From July 26 to 30, the national competition of the 2nd National Teaching Innovation Contest for College Teachers, guided by the Department of Higher Education of the Ministry of Education and hosted by China Association of Higher Education, was held in Xi'an Jiaotong University. The course team of Mechanics of Materials led by Lou Danfeng, Associate Professor of the School of Urban Construction of our university (Team Members: Zhao Xin, Chen Danwei and Jin Hui) won the first prize in the group of associate professors of local universities in this contest, and achieved a new breakthrough in national teachers’ teaching contests of our university.

The National Teaching Innovation Contest for College Teachers is one of the high-quality teaching contests approved by the Ministry of Education.

This contest has been officially launched since October 2021, including a three-level competition system of university-level selection, provincial-level selection, and national competition. The scale of the national competition of this contest has doubled, as the number of participating universities has increased by 67.9%, and the number of participating teachers has increased by nearly four times, therefore, the scale and influence have been significantly improved. There were only two first prizes among the eleven participating teams in the Zhejiang Division, and the team led by Ms. Lou Danfeng was the only first prize in the group of associate professors of local universities. This prize is particularly precious and meaningful.

Mechanics of Materials taught by Ms. Lou Danfeng is a core basic course for students majoring in civil engineering. Ms. Lou has created the mechanics course of "combining theories and practice, integrating contest and teaching and linking virtue with behaviors” to promote higher order thinking and mobilize students' initiative and enthusiasm through refactoring application scenarios of teaching contents, reshaping the project-type teaching process with integration of contest and teaching, innovating the whole-link immersion education implementation path, and optimizing the accurate evaluation system of the whole process. After years of innovative practice, this course has been widely praised by students.