The online teaching mode has been skillfully applied by teachers in the Department of Environmental Design of the Tsinghua Academy of Arts & Design. With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers of the department do their best to find more suitable teaching plans, and actively offer their advice and suggestions to improve the efficiency of online teaching. On the other hand, students have devoted themselves to the study with enthusiasm, completing their study tasks.
Professional Design (5)
Instructor: Liang Wen
Time: 8:00-11:30, Monday and Friday,
Target students: 2017 undergraduates of the Department of Environmental Design
Teachers discussing the curriculum arrangement online (left)
A/Prof. Liang Wen's teaching process (right)
Online classes are not technically difficult, but the challenge is to create a focused learning atmosphere. A/Prof. Liang Wen believes that what is taught to students should not only be design skills but also thinking methods. She had set the topic of consumer culture. Due to the outbreak of the pandemic, the original practice of visiting commercial space could not be carried out.
A/Prof. Liang Wen mainly guides the students to think about the frontier issues of commercial space design in a consumer society, so that students can master the skills and design process of interior design and cultivate design thinking.
To enable the students to master the knowledge of the course when learning online, A/Prof. Liang Wen has divided the original coherent problem into several 20-minute segments according to the online teaching guidance of the university, and introduced the basic concepts or background with videos.
Students attending a lecture online
In terms of assignments, affected by the pandemic, there are great changes. Originally, an important way of design projects was to make models, but now as conditions do not allow, the projects have to be transferred from making physical models to creating graphic images. A/Prof. Liang Wen asks students to do more collage to express their ideas or other projects that can be completed online. When commenting on homework, A/Prof. Liang Wen adopts a combination of group counseling and individual counseling to have in-depth communication with each other.
Online Cloud Classroom
In online teaching, A/Prof. Liang Wen has the best experience of "interaction". "Online interaction is better than that in a real classroom. Students in a real classroom tend to be shy and reluctant to speak, but everyone is very talkative online." In order to arouse students' initiative, A/Prof. Liang Wen and his students have set up "signals"- "1": having a problem; "2": without a problem. Such signals are convenient and quick, and students are "very cheerful".
Project presentation
Professional Design (5)
Instructor: A/Prof. Cui Xiaosheng
Time: 8:00-11:30, Monday and Friday
Target students: 2017 undergraduates of the Department of Environmental Design
Professional Design (5) mainly teaches interior design and students are divided into three classes, one of which is taught by A/Prof. Cui Xiaosheng. A/Prof. Cui has made adjustments in teaching methods and homework. He said that in traditional teaching students need to do a lot of work by hand, such as sketches, grass models, and field research involved in conceptualization. Now after adjustment, he frankly admits that from the perspective of teaching effect, "there is a certain loss".
A/Prof. Cui Xiaosheng teaching
A/Prof. Cui believes that online communication is still good in some aspects. For example, when communicating online, teachers and students ask and answer questions directly. The discussions are deeper and more intensive than those conducted offline. "Everyone speaks freely and the lesson is quite interesting."
Courseware presentation
However, at the professional level, A/Prof. Cui Xiaosheng also points out the shortcomings of online interaction. Because of the special nature of the course, teachers and students must discuss a design topic together. Communication is very important. "When my student talk about a plan, I cannot modify it on his/her paper work, but he/she has to send me a picture online, then he/she quits the shared screen, and I comment on the picture on the shared screen. Student can only watch over there but two-way communication cannot be realized."
Online modifications of students' plans
On the issue of mobilizing students' initiative, A/Prof. Cui notes frankly that it should not be limited to showing concerns, "Teachers should ask questions that students are interested in, and they should make some real learning plans or small goals that students are interested in." When talking about the overall experience of online teaching, A/Prof. Cui concludes that the students' learning environment is relatively quiet, their attitude is relatively focused, and the teachers are also very devoted, but he believes that face-to-face communication is especially important for design majors.
Professional Design (5)
Instructor: Zhang Yue
Time: 8:00-11:30, Monday and Friday
Target students: 2017 undergraduates of the Department of Environmental Design
As early as 2000, Prof. Zhang Yue did a research on the national higher education online demonstration curriculum of the Ministry of Education and had a certain understanding of online teaching. The hardware conditions then were quite different from today's.
Prof. Zhang Yue teaching
This course taught by Prof. Zhang Yue is a professional design course, mainly aiming to enable students to master the procedures and methods of interior design through teaching. "The teaching method of this course and the operation medium of students' projects are all carried out and played or displayed on computers; therefore, the switch to online teaching has not caused much maladjustment," said Prof. Zhang.
Correcting homework online
On the whole, given the characteristics of the course and previous experience, Prof. Zhang notes that there are basically no big problems in online teaching, except for the interactive level, "as eye contact and voice lack the directionality of a real classroom, students' response to questions is often belated." Prof. Zhang is most satisfied that the students do not slack off because of the home environment and their enthusiasm for learning is maintained. "
Online review of homework poses a great challenge on Prof. Zhang. In offline courses, homework is always marked by hand. However, some software nowadays does not have an electronic whiteboard or the feedback is not smooth enough, while the accuracy of electronic equipment is not enough. These problems restrict the effect of online courses.
Students sharing ideas in class
Through online teaching practice, Prof. Zhang Yue concludes, "The online teaching this time was, to some extent, started impromptu because of an emergency, so there are loopholes in many places. For example, some online teaching software has not been tested and adjusted for large-scale application and is therefore not perfectly stable. Problems often arise, obstructing the smooth proceeding of a lesson. There are also differences in the network hardware between teachers and students, which is also a common factor causing failures in teaching."
Project presentation
Environmental Physics
Instructor: Song Limin
Time: 8:00-11:30, Wednesday
Target students: 2017 undergraduates of the Department of Environmental Design
Graduation Design
Instructor: Song Limin
Time: 8:00-11:30, Friday
Target students: Two 2016 undergraduate students of the Department of Environmental Design
When preparing for online courses, Prof. Song Limin did a lot of work. Apart from adjusting the teaching plan, Prof. Song also studied some online course learning experiences at home and abroad. He believes that the plague has forced teachers to practice online teaching, which is a good thing in this time of adversity.
After six weeks of online teaching, Prof. Song Limin believes that it will be a new trend in the future art education to effectively utilize internet resources and combine the advantages of online and offline teaching.
Prof. Song Limin teaching online
This semester Prof. Song teaches environmental physics and graduation design. Environmental Physics is mainly about architecture and indoor thermal engineering, optics, acoustics, urban microenvironment, heat island environment and other related contents of landscape design and interior design. Although online teaching is forced by the plague, teaching this way also provides diversified observation environments for the course.
Cloud Classroom and courseware display
In order to enrich the curriculum, Prof. Song has also selected buildings from foreign magazines for each student to compare and contrast with the region where they are located, which has been assigned as homework. For example, one of the students in the class lives in Daqing with very cold winter. Prof. Song Limin has found him a Thai building. On the other hand, for a student in Guangxi, Prof. Song has found him a building in northern Europe to make cross-regional comparisons.
Prof. Song also links the courses he teaches with reality and discusses with his students how to prevent the epidemic of infectious diseases in community space, building space or interior design. The course is expected to have 10 students but 20 have applied.
In online teaching, Prof. Song Limin attaches great importance to the interaction of courses. "In an online class, I feel that everyone is listening attentively. Every question I ask can receive a quick response. Once I didn't call a student in class to answer my question, and he later messaged me via We Chat that he had prepared an answer to the question."
Students' project presentation
Source: Department of Environmental Design
Writer: Zhang Pengfei
Editor: Zhao Ruohan
Graphic Designer: Feng Jiaqi
