The Spring Semester of 2020 is a special one because of the COVID-19, and HUST issued the Notice on Postponing the Spring Semester Opening. Academician Ding Han, Dean of MSE and Prof. Shi Tielin, Party Secretary of MSE, called together teachers and staff in charge of teaching and students work by video conference, to discuss the work plan of "no suspension of study without classes", fully mobilizing teachers and students through various ways. According to the plan, the Academic Affairs Office immediately implemented the teaching management and teaching organization plan, investigating teaching performances in the first four weeks. They selected 15 key teachers from teaching teams or departments to train their online teaching skills and contacted teachers one by one for their difficulties and demands in giving online lessons. The Student Affairs Office asked students about their difficulties in and suggestions on online study.
The outbreak of the COVID-19 was an unprecedented challenge for MSE teachers and students, which also pushed them to carry out information-based teaching. For the first 4 weeks, MSE has given 38 courses through live broadcast, video broadcast or a combination of the two, with nearly 90 teachers participating in it. Many teachers tried to change the traditional teaching method which has been too rigid for a long time and carried out a happy and joyful teaching activity in a special period through the online teaching practice. For example, the teachers established teacher-student contact through the MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) platform and QQ groups, tested and used different kinds of live platforms for classroom teaching, publicized National High-quality Online Open Courses, and carried out interaction while giving online lessons, etc., which were well received by students. After online courses, teachers exchanged experience in their spare time so as to jointly improve their teaching skills.
Figure 1 MOOC course of Engineering Testing Technology Foundation on the website of China universities MOOC
Figure 2 The virtual simulate experiment course Testing Technology
by the virtual simulation experiment teaching sharing platform
Figure 3 Lecturer Chen Jiyong from MSE is giving lessons online and students reply in the learning group after class
Figure 4 Marking and correcting students’ homework
Figure 5 Associate Prof. Zhang Li of MSE is testing the teaching platform in advance,
supervising classroom check-in, correcting students' homework, and giving lessons
Figure 6 Teachers are giving lessons and teacher-students are exchanging ideas online
Figure 7 Teachers are sharing experience of teaching online after class
Figure 8 Screen shot of Associate Prof. Xiao Mi’s online teaching and his students’ reflections in QQ group
Figure 9 Associate Prof. Zhu Bihai is giving lessons with the blackboard provided by himself,
and uploading teaching videos in the QQ group
Since MSE started online courses as scheduled, the teachers have been full of spirit and the students have been enthusiastic, so the teaching process were stable. Due to the teachers’ careful preparations in advance, the new semester initiated on time, which fully reflected the self-improvement spirit, responsibility, innovation awareness and capability of MSE faculty and students.
As Wang Shuting, Vice Dean of MSE, said in his opening remarks New Semester with New Hope: Please take care of yourselves! We are always together!
