The Shanghai Municipal Education Commission announced the winners of the 4th Shanghai Teaching Innovation Contest on April 28th. Teachers from Shanghai International Studies University (SISU) were awarded one first prize, two second prizes, and two honorable mentions in total, which also made SISU a winner of the Excellent Organization Award. In this year’s competition, SISU teachers from several departments and schools, including the School of Education, the School of International Relations and Public Affairs, and the School of Communication, outperformed their rivals in the fields of political education, basic course teaching, interdisciplinary liberal arts education, and the integration of production and education, highlighting SISU’s outstanding teaching capabilities in multiple disciplines.

Behind these impressive achievements were SISU’s elaborate preparations for the contest. Last December, SISU held a preliminary competition on campus to select the contestants from all participating teachers. After the entry list was finally decided, the Office of Human Resources and the Office of Academic Affairs organized a dozen training seminars on innovative course design, teaching philosophy, report writing, PPT design, and reporting strategies, which aimed to fully prepare the teachers for the contest. These seminars included various training activities such as group counseling, modeling learning, one-on-one consultation, and demo classes.   

SISU has brought home the first prize of the Shanghai Teaching Innovation Contest for three consecutive years. In recent years, in response to the trends of digital transformation in education, SISU has been encouraging its teachers to innovate their ways of teaching and has developed a series of innovative courses for the students’ all-round development. Through initiatives for teaching capabilities enhancement, an effective mechanism is also in place to enable SISU faculty members of all levels to improve their teaching abilities and innovate their pedagogical methods. These persistent efforts show SISU’s firm determination to cultivate a group of teachers who can take the lead in empowering education with digital transformation, furnish students with both intelligent and moral thinking, and thus nurture the talents needed for the development and rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.