It is difficult to give classes in different places, while it is more difficult to teach in different countries. Due to COVID-19, teachers of MSE have overcome many difficulties to carry out online teaching “cross time and space”.
Engineering Control Foundation is an important basic course of mechanical engineering. At the beginning of the 5th week, when MSE initiated online teaching for students, students of Class 1801-02 found that Prof. Hu Youmin, teacher of the course Engineering Control Foundation, started to prepare for the class at 5:30 in the morning. Then they learnt that Prof. Hu had a 12-hour time difference with them because he was in the United States. In order to successfully complete the teaching task and ensure the quality of online teaching, Prof. Hu established a class group on DingTalk, where he gave lectures to students by group live broadcast, and students could also review independently through playback. With DingTalk, Prof. Hu learnt students' learning situation and answered questions in time in the group.
Figure 1 Online teaching and Q&A of Engineering Control Foundation
Figure 2 Prof. Hu Youmin giving the class Engineering Control Foundation
For students of Grade 2018 majoring in Mechanical Design, there was a Sino-foreign cooperative course named Mechanical and Electrical Innovation Decision and Design this semester, which made Prof. Hu worried. In the 2nd week, he contacted with the foreign teacher urgently to discuss whether online teaching could be adopted. With the joint efforts of both sides, they made it possible. The foreign teacher recorded the lecture videos in advance, and then Prof. Hu broadcasted it in QQ group during the class time.
Figure 3 Prerecorded teaching video of the foreign teacher on Mechanical and Electrical Innovation Decision and Design
However, this teaching method lacked interactions between teachers and students, as well as among students themselves. For this reason, Hu Youmin and Ling Ling, a lecturer of the curriculum teaching team, arranged various types of teaching and study, such as QQ group's Q&A, WeChat-assistant discussion, quiz, students' online team, QQ group's online video report and so on, to ensure achieving the curriculum teaching objectives.
Figure 4 Students' online report on Mechanical and Electrical Innovation Decision and Design
Ms. Ling Ling also had difficulty in teaching caused by time difference. She taught the course Machine Design to Class 1701 overseas students majoring in Mechanical Design. There were 7 students in the class, while 4 of whom were in Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Vietnam, with a maximum of 7 hours of time difference. To create convenience for each student, Ling Ling not only lived lectures with QQ group video during normal class hours, but also recorded micro-lessons of different knowledge points in advance, so that students can watch and study at a convenient time. And this unintentional practice made the course Mechanical Design, a National Excellent Course, accumulate English online course materials based on Chinese MOOC resources, and it also became the first batch of online teaching international platform courses in HUST.
Figure 5 Micro-lessons video of the course Machine Design
In order to test the teaching effect, Ling Ling also organized an online open book mid-term examination. Each student was given a different test paper with the same question stem and different parameters. Video invigilation was also realized through QQ video.
Figure 6 Invigilation video of Class 1701 overseas students majoring in Mechanical Design taking part in mid-term examination of Machine Design
After analyzing their examination papers, Ling Ling fully understood each student's mastery of different knowledge points, and then made some revisions in time, so as to promote the final examination paper composition and related examination work.
Figure 7 Examination paper analysis of the course Machine Design
During the epidemic period, all teachers of MSE stuck to their posts. Teachers carried out online teaching and Q&A by various ways, and the Academic Affairs Division and the Student Affairs Division actively coordinated and cooperated to do a good job in the management of academic affairs and communication services between teachers and students. All the silent efforts were based on a simple belief: all for students-- we cannot let students waste the golden time of study because of the epidemic.
