"Good international education is not about reaching for the stars, but about teaching students to build their own ladders to the sky."
——Vicky Jiao
Vicky Jiao
Director of Teaching and Learning
Cambridge University English Language Teachers' Certificate (CELTA), British Council official certified trainer. Sixteen years of teaching English in international programs and teaching IELTS as a full course. Years of experience in international program management, teaching management, curriculum design and teacher training. Committed to creating a student-centered learning environment that encourages curiosity and creativity.
“When AI started correcting IELTS essays, this 'living question bank' who has been teaching for 16 years turned the textbook out of its hairy edges - at Farragut, Ms. Jiao used 'technology + humanity ' unique formula to prove that the true meaning of education is never to replace, but to ignite.”
From “Keeper of the Problems”
to “Architect of the Mind”
When I opened Ms. Jiao's preparation book, the yellowed pages were densely labeled with IELTS questions from previous years. Once she was familiar with the IELTS course to the textbook of which page is what content can be recited by heart, to be able to speak out of each year's writing questions of different types of topics appeared a few times, listening and reading high-frequency vocabulary familiarity is comparable to the degree of mother tongue. 16 years of IELTS teaching career, so that she has accumulated an amazing knowledge base, students jokingly referred to her as “walking IELTS encyclopedia”, any tricky question types, obscure points in front of her, Students call her a “walking encyclopedia of IELTS”, and any difficult questions and obscure test points are invisible to her.
She tries out the answer sheets herself before every test.
When she saw students holding full-score templates but unable to use them flexibly, she realized, “Teachers are not USB flash drives of knowledge, but USB ports of thinking - to let students learn to read and write on their own.” Ms. Jiao's words are a vivid portrayal of her teaching philosophy. In her classroom, students are no longer passive receivers of knowledge, but active thinkers and explorers.
After training students with high grades, she began a path of self-renewal: not only did she turn her teaching experience into a training manual for novice teachers, but she also created the “3-Dimensional Lesson Preparation Method”, which is dedicated to helping novice teachers quickly organize their ideas, adapt to the teaching environment, and find their own teaching styles and methods. Now as a teaching administrator, she says, “This is the ideal career path for me, and I have always been passionate about it. Continuing to work deeper and deeper has given me a deeper and deeper understanding of international education.”
In the midst of the waves,
she was “the lynch pin of education”.
When Generation Z students step into the classroom with distinctive personalities and innovative thinking, education is facing unprecedented changes and challenges. Ms. Jiao has keenly captured this trend and decisively broken through the traditional teaching model to meet the educational needs of the new era as an innovator. “Contemporary students are active in their thinking and pursue personalized expression, so the only way to make education truly enter their hearts is to keep up with the times.” With her deep understanding of education, she integrates the cutting-edge concepts of immersive learning and project-based teaching into the classroom, and elaborately designs the “IELTS Scenario Simulation Course”, which transforms abstract grammar knowledge into vivid practical scenarios, making the learning process full of fun and challenges.
During the special period of 2020, the IELTS offline exams were “suspended”, and the students' dream of studying abroad was pressed the pause button. In the face of this predicament, Ms. Jiao and the school's teaching team acted quickly and put all their energy into fighting for students' opportunities to take the test.
When the students completed their exams in a familiar environment and successfully received the results for their applications, many parents sent messages of thanks, and some parents wrote to say: “My child said that when he heard Ms. Jiao's sentence ‘Relax’ before the exam, he suddenly didn't panic, and that was more effective than any tranquilizer! ” In the wave of education, Ms. Jiao steadily and steadily do the “sea god needle”.
“At that moment I deeply felt that every effort of educators can be the key to changing the fate of students and families.” Ms. Jiao recalled that these experiences also gave her a deeper understanding of the meaning of education.
Nowadays, Ms. Jiao's focus has long exceeded the boundaries of a single classroom. In her eyes, building the synergy of a cross-cultural team of teachers is not simply a matter of assigning tasks, but rather a puzzle of “reorganizing” strengths - maximizing the effectiveness of education by accurately matching each teacher's expertise with the needs of the students. Her listening notes contain a unique formula: “Teacher's strengths x student needs = best classroom traits”, which is not only a theory, but also a practical code for her to discover teachers' sparkling points and activate the potential of her team.
