From October 26 to 31, the PKU-UMich Teaching Development Webinar, which was jointly organized by the Office of International Relations, Peking University, the Center for Excellent Teaching and Learning of PKU (CETL), and the University of Michigan’s Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (CRLT), was held. The theme of this webinar was “Innovation and Evidence-Based Teaching”. 118 teachers at PKU and 66 teachers from other institutions signed up for the webinar.

A screenshot of the live webinar

The webinar features three forms of activity: keynote speech, group discussion and Q&A. A total of five keynote speeches were arranged. On October 26, Dr. Matthew Kaplan, Executive Director, CRLT and Dr. Zhu Erping, Director of CRLT China Programs, brought the first keynote speech entitled “Innovative Teaching and Learning at the University of Michigan”. They gave a brief introduction to the University of Michigan and the CRLT as well as the concept, institutional background and types of innovative teaching. On October 27, Dr. Deborah Meizlish and Dr. Whitney Peoples from CRLT brought the second keynote speech on the theme of “Research on the Best Practices of College Teaching and Inclusive Teaching”. By presenting a rich variety of cases and findings of empirical studies, they introduced how to increase students’ motivation and enthusiasm as well as the key principles of inclusive teaching. On October 28, Zhu Erping gave the third keynote speech, in which she mainly introduced the active learning strategy and active teaching strategy, elaborated on the theoretical basis of active learning, and demonstrated how to carry out active learning activities such as clarification pauses, think-pair-share, peer-to-peer teaching, one-minute paper, and concept map. On October 29, Dr. Malinda Mathney delivered the fourth keynote speech. Based on specific cases and the teaching practices at the University of Michigan, she explained how to carry out teaching assessment step by step and provided many useful forms and tools. On October 30, Dr. Matthew Kaplan delivered the last keynote speech on “Academic Research on Teaching”, in which he explained what academic research on teaching is and how to carry out academic research on teaching during teaching practices.

Following each keynote speech, the participating teachers would engage in group discussions, and questions raised during the discussions would be answered and discussed in the Q&A and Discussion session of the following day.

On October 31, a wrap-up session of the webinar was held. The participating teachers would first take part in the group discussions to share their gains and insights. Then, the leader of each group would summarize and present the results of discussions. All the participants said that they had learned a lot about active learning, inclusive teaching, and academic research on teaching.

As an important part of the “International Cooperation Program for Teaching Development” jointly organized by CETL and the Office of International Relations, this webinar was aimed at strengthening exchanges and cooperation on teaching development with overseas first-class universities, promoting the sustainable development of teaching competence among the faculty, and further enhancing the overall teaching quality of Peking University. CETL will continue to cooperate with international first-class universities to jointly promote the development and innovation of teaching and learning for higher education.

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