With the spread of Covid-19, the China-EU School of Law has launched online teaching for all courses in the Master of European and International Law (MEIL) programme. To keep students on track, CESL has already offered 5 online MEIL courses in the spring semester of 2020. These are taught by 5 European professors from 5 different European countries, including Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and Poland. The professors come from the University of Hamburg, KU Leuven, Maastricht University, Aarhus University, and Jagiellonian University of Krakow. Each MEIL course includes pre-recorded teaching videos and online seminars that provide an interactive forum to answer student’s questions and engage in conversations over the Tencent Meetings platform. A total of 127 students took part in these courses from China, Germany and Poland.
In most cases, where the partner universities have also closed their campuses, the European professors recorded their lecture videos from home. For many, like Jacques Henri Herbots, an emeritus professor at KU Leuven in Belgium, it meant becoming familiar with the new teaching software. Teaching assistant, Mi Xiangyi, provided continual assistance in making sure all the classes were recorded clearly and ran smoothly. Professor Herbots recorded a new lesson online each day over a total of 12 sessions, to make sure students have thorough access to the same learning content as would be delivered in the classroom.
In addition to the online courses, starting from February 28, students in the MEIL programme immediately began working on their Master’s thesis. A total of 23 professors from 12 countries including Germany, the Netherlands, France, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Italy, Spain, Austria, Hungary, Poland, the United States, and China, have been guiding the students on research and writing of their thesis from home.
This was the first time CESL has offered any form of online classes. Due to the dedicated efforts of everyone on the CESL administrative team, the enthusiastic professors and the cooperation of motivated students, the China-EU School of Law has been able to launch high-quality online teaching during these trying times.
