choosing synchronous distributed learning. If Zhoudan chooses to take a synchronous course in China, he will encounter the same problems as last year. In other words, Zhoudan has to stay up late to attend the online lecture. On the one hand, it is hard for Zhoudan to pay full attention to the learning materials at the midnight. As a result, chances are that he will miss some basic content and misunderstand some important explanations. Hence, Zhoudan has to spend more time acquiring the knowledge he was supposed to know during the lecture. Therefore, taking synchronous classes is less effective than taking asynchronous courses. On the other hand, taking synchronous online courses would also negatively affect his sleeping time which might worsen his mental problems. But, Zhoudan will not face these problems if he chooses an asynchronous online course. Because of the flexible schedule of the asynchronous course, Zhoudan can have a regular daily routine and stop suffering the mental problems brought by sleeping deprivation. Also, he can spend more time playing basketball and hanging out with his friends which also has a positive influence on his mental health.
Secondly, asynchronous distributed learning also provides multiple ways to participate in the course. Except for the Zoom meeting, the asynchronous course can also offer him Chances to communicate with his peers and professors using social media. For instance, he can start a group discussion on Mattermost and join the Twitter chat to share his opinions. Through these various ways to participate in the course, Zhoudan can have a better understanding of the learning materials. Also, compared to in-person communication, he is likely to feel less stressful to communicating with his classmates which is also a useful method to improve his English speaking skill. According to Major (2015), an open learning environment allows researchers who are interested in the class’s learning materials to participate in this course. However, Zhoudan feels anxious about sharing his ideas with his classmates because of his poor oral English. It is difficult for him to join the discussion with strangers which will decrease the possibility of him communicating with others. Therefore, asynchronous distributed learning is the most effective and appropriate way for Zhoudan.
References
Major, C. H. (2015). Course structure. Teaching Online – A Guide to Theory, Research, and Practice (pp. 76-108). Johns Hopkins University Press. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uvic/reader.action?docID=3318874&ppg=87
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