Did you know that Ms. Luoyi Cai, Teaching Assistant Professor in Chinese, is a Zoom guru? It’s true!
But how does one become a guru?
In the summer of 2016, Ms. Cai was invited to participate in the University of Virginia’s STARTALK teaching training program. That year, STARTALK transitioned the training theme from the face-to-face language teaching to online teaching for the first time. After graduating from that summer’s teacher training program, Ms. Cai was invited by the program director, Professor Miao-fen Tseng, to serve as a trainer in the 2018 and 2019 summer programs to facilitate pedagogical practicum of online synchronous language classes.
Given these experiences and in response to high demands for online teaching due to epidemic, Ms. Cai, together with the other members from the core training team of STARTALK program, decided to voluntarily hold a series of online trainings for the teaching community. In March, after only three trainings for secondary and post-secondary Chinese teachers, attendance totaled over 360 Chinese language teachers!