From March 15 to April 7, 2024, School of Foreign Studies, Tongji University engaged in deep cooperation with Kashi University on the public welfare program of “MOOC to Western Regions”, carrying out synchronized classroom activities of “Understanding Contemporary China: English Reading and Writing” through cloud live streaming.
After detailed communication in the early stage, the live broadcast was officially launched on March 15. Wang Beilei, Associate Dean of SFS of Tongji, Liu Yan, Associate Dean of SFL of Kashi University, as well as Qian Jiawei from Treenity delivered speeches respectively. Wang fully affirmed this new attempt of foreign language education and teaching reform. The two schools gathered in the cloud and created synchronous classroom regardless of time and space, thus promoting digitalized, green and integrated development of foreign language teaching. Mr Liu said that synchronous classroom is empowered by technology, and it is conducive to sharing resources, expanding interactions and promoting balanced education, which provide more opportunities for teachers and students to learn and interact with each other. Liu hoped that there would be more chances to listen to meaningful courses of Tongji University.
Liu Yuxiang, teacher of the Department of College English of SFS of Tongji, has made full use of the multi-modal teaching resources, illustrating the background, philosophy and practice of “Beautiful China Initiative” and “Five Elements of the New Development Concept”, as well as six principles of promoting ecological civilization in the new era by means of videos, pictures, mind maps, etc. Guided by the teachers, students from the two schools actively participated in “cloud interaction” of various forms. The class is characterized by active classroom atmosphere and novel teaching methods, effectively stimulating students’ enthusiasm for learning, unlocking the power of divergent thinking and working together to tell China’s stories well.
The School of Foreign Studies of Tongji University actively responded to the national strategy and jointly carried out synchronous classroom activities with Kashi University and Treenity. This helped to increase efforts to support schools of higher learning in the western region, push forward technology-enabled teaching, provide new ideas for jointly cultivating high-quality talents, and open up new paths for the balanced development of education and digital intelligence.