China’s higher education has been vigorously reformed at the end of the 20th century and has made remarkable achievements. However, due to the long-formed teaching philosophy and funding and other reasons, various science and technology majors are not effective in the reform of experimental teaching system.
Especially for such experimental subjects as inorganic non-metallic materials, the reform of experimental teaching system and the reform of the whole teaching system must be considered as a whole, and the goal of cultivating independent innovative talents in colleges and universities must be combined with the reform of experimental teaching, so as to realize the established talent cultivation goal in the new teaching plan and cultivate new era college students with strong foundation, diligent thinking and good hands.
The current situation of inorganic non-metallic materials in our university
In 1998, the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China issued a new catalog of undergraduate majors in general colleges and universities, which adjusted the original professional settings and professional structure, aiming to broaden the professional caliber and improve the basic quality of students, so as to enhance the adaptability of students to the socialist market economy and the continuous development of science and technology.
In the new professional catalog of our university, the major of inorganic non-metallic materials needs to cultivate professional basic knowledge in materials science and engineering, master relevant professional knowledge in the field of materials science and engineering, and be able to engage in scientific research, technology development, process design, production and business management in the fields of inorganic materials, composite materials and nanomaterials structure research and analysis, preparation of materials, materials forming and processing, etc. The major curriculum of inorganic non-metallic materials is based on the following principles The curriculum, teaching content and experimental teaching system of inorganic non-metallic materials are all developed around this goal.
The main problems existing in the experimental teaching system of inorganic non-metallic materials in our school
1. The content setting of experimental teaching is too dependent on theoretical courses. In the traditional teaching concept, experimental teaching has been considered as a supplement to theoretical course teaching, ignoring the independence of experimental teaching as the main body of the course; in the traditional teaching method, often only consider the consistency of experimental teaching content and theoretical course settings, while ignoring the laws and characteristics of the experimental course itself.
2, experimental teaching content, there are “four more and four less”: depend on theoretical teaching of the validation experiments, can play the students’ initiative, active design experiments less; classical theoretical experiments, with special features, can reflect the latest research developments and engineering practice of the discipline less experiments; isolated unit experiments, multi-disciplinary Less content composite comprehensive experiments; teachers explain and demonstrate the operation of the experiments, students think independently and hands-on design and operation of the experiment less.
3, teaching methods, the lack of innovation, teaching methods, single, old-fashioned methods. In most of the experimental courses, teachers will be more and more detailed experimental handouts, experimental equipment is also prepared more and more specific. For students, only need to follow the teacher’s instructions, “according to the prescription” to complete the experiment. Such experiments are carried out more, students will lack interest and initiative in the experiment, which leads to ignore the role of experimental courses in the teaching process.
4, in other aspects, there are experimental equipment is old; part of the lack of experimental equipment, can not meet the requirements of each experimental group, resulting in experimental equipment in the experimental teaching high load operation and other problems.
Reform ideas of the experimental teaching system of inorganic non-metallic materials
Whether the construction of experimental teaching system is scientific and reasonable, it has an important influence on whether it can cultivate comprehensive talents who have both solid theoretical knowledge and practical ability. Combining with the national education policy, the cultivation goal of inorganic non-metallic majors, the actual demand of the society, the students’ suggestions on the content of experimental teaching and the problems mentioned above, we put forward the reform ideas of the experimental teaching system of inorganic non-metallic majors in our school.
A. The guiding ideology and principles of experimental teaching system construction.
1, to innovation, hands-on ability training as the core of experimental teaching. From the mere teaching of knowledge and skills to the cultivation of students’ independent innovation ability; cultivate students’ ability to combine classroom expertise with experimental skills; cultivate students’ ability to discover new phenomena and explain new phenomena in experiments; cultivate students’ ability to think with their brains, design experiments independently and complete them.
2、Optimize the configuration of course experiments, actively compress the verification experiments, open more comprehensive and design experiments, and vigorously develop open experiments. Provide experimental content that can reflect the latest research dynamics and engineering practice of the discipline, increase students’ independent design experiments, multidisciplinary comprehensive experiments and single-direction in-depth research experiments.
3、Advocate the consciousness of students as the main body, teach according to their abilities, and pay attention to the development of students’ personality. Improve teaching methods, from the previous teacher to the end of the package, to the student-oriented, teacher-counseled form, fully mobilize and give full play to the subjective initiative, enthusiasm and creativity of students.
4、Building an experimental teaching system parallel to the professional theoretical teaching with the preparation process, performance testing and result analysis of inorganic non-metallic materials as the main line. The two should not only be independent of each other and develop separately, but also complement each other and make progress together. Fully reflect the dominant position of experiment in the process of material design, research and production.
