Presently, schools across China, including universities, secondary and primary schools, have implemented the online teaching platform as a means of controlling Covid-19. The number of users for the various teaching platforms approved by the Ministry of Education increases each day drastically, resulting in the instability of the platforms from time to time. To ensure effective usage of the teaching platforms for both teachers and students, Shanghai Maritime University has implemented various emergency plans to ensure the effective utilisation of the different teaching platforms. The emergency plans implemented by the university are as follows;
- Organizational Plans
- Establishing a communication mechanism between teachers and college secretaries: To ensure effective usage of the teaching platform, teachers and college secretaries can establish a communication mechanism. If there are any changes in the course of the teaching plan, the college secretaries will inform students in advance.
Improving students’ information: Teachers need to establish and enhance students' information. In addition to students names and students numbers, students are required to provide their email account details to facilitate educational resource distribution. In carrying out teaching activities on the teaching platforms, teachers are encouraged to ensure the effective flow of information to students about that course by creating a class group for each course as an alternative plan for the implementation of the online teaching. Shanghai Maritime University recommends WeChat and QQ as the social media handles for creating the class groups. The name of the social media group should be “**class +course name”. Students who registered for that course for this semester
- must join the class group created by the teacher. After students have joined the group, their respective group names should be changed to this format, “student number +name”. Teachers can issue notices to students through the social media groups, email accounts or on the mailbox of the teaching platforms. College secretaries should ensure students who registered for a particular course this semester join the group created by the teacher and also know the course teacher’s email details.
- Teaching Implementation Plan
- Difficulty in uploading teaching resources on the platform: Teachers are testing the teaching platform before the actual classes begin. During the system testing period, teachers and students have a high degree of autonomy. Teachers having difficulties in uploading educational materials to the platform must upload the materials to the network disk for backup.
- Difficulty in studying on the platform: Students are required to complete the online learning materials uploaded by the teacher before the time node-set by the teacher elapses especially for homework. If students encounter difficulties while using the platform to study, the following measures should be taken;
- Teachers should notify students of course delays or changes through the platform or the social media class groups (WeChat /QQ groups).
Teachers can share course materials and learning requirements to students on their social media class groups, student's emails, web disk links and others. Students are to download these materials and study by themselves. Teachers must arrange pre-class tests before the actual class to ensure effective usage of the platform. Students are encouraged to
- Inability to complete the centralised online Questions and Answers (Q&A): Teachers will notify students in the class group of any changes made on the platform. During class sessions, students must sign in within the class group and the course assistant (the teacher selects the course assistant) records the attendance. During class sessions, students are not allowed to send voice messages, questions and interactions must be written or documented. Teachers will then answer the questions of students. If for some reasons that a student's question is unanswered, the student can send the questions to the teacher by email after the class. After the class discussion, the course assistant must organise all the discussion questions and submit them to the teacher in a documented format. The teacher then gives authorisation for the document file to be uploaded on the platform for further downloading and reviewing by students.
- Difficulty in submitting assignments: After class, students are required to submit homework assigned by teachers through the platform. Teachers then give a time frame for the submission of the homework. Students can save their assignments and try uploading later when they encounter problems uploading their assignment on the platform. Students who fail to complete their homework submission in time due to instability of the platform should send it to the teacher by email and teachers can upload the homework in the class group if the platform is unstable.
International Education College
Wednesday, 26th February 2020