Achieving Excellence by Emphasizing on Practice- THIS Professional Development Day

Director of the Admnistration Team, Ms. Dong Wenbo, invited Ms. Mou Xinmei, the Vice Principal of the Government Affairs Department at Shunyi International School, to conduct a themed training session on “How Non-Teaching Teams Can Establish Efficient Partnership with Educational Teams” for all administrative teachers. Principal Mou emphasized that administrative and educational teams are complementary partners. She also collaborated with the attending administrative teachers to summarize the extended meaning of this partnership, which includes equality, trust, mutual assistance, friendliness, cooperation, unity, and share of the common vision. The administrative teachers should strive to become versatile professionals and fulfill their duties with professionalism, dedication, and a sense of mission.

During lunchtime, Ms. Croker, the Dean of Faculty, presided over a communication meeting with new teachers. She inquired about the concerns they encountered in their daily life and work, and patiently provided detailed answers based on her 8 years of experience in China. The new teachers expressed their gratitude for the tremendous support they received from THIS FAMILY, both in their personal and professional lives, and they remarked on the unprecedented warm atmosphere they experienced.

In the afternoon, the primary and secondary department teachers conducted a content-rich, diverse, and up-to-date educational training program. The training mainly covered a reading and writing literacy workshop (for middle school), a reading and writing literacy seminar (for primary school), Schoology basic knowledge, as well as professional teaching skills training based on different subjects.

During the Chinese language training session in the afternoon, Ms. Xu Huilin, a retired Chinese language teacher from Tsinghua High School, former head of the Chinese Language Research Department at Tsinghua High School, gave a lecture titled “Endure Hardship, Reap Success – Tsinghua Spirit”. In her lecture, Ms. Xu deeply interpreted the Tsinghua Spirit from the perspectives of Tsinghua’s history and the Tsinghua school anthem, greatly benefiting the Chinese language teachers present at the event. During the subsequent discussion session, Ms. Xu engaged in immersive discussions with everyone on the cultivation of thinking skills in the Chinese language subject, taking into account the practicality of current education and teaching. Ms. Xu’s solid and profound knowledge in subject teaching and her sincere, generous, and meticulous teaching style deeply attracted every teacher present, providing guidance for improving the classroom teaching level of the International Department’s teachers.

It is worth mentioning that we also invited a 12th-grade student to give a demonstration report to the teachers. He has developed ChatGPT further and created a Notetaker application that allows teachers and students to quickly convert large amounts of learning content into structured notes, which can assist in reviewing and other aspects, while also providing comprehensive support to teachers in their work. He not only utilizes cutting-edge tools to help themselves and their classmates study and review more efficiently but also cares about the community and has developed an assistant application for teachers, contributing to the overall development of THIS. This is a perfect manifestation of THIS’s core values!In the latter part of the training, the head of THIS AI Education, Yuqing Long, discussed the recent developments of AI tools in multimodal applications. The evolution of large models now enables them not just to process text, but also to handle voice, images, and videos, with many mature applications emerging. Textbook content will become more vibrant than ever before, bringing knowledge to life and presenting it in more imaginative ways. 

In the latter part of the training, Mr. Long Yuqing, the head of AI Education at THIS, introduced the recent development of AI tools in multimodal applications. With the advancement of large-scale models, they can not only process text but also have mature applications in speech, images, and videos. Textbooks will become more vivid than ever before, and knowledge will come to life in more imaginative ways, presenting a new and exciting learning experience.

Meanwhile, Mr. Zhao Haozhong from the IT Support Team explained the practical and powerful new features of the Office software to administrative teachers. The teachers benefited greatly from his presentation and further deepened their understanding of functions such as data processing, quality control of written content, and real-time voice translation in presentations. Following that, the administrative teachers conducted a seminar with the theme of “Educating through the Environment”. They actively participated in group discussions and enthusiastically contributed ideas on how to improve the environment of the International Department and make it more educationally meaningful.

We hope that teachers will continue to uphold a spirit of learning, innovation, and daring exploration in their future educational practices. We encourage them to continue learning, sharing, and reflecting, striving to become even better educators who can help every student realize their full potential!