Under the COVID-19 epidemic, colleges have implemented distance learning, which allows students to access courses online at home. Many problems arise for teachers in the teaching process. For example, teachers' use of teaching design, student learning, and the actual implementation of distance learning. Due to the impact of the epidemic, this can present different teaching challenges for teachers and different learning habits for students. Teachers encounter different problems to implement distance learning, and teachers can refer to this international research to improve their teaching. To address the problems arising from distance learning in an epidemic context, it is important to consider international teaching or research experiences and to improve the quality of distance learning. This article describes the common problems of distance learning in universities, then examines international research on distance learning, and concludes with a discussion and suggestions on the common problems of distance learning in universities.