Early this semester, there were 10 international undergraduates from the Textile Engineering English-taught program who successfully transferred to Songjiang Campus and began their second-year program study, this is the first time for the School of Textile and Fashion to carry out courses for English-taught undergraduate program. Affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, most international students are blocked outside China and they cannot come to Shanghai to study for the moment. Therefore, at the beginning of this semester, fully supervised by and cooperated with the College of International Education, our School carried out a series of online courses since September 20th. With the aid of various online teaching platforms (ZOOM、Chaoxing), all teachers have started their diversified online teaching activities, which ensured a steady, well-organized, and high-efficient operation for undergraduate education.
There are 10 full English-taught courses for this program this semester, including 5 textile major courses which are Textile Materials, Introduction to Textiles, Spinning Technology, Nonwovens, and Experiment for Textile Materials, and 5 general platform courses which are Probability and Statistics, Oral Communication, Fundamentals of Computer Drawing, Basics of Computer Application, Mechanical Principles. These 10 international undergraduates come from different countries; therefore, all courses have to be scheduled in the afternoon or evening time to minimize the impact of time difference. All teachers are positive and enthusiastic, they can flexibly use a variety of online platforms and tools, and are always well-prepared for every lesson to ensure the teaching & learning quality. At the same time, a WeChat group for students & lecturers was established for communication of common class issues. In addition, a one-to-one personal academic tutor was also assigned for each student for a better and customized off-class study. By collecting teaching & learning feedback from different sources, the School keeps to know the status of online teaching, always finds and solves problems at the right time, ensuring that the online teaching does not compromise its quality and standards against the pandemic.
From the feedback, international students have shown very high enthusiasm for learning since online teaching was carried out. At present, international students are presenting a high level of attendance and good condition of learning. Although few students are facing problems of remote areas, unstable electricity, or internet signal, they can normally overcome and actively participate in the following online learning and discussion. These students are very looking forward to meeting with the teachers and classmates on the Songjiang campus soon. It is worth mentioning that 2 international students are currently on the Songjiang campus, they can not only have their courses online but also offline especially for the practical courses, such as Experiment for Textile Materials. Off-line learning allows the student to interact with the lecturers whenever they needed, which is helpful for the student to adapt to campus life quickly and completely.
As one of the first three full English-taught undergraduate programs in our University, the Textile Engineering program based on our School has the advantage of highly-educated teachers with rich overseas experience and top talent titles. Since the construction of this program was approved in November 2019, the School took much effort into it, such as organized professors and experts online to review and revise the cultivation plan for this program, and establishing a Teaching & Research Group for Textile Engineering English-Taught Program, teachers are actively preparing all kinds of teaching materials, now the development of the program is in an orderly and steady manner. Since the enrollment began in 2020, the number of students has increased to 24, including 14 in 2021, a significant increase compared with the pandemic period in 2020. Through the construction and development of the program, the domestic and international influence of Textile Engineering in our University will be gradually improved, and this will eventually help our University to build an international, innovative, and technical talent cultivation system in a theoretical and practical way.
Written by: Gao Weihong
Photo by: Gao Weihong
Review by:Li Yanmei
