[Southeast University News Network, Feb. 24] On Feb. 24, Southeast University started its online teaching as scheduled. At 8:00a.m., the online lecture was officially launched with the first batch of 127 teachers and nearly 7,000 students online for the first class in the morning during the special period of epidemic prevention. Afterwards all undergraduate and graduate students started their online learning in succession. School CPC Secretary Zuo Wei, President Zhang Guangjun and other school leaders acquainted themselves with the online teaching and provided guidance at the first time.
At the Teaching Affairs Office of Jiulonghu Campus, the delegation of Zuo Wei got a detailed understanding of online courses and observed the teaching of partial ongoing online courses through video. The onsite operation indicated stable online operation, clear audio transmission and sound status quo. Zuo Wei emphasized that online teaching should make the best use of the circumstances, adjust the progress in a scientific and rational manneraccording to the characteristics of the course concerned, guide students to study independently, pay attention to the students’ feedback about the learning effects in time, and thus improve the quality of teaching.
Zhang Guangjun listened to the reports from the principals of the Academic Affairs Office and the Graduate School about online teaching on the first day, and provided specific instructions. He emphasized that during the period of epidemic prevention and control, it is necessary to explore various forms and teaching modes of online teaching, understand the students’ learning and solve their difficulties timely, enhance the course supervision, guarantee the quality of teaching, and minimize the impact of the epidemic on teaching quality.
In accordance with the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important speech and the Ministry of Education’s deployment of “postponed schooling without return to school” and “suspended classes without suspension of learning” while in combination with the situation of the epidemic prevention and control, the school has developed the online teaching for all students as scheduled since the beginning of the term by following the working requirements of “postponed schooling, scheduled teaching, online office and flexible work”. Meanwhile, the school, the colleges and the departments, and all teachers and staff started to work online in a flexible manner. Up to now, a total of 1,478 undergraduate courses and 939 full-time graduate courses have been available online for the spring semester.
Previously, in order to further advance the deployment of epidemic prevention and control, postponed schooling and online teaching, school leaders including Zuo Wei and Zhang Guangjun surveyed all campuses, partial colleges and functional departments to provide guidance, and emphasized that the school’s reform and development shall be still carried out rigorously during the period of epidemic prevention and control. Zuo Wei and Zhang Guangjun also released “Unity Is Strength to Response to Challenges Together---A Letter from the CPC Secretary and President of Southeast University”, proposing the positioning and principles of online teaching: first of all, to stabilize the teaching order; secondly, to innovate the teaching mode; thirdly, to guarantee the quality of teaching. Relevant departments such as the Academic Affairs Office and the Graduate School, etc. should also take an active role in formulating plans for postponed schooling and online teaching. The Faculty Affairs Office of the school’s Party Committee issued an initiative to each teacher, calling on all teachers to take responsibility without forgetting their original intention of student cultivation, be brave in innovation and practice the mission of teaching, observe the overall situation and cooperate in epidemic prevention and control.
According to the school’s work plans, all the undergraduate courses except the experimental and practical courses, etc. that cannot be accomplished online shall be studied online. The students shall study, carry out discussion, Q&A and complete homework under the instructions of their mentors. Up to now, a total of 2269 QQ/WeChat groups have been established for undergraduate courses with each teaching class as a unit, including 685 groups for public courses covering mathematics, physics, English, chemistry, ideology, physical education, engineering and computer, etc., 244 groups for general elective courses and 111 groups for interdisciplinary courses, which have been all announced on the homepage of the Academic Affairs Office. The information about the teaching class groups of other professional courses for the college students has also been announced on the homepage and the student’s groups of the college concerned. The Academic Affairs Office has notified the students to join the class groups corresponding to the courses as selected through multiple channels including the teaching dean, the teachers and the counselors, etc.. Up to now, most students have entered the corresponding class groups. With each college as the constituting unit, the school has established a total of 27 teaching information groups consisting of Dean of the college, CPC Secretary of the college, Deputy Dean of Teaching, CPC Vice Secretary, Director of the Department, Teaching Assistant, the Counselor, the monitor of each class and the liaison teacher of the Academic Affairs Department to feed back the teaching order and monitor the teaching during the period of postponed schooling.
The teaching of graduate courses is also carried out according to the original curriculum. Before the students return to school, the teaching and discussion courses, accounting for 90% of the postgraduate courses, shall maintain the normal teaching by means of online and offline mixed teaching, online discussion, students’ independent study and question & answer, etc.; theories of the experimental courses and the design & practice courses shall be partially completed online with the on-site experiments and design practices to be finished after the students’ return to school. The online teaching is mainly based on recording and broadcasting, supplemented by MOOC and live broadcast in combination with online Q & A and discussion, etc.. The mentors are requested to provide remote guidance to guarantee uninterrupted liaison and academic discussions via WeChat, QQ, telephone and email, etc.. In addition, literature reading, research review, theoretical study, computational simulation, research methods, dissertation writing and topic discussion, etc. are arranged respectively. For the students who are going to graduate, specific attentions will be paid to the progress of their thesis writing and timely instructions will also be provided. It is recommended that the supervisors and the graduate students shall communicate with each other no less than twice a week.
When the online teaching is on schedule, for those students who need to adjust their anxiety or have difficulty in attending online classes in the key epidemic-struck areas, and those students who are confronted with the pressure of graduation and employment, the school persists in the student-oriented principle and has worked out accurate work plans and assisting programs.
Launching online teaching on schedule is an extraordinary action to minimize the impact of the epidemic on the teaching order and the quality of education. It is also an approach of testing and promoting the online education at school. It requires the understanding, support and active cooperation of teachers and students, also demands the school’s joint efforts and gradual improvement to guarantee the talent cultivation standards unchanged, the mode of cultivation unchanged, and no decrease of the quality of cultivation. The school will also take the great opportunity to launch online teaching, promote the digitalization and informationization of teaching in an overall manner, and promote the construction of online course resources.
It is reported that 1478 undergraduate courses (3215 teaching classes) of different varieties are offered by Southeast University this semester. Except the courses to be opened after the seventh week, the suspended elective courses and the experimental practice courses, etc., the remaining 1167 courses (2269 teaching classes) can be available online as scheduled. At present, all colleges have formulated the detailed rules and guarantees for education and teaching during the epidemic prevention and control in accordance with the school’s requirements. The online teaching plans of all courses have been accomplished, the appropriate mode of teaching regarding the courses concerned have been identified, the alternative teaching programs of all courses have been prepared. The prerequisites for 1,167 courses online can be prepared three days in advance. In the first eight weeks of this semester, a total of 860 courses have been offered to the graduate students of Southeast University, including 734 lecture courses, 96 seminar courses, 10 experimental courses, 5 design and practice courses, and 15 courses of other types. Each college and department have formulated its graduate teaching plan and the mentor’s instruction plan. The course outline, the teaching calendar and the online resource preparations for the first 8 weeks have been completed.
(Editor-in-charge: Ji Hong, reviewed by: Li Xiaonan)
