On September 12th, the first Sino-foreign synchronized class—Polymer Chemistry and Physics, held by Wuhan University of Technology and Monash University—started in a smart classroom and the lecture hall of the International School of Materials Science and Engineering. The 2020 undergraduates of the International School of Materials Science and Engineering and the Department of Materials of Monash University attended the course together.

Since 2015, the International School of Materials Science and Engineering has deepened reform on education and teaching for the cultivation of top innovative talents. Our school recruited foreign professors well-known in materials and related fields worldwide and formed 14 international teaching teams to nurture our students to be internationally talented. Due to the inconvenience of international travel caused by the epidemic, our college actively invited these foreign universities to explore new modes of international education. As a result of in-deep discussion, Monash University in Australia agreed to our plan of a new teaching mode—online and offline synchronized class.

The course will last for one month. In the first class, Professor Neil Cameron, Head of the Department of Materials at Monash University, taught the Rubber Elasticity module. The follow-up teaching modules include Polymer Polymerization, Molecular Motion of Polymers, and Mechanical Properties of Polymers. Students of Wuhan University of Technology will also have group discussions with peers from Monash University. Professor Wang Tao, the lecturer of Polymer Chemistry and Physics, was present throughout the lecture, and he urged the students to embrace the differences between domestic and international teaching and to improve their abilities of active learning and critical thinking.

This initiative has been one of the key measures to implement informatization, strategically educational digitalization, and the Five Plans and Thirty Actions Initiative. In the future the college will make extra efforts to introduce digital resources of high-quality foreign courses, carry out more online and offline synchronized classes at home and abroad, lead a teaching reform with new standards and new models, strengthen quality control during the process, deepen the internationally joint cultivation of top innovative talents, and implement the fundamental task of establishing moral education.

Written by: Fu Chengju, Wu Ziqi

Shot by: Zhang Hongfei

Translated by: Yv Jingyuan

Proofread by: Yv Jingyuan