The third national university young teachers teaching competition was held from August 28th to 31st at East China Normal University in Shanghai, P.R China. A total of 93 young teachers’ finalists from all over the country participated in the competition as they competed earlier on provincial level. The competition was divided into three groups as liberal arts, science and engineering. Dr.Imran from College of Agriculture and Biotechnology, Zhejiang University participated in the national teaching competition on behalf of Zhejiang province, showed outstanding performance and won the first prize in engineering group.
National University Young Teachers Teaching Competition is organized on the idea of "Improving teaching qualities and lesson plans". The competition level and requirements are very high and strict; each contestant's combined result is composed of three parts as teaching design of all the classes, practical classroom teaching and writing the teaching reflection. Each contestant needs to complete the teaching design of 20 hours before one week of the competition, and 20 teaching sections of PPTs; the lottery decides the number and class topic/teaching content of the contestant; after the classroom teaching competition contestant needs to write class teaching reflection in 45 minutes. The contestants are not allowed to say and show their names and affiliated institutions on their slides. Dr.Imran devoted and prepared for the competition for 2 months, worked very hard and finally showed the style of young teachers in Zhejiang University with all his enthusiastic spirits.
Dr.Imran is a first full-time foreign teacher at College of Agriculture and Biotechnology, Zhejiang University. He started studying at College of Agriculture and Biotechnology, Zhejiang University in 2002 and under the supervision of Professor Zhang Guoping received a doctorate degree in 2006. He was engaged to carry out postdoctoral work in horticulture and in environmental sciences subsequently after that. He formally joined Zhejiang University as an Assistant Professor in September 2012, in 2015 he was promoted to Associate Professor. After the competition when the media interviewed him, he proudly introduced himself saying that "I am made in, made by and made for Zhejiang University" which shows his gratitude, devotion and loyalty to his alma mater. He gives all the credit of his success to his teacher Professor Zhang Guoping, as he learnt a lot from him kkeping in mind: “teaching is a basic and fundamental duty of a teacher”. In 2012 he also won first prize at the Zhejiang University personnel teaching skills contest of newly inducted teachers. On the basis of his performance, care and responsibility for the students, he also gained the "excellent teacher" title in 2015 being the first ever foreign mentor of undergraduates in Zhejiang University. No doubt Dr.Imran’s outstanding achievements in teaching and education are his personal efforts but at the same time the College of Agriculture and Biotechnology, Zhejiang University pays great importance to enhance the teaching abilities of young teachers and to the cultivation of young teachers teaching abilities. In the future, the college will organize the teaching competitions through the special project funded by green special training funding channels and will continue to support and help the young teachers to further improve their teaching and to create a more favorable teaching atmosphere hence improving the teaching quality.
