Online teaching marks fresh start for spring semester in SCUT for fighting epidemic
Teachers are teaching online
In order to minimize the impact of the breakout of the Novel Coronavirus on teaching, South China University of Technology (SCUT) has followed the instruction of “Class suspended, Teaching and Learning ongoing”, and adopted the mode of online teaching for the undergraduate courses in the 2019-2020 spring semester before students return to the university. Except for some courses that are not suitable for online teaching will be postponed until the students return to campus, all other courses will be put online by virtue of different online teaching platforms, video conference software and other channels.
On February 24th, SCUT officially started the online teaching with a total of 439 teachers offered 310 undergraduate courses and 606 online classes, and totally 36,528 undergraduates registered for studying online. Judging from the teaching inspection results, the online teaching order on the first day is stable and the teaching effect is good. Teachers take full advantages of different platforms and methods to achieve their teaching goals, such as MOOC, Xuetang Online, Wisdom Tree, Rain Classroom, Tencent Classroom, Superstar Learning APP, Teaching Online, QQ Group and etc..
Students are studying online
The students concentrate on their study and actively participate in the online interaction, showing great passion for learning. For example, Dr. Xiong Wei from the School of Design taught an online course called “Descriptive Geometry, Shadow and Perspective” by using the combined pattern of “Tencent Classroom + QQ Group”. He used “Tencent Classroom” for live-broadcasted teaching, and took the “QQ Group” as the major communication medium. Most of the real-time interactions in class are realized via the QQ group and the dialog box of “Tencent Classroom”. Students were deeply touched by the teacher’s hard work and presented “flowers” to their teacher.
Foreign teachers are engaged in their teaching
Jeff Kirton, a foreign teacher from the United States, immediately got involved in the preparation of Academic English courses with the College English Team. He tried online real-time interaction with students in advance via the Internet. Apart from Jeff Kirton, other foreign teachers at the School of Foreign Languages have also worked hard to adapt to the requirements of online teaching, and other courses will be put online one after another.
The hand-written handouts of Professor Liu Zhengrong
Liu Zhengrong, a 65-year-old professor of the School of Mathematics, has been accustomed to writing on the blackboard for decades. But he also tried his best to adapt to the mode of online teaching. He wrote the class handouts on sheets of A4 paper in his own hands, and scanned these handouts online with the help of his family members so as to use them as a couple of PPT slides for teaching.
The first lesson of School of Civil Engineering and Transportation
During the online teaching process, teachers also combined ideological and moral education elements with epidemic prevention education. Most teachers of the School of Civil Engineering and Transportation carried out the first education lesson with distinctive topics.
Dr.Zhang Lijuan is teaching Fluid Mechanics
For example, Zhang Lijuan, an experienced teacher of School of Civil Engineering and Transportation, associated the construction of the Huoshenshan Hospital (Fire God Mountain Hospital) and the Leishenshan Hospital (Thunder God Mountain Hospital) with the civil engineering major and the fluid mechanics courses, which greatly inspires the students’ interests in learning fluid mechanics and enhances their pride in the civil engineering major.
Inspection of online teaching
In order to ensure the teaching order on the first day, the university has carried out a lot of preparations. On the one hand, teachers are required to adopt a combined online teaching strategy (teaching platform + QQ group / WeChat group) according to the curriculum characteristics and the teaching needs, and to prepare preliminary plans in case of any emergency; on the other hand, a two-level inspection group is set up to check out the detailed preparation works of all the online teaching courses (including teaching resources, the preliminary plans, the pre-class trials, etc.). Courses that failed to meet the inspection requirements would be suspended.
The members of the two-level inspection group also went online and entered the online classroom to listen to the courses with their real names, so as to timely know about the teaching order and course quality and give instant feedbacks, ensuring that the online teaching proceeded smoothly on the first day.
Translated and Edited by Chen Juncheng
Proofread by Wu Zhaosheng
Source from the GZIC, SCUT News Network