On October 24th, 3:00 PM, Dr. Charlie Reis, the Director of Educational Development Unit of the Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, invited by DCOM, FHSS, gave a lecture at T7-104, entitled “Confucian Professional Standards Framework: Intercultural Educational Leadership.” The lecture was hosted by Dr. Jianing Chen. Dr. Xiaolong Diao from CCGC, Dr. Milen Gotchev Jissov, Associate Director of CTL, and many students attended.

In the lecture, Dr. Reis started the topic from Confucianism, focusing on Confucius' educational opinions, such as “To study and not think is a waste; to think and not study is dangerous,” and “learning by example,” which are still relevant in today's classroom teaching practice. Afterwards, Dr. Reis proposed how to create a Student-Centered Active Learning Environments (SCALE) in education, with the Taoist concept of “Non-doing” (wu wei) as the core. He quoted the Tao Te Ching's saying, “Achieves his goal but claims no credit,” to illustrate how teachers should guide students to think and grow in the educational process, rather than controlling and dominating them. By allowing students to stimulate their thoughts in a relaxed and free conversation, teachers can effectively promote students' independent learning and innovative thinking.

The lecture received an overwhelming response, with teachers and students asking questions and engaging in dialogue and discussion with the speaker. He vividly responded to the attendees during the Q&A session on how to motivate students and help them better integrate into the learning process by building an equal and dialogic classroom environment. At the end, Dr. Chen presented a souvenir to Dr. Reis on behalf of UIC, and a group photo was taken of the speaker and listeners.

Reporter: Shirley Xie

Photographer: Rocia Gao

Edited by Jianing Chen