The Teaching and Learning Forum (Global Version) was launched on November 22, 2022. The purpose of the new forum is to encourage an exchange of innovative ideas and effective practices in teaching among both non-Chinese-speaking and Chinese-speaking teachers. Forty-five teachers and students from different schools and other organizations participated in the forum online or in person.
To start with, Prof. Liwei Wang, the Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning Development (CTLD), delivered an opening speech, which briefly introduced the CTLD’s mission, programs, and services. One of the main goals of CTLD is to improve the teaching capacity of the faculty. So far, 21 programs and services for teachers have been provided. In accordance to SJTU’s development in global vision and international influence, CTLD dedicates to engage all faculty members including those with language barrier to devote in teaching, it has launched this global version of the Teaching and Learning Forum, which is tentatively planned to be held 4-5 times per academic year.
Prof. Horst Hohberger from UM-SJTU Joint Institute (JI) was invited as the first speaker to deliver a lecture entitled “Encouraging Student Engagement and Interactivity at SJTU — a Personal Perspective”. He shared his teaching philosophy, strategies, and experiences that can help with overcoming the student-instructor barrier, promoting collaboration among students, and promoting overall engagement in the course, both inside and outside the classroom.
First of all, Prof. Horst emphasized the importance of creating a positive learning atmosphere, as people generally have a herd mentality. After inviting the audience to rethink their courses’ learning outcomes and review some assumptions, he proposed an intriguing idea, “I am not someone on the other side trying to explain something, but I am with them (my students), and we are together looking at this material, and we are together trying to make sure that this material is covered properly.”
Moreover, Prof. Horst also provided some useful insights and tips in real teaching scenarios based on his personal experience, including educational software such as CATME and Piazza, formative assessments, collaborative learning activities, and so on. All these techniques are useful to build a learning community, and keep the courses engaging.
At the end of this sharing session, Prof. Horst further envisioned the future challenges regarding online teaching and blended teaching, and exchanged views with attendees on how to meet such new challenges against the current backdrop and put forward viable and valuable suggestions.
During the Q&A session, the participants raised several questions regarding the pre-coursework assignment, lecture materials sharing, formative assessment, classroom discussion, grading of students’ interaction, etc. Prof. Horst answered these questions in detail and made several thought-provoking proposals.
Prof. Horst’s speech is particularly inspiring and useful for our teachers to design curriculum and instruction from a student-centered perspective.
Special thanks are extended to Prof. Ting Sun, the director of the Joint Institute Center for Learning and Teaching (CLT-JI), and her team for their indispensable support in launching this new forum.
Reported by Suyun Xu
Proofread by Wenting Xing
Reviewed by Yihong Qiu