From June to July 2022, the College of Education plan and arrange the 2022 theme online exchange program named "innovative research in children's and Youth Education: methods and practice", and invited experts and scholars from University of Exeter, University of Nottingham, University of College London and other universities around the world to set up a series of online lectures to jointly carry out academic exchanges and seminars.

 On the afternoon of June 27, the first lecture of the series was given by Serkan UÇAN, assistant professor of Istanbul Medeniyet University, and hosted by Zhai Junqing, Associate Professor of College of Education at Zhejiang University. Dr. Serkan UÇAN Stay organized around the topic - Dialogic Teaching and Learning (DTL), introduced its specific models and listed the consensus on the productive forms of educational dialogue, such as asking open questions, acknowledging and probing different opinions and making extended contributions and elaborations building on previous knowledge and so on. He also put forward constructive methods to promote DTL in classrooms and emphasized the importance of dialogic interactions in school teaching, pointing out the form’s cognitive, social and emotional benefits in the terms of learning. In addition, Dr. Serkan UÇAN encouraged the audience to reconsider the efficacy of authoritative and monologic teaching in Chinese context.

 Late the same day, Professor Justin Dillon from the University of Exeter gave an informative and interesting talk on “Teaching and Learning about Climate Change, Environment and Health”, explaining some of the climate and environmental factors that prevent children from receiving a good education and emphasizing the importance of environmental education. He presented a model of current climate change education for the students, argued that teaching outdoors could contribute to of students’ physical and mental health by providing evidence support, and concluded with a vision of what schools could do with climate and environmental education. During the Q&A session, students discussed with the professor about "how to influence policy makers" and "individual and group perspectives". Justin also expressed his recognition and his belief on the certain area, considering it as the right path for the human beings to be educated on the environment and health.

 On the afternoon of June 28, Dr. Alexandros Amplazis from University of Western Macedonia in Greece gave a wonderful report entitled "Plant Blindness: An important Phenomenon". Alexandros first explained the concept of "plant blindness", that is, the neglect and abuse of plants in production and life, and the lack of environmental education about plants. Afterwards, he interpreted the relationship between plant education and the Sustainable Development Goals, analyzed the data of previous studies in relation to "plant blindness", and attached importance to the guidance for children to discover and explore the world of plants. In the final session, the host, Associate Professor Zhai Junqing discussed with Alexandros about the future trend of this research topic, and suggested that it would be an accessible direction to investigate and analyze the intergenerational differences of "plant blindness" by making each family as a unit.

Actively innovating the online international academic exchange mode, creating a diversified interactive platform, and building a new normal of international exchange are important countermeasures for the College of Education at Zhejiang University， which is beneficial to carry out international education. Please continue to pay attention to the exchange and learning project on the theme of "innovative research on children and Youth Education: methods and practice"!

Edited by HU Yizhuo, CHEN Yiting, XU Leting, YUAN Jinshan

Photo taken by XIA Jingyan, WANG Qiang