Classrooms and lecture theatres on campus were empty, but the semester began on time at 8am, February 17th. All across the world, Tsinghua faculty and students logged in for the spring semester's first day of online classes.
Teaching across multiple time zones
Prof. Dag Westerstahl received the notice for online teaching when he was in Stockholm, Sweden - over 8000km away. He immediately familiarized himself with the related software and technical details, testing the system repeatedly with his assistants, colleagues and students to find the most suitable teaching methods.
“There is no boundary for learning. The more difficult the time, the more we should cherish the opportunity to learn,” said Westerstahl, the professor of Theoretical Philosophy and Logic at Stockholm University and a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
To many foreign faculty like Westerstahl, time difference is just one of challenges to overcome when conducting online teaching.
Westerstahl overcame the seven-hour time difference teaching his first online course. “Online teaching is a challenge for me. The interaction with students and homework remarks will be conducted in different ways, but I’m very confident that the students and myself will do well conducting online learning.”
Associate Professor Sara J. Bice was still in Australia when she started teaching Globalization and Governance.
She had to confront the new reality that her class was composed of more than 40 students in 11 different time zones.
Bice redesigned her lectures and recorded video lectures in only two weeks’ time, following student feedback.
Emphasizing the importance of discussion, she arranged online discussion classes four times a week, finding time slots that worked for everyone.
After these sessions, online assignments and readings were arranged through the Rain Classroom, where students could ask questions and provide feedback for the class.
Customization leads the way
Many Tsinghua teachers customized their classes to fit the unusual teaching conditions. Prof. Richard Dunham, senior journalist and co-director of the Global Business Journalism program, brainstormed with former Tsinghua visiting professor Steve Gunn and other American media professionals about his online course.
He believes online teaching tools are the easiest way to bring senior academic friends to his students: “I could even bring my students to the Washington DC for news interview practice.”
He is already considering possibilities like shifting the classroom to the International Center for Journalists, National Press Club and museums. His students are also spread across 19 different time zones.
Dunham seized the opportunity to show his students the three terracotta warriors he brought back on a previous trip from Xi’an.
“I believe this will surely arouse the students’ curiosity. I hope to take this opportunity to introduce my international students to Chinese culture and history.”
Optimists embrace technology
Many teachers have been excited by the move to remote learning. The teaching staff have been very supportive of each other, sharing their discoveries everyday as they navigate the online teaching systems ahead of the new semester.
Once they’ve figured out how to optimize teaching, they had to provide guidelines for their students on how to learn from it. Many teachers creatively modified their course content accordingly, such as Maxime Hermand.
“For the content of online teaching, I may add more grammar explanations and exercises. And I will prepare some dialogue exercises as homework in the video, ask the students to send me the recordings of their conversations, and I will give feedback on their recordings.”
Trouble-shooting,
one technical problem at a time
Technical difficulties aside, online teaching came as a test even for the experienced. “As I can’t see the students, the biggest challenge to me is to keep the students engaged online,” says Prof. Wang Gelin from the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences. However, she believes this experience will help to enhance her teaching abilities.
Prof. Vijay Kumar Pandey, who teaches the molecular basis of cancer at the Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute, cites the restriction of discussion-based activities as one of his major challenges. He came up with two options to improve the situation. “First, after finishing presentations, we could discuss using an alternative platform. Second, I might assign another time slot for one-one or group discussions.”
Bringing educators online
At 8am, February 17th, more than 150 course sessions commenced. Tsinghua faculty and students welcomed the new semester on their computers and smartphones.
Even in a digital classroom, some things never change: the most memorable courses are those taught by teachers genuinely interested in sharing knowledge they have fallen in love with. This passion for education is a time-honored tradition at Tsinghua.
For the spring semester this year, Tsinghua offers a total of 4,254 courses taught by 2,681 faculty members to 25,091 students. Apart from laboratories and practical courses, all 3,923 sessions are available online.
73 international faculty members based in four continents delivered 152 course sessions online covering disciplines such as science, engineering, literature, art, history, philosophy, economics, management, law, education and medicine.
Writer: Lin Yuan, Emma Ho, Agnes Chan, Angela Hua
Editor: Jeremy Tai, John Paul Grima
