An ecological psychology perspective in teaching Chinese online

Abstract In this paper, we first introduce three ecological principles for designing Chinese language online teaching and learning activities drawing from ecological psychology. The first principle – perception and action cycles in an ecosystem, advocates for situating online learning in a physical environment and creates activities with potentials to engage perception-action cycles. With the second principle – intention and attention merge in an ecosystem, we advocate for designing complex, flexible and dynamic activities and providing scaffolding for attunement. The third – meaning-making and values-realizing coincide in an ecosystem, calls for designing activities that allow for care-taking of oneself, each other, and the environment and cultivate curiosity and mindfulness for values-realizing and individual meaning-making. To highlight ways to tap into learners’ interest and connect to people and places, we then share two example activities with both low-technology and high-technology options.