During October 8th to 12th, 15 teachers and 2 assistant teachers from Tongji Unviersity went to Finland to continue the second phase of the second Pedagogical Training Program.
“Sino-Finnish Pedagogical Training Program” is cooperation between Tongji University and Aalto University, which started last April with the aim at learning from Aalto University’s teaching experience and methods to people with multicultural backgrounds. Through this training program, the English teaching practice of teachers in Tongji could be improved when giving courses to students from China and abroad, which will enormously push forward the implementation of the cultivation strategy for international talents and foster excellent talents through brand-new teaching philosophies and methodologies.
In November 2011, Vice President Wu Jiang signed the MOU of “Sino-Finnish Pedagogical Training Program” with Aalto University. This marked the establishment of a longer and more stable cooperation between Tongji and Aalto in PEDA Program.
The Second Pedagogical Training Program initiated on May 8, 2012. In the first phase, two teachers from Finland came to Shanghai to give the training courses to 20 teachers from different schools in Tongji University. In the second phase, Kirsi Kettula, Project Manager and Education Developer of Aalto University, as well as Laura arranged the whole week learning activities for all the teachers.
On the first day, teachers made self-introduction in a lively atmosphere. After that, they were grouped to discuss the topic of “what forms an excellent teacher”. Their discussion included learning environment, learning process, teacher’s personality, teaching methods, teaching contents, etc. Then the teachers were asked to give feedbacks in a way like “snowball”, which meant forming comments in pairs, in 4 people, in groups, and at last all people sit in one circle and gave evaluation to their own performances and learning results.
On the second day, with the method of “Role Play”, all the teachers were grouped and either played the role of teachers or the role of educational developers and then started negotiation. After fierce argument, they got deeper understanding on the improvement of teaching methods. The teachers also discussed the applicability of this teaching method. Afterwards, Professor Katrina Nordstrom from Aalto University gave a speech concerning her own experience and teaching practice. In the afternoon, the teachers were arranged to attend different courses of Aalto University according to their own teaching area, and got ideas of the real application of different teaching methods.
On the third day, all the teachers formed into small groups to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of different teaching methods, and tried to provide solutions, followed by a lecture given by Pofessor Kari Heiskanen from Aalto University.
On the fourth day, through a workshop called “emotion teaching”, teachers realized the importance of teamwork, and some of them also pointed that innovation should be an indispensible part of curriculum. After the workshop, Tongji teachers had a meeting with Aalto professors in corresponding fields, providing an open platform for closer dialogue between each other. For the last day of this phase’s training, teachers concluded what they’ve attained this week and showed great expectations for the next phase held in November in Shanghai.
The Second Pedagogical Training Program provided better chances for teachers from Tongji and Aalto to experience and study the similarities and differences in pedagogy of different countries and under different education systems, which also enabled them to learn from each other and apply good teaching methods into their own teaching system.
