Global Journal of Human Social Science, G: Linguistics and Education, Volume 23 Issue 8

pluralism feature of online education provides learners with access to a wide range of resources, perspectives, and knowledge. In online education, learners can access resources from a variety of sources, including different cultures, disciplines, and experts. This allows them to explore diverse perspectives and approaches to learning, and to develop a deeper understanding of the subject matter they are studying. This aligns with the Constructivist idea that learning should be contextual and situated in real-world experiences, and that diverse experiences and perspectives should be incorporated into the learning process. The pluralism feature of online education also encourages learners to engage in critical thinking and reflection, as they consider different perspectives and evaluate the credibility and reliability of different sources of information. This aligns with the Constructivist idea that learning should be an active process, where learners engage in problem-solving and critical thinking to construct their own understanding of the world around them. What’s more, the pluralism feature of online education also enables learners to develop cultural competence and empathy, as they engage with different cultures, languages, and ways of thinking. This aligns with the Constructivist idea that learning should be holistic and should develop learners' social and emotional skills, as well as their cognitive skills. d) Efficiency All the advantages brought by the Internet will eventually integrate into the efficiency advantages of online education. Online education can transform the original "inefficient" learning into online "efficient" learning. Compared with traditional school education, online education is different in content, time and space. In terms of content, the omnipotent characteristic of the Internet has enabled any Internet resources such as text, sound, pictures, and videos to be used in teaching content, which is extremely attractive to learners of all ages. In terms of time, it is entirely based on the learner's convenience, which is more conducive for the learner to arrange their own learning time. In terms of space, learners do not need to go to a special learning place to take the lessons, they can have the class wherever they want without leaving their home, but just through a computer, a mobile phone, or a pad to achieve efficient learning 8 . Constructivism believes that when students want to understand a complex problem, providing many examples or detailed solutions to them is not the best way. Students need some examples that contain a lot of topic-related information, then they have to filter this information until they construct their own knowledge system. The online education resources provided to students are always real, but not outdated textbooks. Through the Internet, students can directly contact experts, databases, and the latest reports. The problem- solving methods proposed by students can be evaluated online. This evaluation method can prompt students to make their own efforts to obtain satisfactory answer, rather than simply completing the task. With all the pros of the online education mentioned above, and in light of Constructivism learning theory, online education can promote the improvement of students' problem-solving ability and thinking level. IV. T he C ons of O nline E ducation: H ow they W eakened C onstructivism L earning T heory a) Network, software and hardware restrict the implementation of online education During the COVID-19 pandemic, a rapidly growing market demand has driven the online education to the "fast lane." The data shows that since the Ministry of Education proposed "online education", the Central Video Joint Learning and Ersi Online School has launched free live courses, with an average of more than 2 million real-time class attendees per class. More than 20 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities in China have joined the Ding Talk "Class at Home" plan, which covers more than 20,000 primary and secondary schools. It demonstrates that about 12 million students will be taught by webcast on Ding Talk. More than 80 online education companies have "donated lessons" to provide free courses for elementary and middle school students across the country 9 . However, in actual operation, these "online educations" have also exposed some problems, which leads to heated public discussion. First of all, the online teaching mode is obviously not as effective for many teachers and students as the offline mode. Unlike offline classes, teachers can only teach on the screen, and they cannot take effective interaction with students 10 . The students' actions can hardly be reported to the teachers in time, and that’s why it is difficult for the teacher to grasp the progress of the teaching. This problem weaks teachers’ ability to help students to construct knowledge 11 . Secondly, network environment is the foundation for the online education, especially for live teaching, which bears with higher requirement on the environment. It can be said that the quality of the network directly determines the basis of online education. However, due to the different levels of economic development around China, the basic conditions of the network are far from equal with each other. It is difficult to apply online education to underdeveloped regions. Hu pan (2020) reported that in the first few days of the large-scale opening of online education, due to the surge in the number of online users, many regions have encountered "stuck" and Volume XXIII Issue VIII Version I 20 ( ) Global Journal of Human Social Science - Year 2023 G © 2023 Global Journals Online Education in China during the Covid-19 Pandemic in Light of Constructivism Learning Theory