The Second International Summer Term of Chengdu University (CDU) has just started, being popular among all students. On the morning of June 15, the administration system of the Teaching Affairs Office was open to students for the Summer Term courses. Nearly 2,000 students selected courses in five minutes.
The International Summer Term is part of the International General Education Curriculum Programme included in the Quality-oriented Internationalisation Development Project, as pointed out in the Five-Year Action Plan for the Internationalization Strategy of CDU. The aim of the International Summer Courses is to broaden students' global vision, and train high-quality, practice-oriented, and international talent with patriotism and international outlook, global knowledge and cross-cultural communication skills, and understandings of international norms and professional qualities, as well as borderless learning and sustainable development competencies.
The high-quality courses were carefully selected by the Office of International Cooperation and Exchange and the College of Overseas Education. The Teaching Affairs Office provided overall guidance for the selection of these courses and the registration details. Relevant departments worked together to ensure the successful implementation of the Summer Term programme.
Focusing on the goal of cultivating young talent with global competence, this year's programme has offered a total of 50 international general education courses. The courses not only met the needs of students from different majors and disciplines, but also enriched students' international learning experience. Therefore, it reached a new high in the total number of courses, the rankings of partner universities and the quality of the teachers, and the enrollment scale of students.
Classroom Screenshot of “New Materials, Connected Vehicles, and Automation”
Among the 50 courses, 38 were from the top 50 universities in Times Higher Education World University Rankings, such as the University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Colombia University. The remaining 12 courses were from CDU's Germany Exchange Centre, New Zealand Exchange Centre, Malaysia Exchange Centre, and three high-end foreign experts. The courses covered 12 disciplines, including philosophy, economics, law, education, literature, history, science, engineering, medicine, management, art and interdisciplinary subjects.
Classroom Screenshot of “Drug Discovery: Treating Human Diseases through Medicine”
In terms of teaching approaches, this year's courses followed a student-centered philosophy and the basic principles of effective teaching. They were designed as a whole in combination with the characteristics and needs of online courses. They had rich teaching content and diverse teaching methods. The teachers used teaching materials of pictures and videos, and methods of group discussions, conduct case analysis, scenario simulation, as well as formative and summative assessment. All the above contributed to students' independent learning, process-based learning, and experiential learning. Overall, thirty teachers were selected from the College of Overseas Education and the College of Foreign Languages and Cultures as teaching assistants to coordinate course-related matters.
Classroom Screenshot of “Sister City Partnership between Bonn and Chengdu
— Beethoven as a Trademark”
During the courses, foreign experts had friendly and humorous teaching styles, frequent teacher-student interactions and cheerful classroom atmosphere. Students said that they had felt teachers’ enthusiasm, strong sense of responsibility, rich expertise. It has been a refreshing learning experience.