“In-depth classroom listening is a necessary part of my daily routine. Every time I listen to a class, every time I discuss teaching methods with the instructor after the class, analyze the students' learning situation, and what improvements to make the next time around, I am providing a great deal of classroom rationale for continually upgrading the quality of the curriculum and drilling down into the development of a new curriculum in the future. Each semester, we make incremental improvements in our teaching, and consistent small wins are the best attitude for educators. The process is exhausting, but our students will benefit in the end.” So says Ms. Jiao.
She encourages new teachers to develop their own strengths and personalized teaching styles instead of blindly imitating them. Under her leadership, the faculty is like a vibrant “classroom gene pool” that continues to produce high-quality teaching programs that provide students with richer and more effective learning experiences.
“Best Management Award”
Presentation of awards
From Answer Receiving Station
to Question Launch Tower:
Ms. Jiao's AI Classroom Revolution
In the wave of education digitization, Ms. Jiao always explores the deep integration of AI and teaching as a pioneer. She firmly believes that “AI is not the end of the answer, but the beginning of the question”, and that in the era of information overload, it is far more important to cultivate students' ability to ask quality questions than to instill knowledge.
In the classroom, Ms. Jiao transforms AI technology into a catalyst to stimulate students' thinking. She designs Warm Up interactive sessions with the help of intelligent tools, and quickly ignites the classroom atmosphere in the form of interesting quizzes and scenario simulations, allowing students to quickly enter the learning state; she uses AI big data analysis capabilities to accurately refine high-frequency test-point vocabulary in the reading text, and generates customized reinforcement exercises, which dramatically improves the efficiency of teaching.
In the writing training, Magic School system incarnates “intelligent tutor”, not only can give scores, but also carefully diagnose grammatical errors, logical loopholes and other issues, and provide targeted revision strategies to help students gradually overcome the difficulties of writing. In terms of oral teaching, the intelligent body generated by Doubao has become the students' “exclusive coach”, through simulating the real dialog scene, instant feedback on pronunciation, expression and other issues, and push the same type of questions for intensive training. Many students have commented that the process of repeatedly “sparring” with the intelligent body is full of challenges and fun, and their speaking ability has been improved without their realizing it.
Using Magic School, AI interactive essay correction with students effectively shortens the time students wait for correction and improves learning efficiency.
Using beanbag intelligences to create opportunities for students to practice speaking at home.
In Ms. Jiao's view, AI not only makes teaching more personalized and visual, but also opens up a path for students to gain insight into the nature of learning. The use of these technological tools is not to replace the role of the teacher, but to help her focus more energy on guiding students from passive learners to questioning explorers - when students begin to actively ask “why” and “how to optimize”, the real learning has just begun. When students begin to actively ask “why” and “how to optimize,” the real learning has just begun.
Her students commented on her:
Director Jiao is a leader who is both rigorous and warm in the hearts of our students. She always promotes the school's teaching work efficiently and ensures that our learning goes smoothly. At the same time, whenever we push open the door of her office, we often feel her down-to-earth side: she is willing to listen to our ideas and solve our academic problems.
- SR Kevin
Director Jiao is particularly approachable and listens patiently to students' ideas in every interaction. She is conscientious and responsible in her work, and always strives for excellence in every task, always able to advance her work efficiently. In terms of academics, she is always able to give precise and practical guidance, and is a good mentor and friend to us on our way to study.
-SP Michelle
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Standing on the tip of the wave of international education, Ms. Jiao has used 16 years of perseverance to testify to a simple truth: true nurturing is to keep the flame of human wisdom burning in the digital age. When AI efficiently retrieves answers in the wilderness of information, she always anchors the warmest coordinates of education - the curiosity of the unknown in the eyes of the students, the sparks of collision of thinking in the classroom, and the vein of growth that has been linked by the sentiments of generations of educators. From the “guardian of problems” to the “architect of thinking”, what has changed is the iteration of teaching tools, but what has remained unchanged is the original intention of the “ladder-builder”: to let every child calibrate his or her unique direction of growth in the coordinate system of history and the future, and ultimately to measure his or her own sky with the courage that has been ignited. This may be the ultimate answer of education in the age of intelligence: not defined by technology, but shining because of humanity.
Writing and Photography |
Brand Promotion Department of TFS
Photo Credit | Vicky Jiao
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