From September 28th to October 6th, a delegation including twelve teachers and students from six departments of Faculty of Education, ECNU visited the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) for “International Academic Exchange Week” program.
First meeting with UIUC
The project head Ms. Ana and her colleague Ms. Yaning warmly welcomed the delegation from ECNU at the hotel, and gave some information about university surroundings, transportation and living tips. Later on the day, Dr. Alison Witt and Dr. Wei Liu from College of Education met the delegation at UIUC, Ms. Ana made a detailed introduction on development status, institutional framework and research performance of the College of Education.
Academic Seminar
An academic seminar was organized on October 4th. Dr. Wang Lijia introduced the basic situation of Faculty of Education, ECNU, and gave a report entitled “Teacher Rotation and Teacher Development in Mainland China”. Scholar Saadeddine Shehab from College of Education, UIUC reported on “Collaborative Problem Solving In Higher Education STEM Classrooms: Exploring Student Interactions, Group Progress, and Role of teacher”. Three Ph.D students and ten master students from the two sides shared their research results and discussed on the topics with common concern. The teachers and students from UIUC showed great interest in educational research in China, some issues such as, heavy homework burden on students, group school-running were aroused wide attention.
School Visits
UIUC also arranged observation activities in a private kindergarten and two primary schools. Dr. Mcbrige guided the activities. The private kindergarten is affiliated with UIUC, the visitors were deeply impressed by their children development laboratory and educational philosophy of truly focusing on children’s needs and interest. A mixed-age primary school with only four classes is also attached to UIUC. Another school is a countryside school, where the delegation observed Chinese, Spanish and math courses, etc.. The classes are full of vitality as group cooperating, idea expressing and experience exploring are fully advocated.
City Tour
The last activity was to experience urban cultural of Windy City Chicago, and visit University of Chicago.
Sharing Back at ECNU
Upon the delegation’s return, Department of Education Science organized a visit sharing session open to the Faculty of Education, ECNU on October 11th. All members of the delegation attended the session and shared many unforgettable moments on their trip, in particular, new research methods, paradigms and different research perspectives obtained after school visits, which definitely will benefit them a lot in their future researches.
