With 21,000 students, 3,000 teachers and associated family members living on campus, the leadership of Shaanxi Polytechnic Institute (SXPI) has paid high attention to the epidemic prevention and control during the special period of COVID-19 pandemic. To ensure the safety of the whole community, SXPI has locked down the school from February to April and did not reopen for face-to-face teaching until May.

Meanwhile, a strong team on epidemic prevention and control was immediately established from February, dealing with the problems of security, online teaching, students’ psychological counseling, etc.

On the aspect of health monitoring, each student and staff kept submitting the health report every day. Besides, all the affiliated departments of SXPI actively conducted the prevention publicity, including the knowledge of social distancing, hand hygiene practices and the necessity of wearing facemasks. These actions ensured the ongoing safety and health of all the students, teachers and their family members.

Especially, during the special period, the ongoing quality of curricula-delivery was the major concern. To reduce the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on teaching and learning, SXPI initiated a series of decisive measures, which can be reflected in the following points.

Training of Digital Delivery Capability

SXPI provided all the staffs and students with training in effectively using the digital technologies. Meanwhile, the online teaching capabilities of the staffs were specially trained through a series of beneficial training courses, referring to the aspects of course design, delivery, assessment, etc.

Theoretical and Practical Teaching Combination

During the lockdown phase, SXPI leadership decided that the virtual learning activities were developed on public courses, such as English, Mathematics and theoretical aspects of those specialized courses. When students returned to the campus in May, students mainly focused on learning the practical aspects of their specialized courses under the guidance of the teachers in the training rooms.

Extension of the Study Period

To ensure all learners meet the required learning hours of completing the courses, SXPI leadership extended the working hours to 6 days each week. Besides, the summer vacation was reduced to one month.