5, in the process of experimental teaching, pay attention to the use of modern teaching methods, the introduction of multimedia teaching and other content; in the arrangement of experimental teaching materials, according to the experimental course content adjustment, the reformulation of the content of innovative experimental teaching materials; in the experimental equipment, increase investment, as far as possible to meet the requirements of students on the experimental conditions.
6. Set up laboratories reasonably, strengthen the connection between laboratories and teaching and research departments, and establish a sound experimental teaching system. Strengthen the training of experimental teachers so that they can fully mobilize students’ enthusiasm for learning experimental courses.
B. Ideas and specific methods for the construction of experimental teaching system
Following the above guiding ideology and principles, we have formulated the construction ideas and specific methods of the experimental teaching system of inorganic non-metallic materials. The experimental teaching system of inorganic non-metallic materials in our school should be a “four ways, three stages, two comprehensive, a goal, to train the core of the ability and throughout the training plan of the experimental course system.”
1, “four ways” refers to the experimental teaching of students during school can be divided into four different ways. They are: public experiments in the early stage, open experiments and professional experiments in the middle stage, and thesis experiments in the late stage.
Public experiments refer to the study of basic experimental contents related to this major when students study basic courses in their freshman and sophomore years. This way is good for students to lay a good foundation of experiments, to be familiar with experimental operation and experimental means, to master the most basic operation skills, and to lay a good foundation for further professional study and experiments.
Open experiments and professional experiments are also very important, which are conducted in the process of students’ learning professional knowledge. On the one hand, we strengthen the teaching of professional basic experiments, increase the number of teaching hours, and set up separate classes, and it is important that we establish a public experimental platform for professional basic courses according to the common characteristics of materials majors, that is, professional basic experiments are built into four types of public experiments: materials synthesis and preparation experiments, materials forming and processing experiments, materials structure and characterization experiments, materials performance testing experiments; on the other hand, we target These experiments reproduce the design process of a specific material, and they are mostly the research projects of the teachers, which are very current and cutting-edge.
Both of them are very helpful for students to further understand the connotation and development prospect of their majors, to form and strengthen students’ professional ideas, and to lay the foundation for further study or work in the future.
The thesis experiment is a summary of students’ four years of university study, which is an effective combination of theoretical knowledge and professional knowledge. For students who further study in the university, they can enter the research state as early as possible; for students who work, they can also make them familiar with the work position faster.
2. “Three stages” means that the experimental teaching of students during their school years can be divided into three stages and made to correspond to the above “four ways”.
First is the first two years of theoretical learning and basic experimental stage. During this period, students need to master the theoretical knowledge required for basic experiments, such as chemistry, physics and physical chemistry, etc.; learn to perform basic experimental operations and be able to complete the experimental tasks assigned by teachers independently.
In the middle stage, after students have been exposed to professional knowledge in their junior year, certain experimental projects such as frontier subjects related to the content of professional knowledge, or practical engineering subjects are arranged. This will enable the students to understand the content of the major in both theory and practice. This phase should be the main stage for students to exercise their experimental skills.
The later stage refers to the students’ in-depth understanding of professional knowledge in their senior year, combined with the thesis link, to further check the gaps, and then make up for their shortcomings in theory or experimental skills.
3, “two kinds of comprehensive” refers to the experimental teaching system in the experimental course content and teaching methods to achieve a comprehensive.
Experimental course content synthesis, is the arrangement of experimental content, as far as possible to eliminate the verification experiments, as far as possible to arrange comprehensive and design experiments, and focus on reflecting the characteristics of the profession. In the case of conditions permitting, you can also choose to cross-disciplinary comprehensive experimental arrangements. In terms of the synthesis of experimental contents, different arrangements should be made according to different students’ situations.
The synthesis of teaching methods refers to the introduction of various teaching methods in the process of experimental teaching, such as multimedia teaching, demonstration teaching, computer simulation, etc. For verification, comprehensive experiments, etc., take the traditional closed teaching methods; for design, research experiments, you can take the students in groups, independent discussion and research, the program is self-determined, collaborative open teaching methods.
4, “a goal” that is, the only goal of experimental teaching reform for the cultivation of rich theoretical knowledge, with independent innovation and professional ideas, with strong hands-on ability of the new era of college students, so that students can successfully enter the research or work after graduation.
Conclusion
In our reform idea, we have fully considered some problems that existed in the past experimental teaching of our university, and put forward solutions to these problems combined with the actual situation of our teaching and students.
As an engineering discipline based on experiment, the task of reforming the experimental teaching system of inorganic non-metallic materials is heavy and long. However, the guideline of teaching and educating people cannot be changed, and the goal of training students cannot be changed. Although the road of reform is rugged, we should dare to put forward ideas and adopt opinions widely, so as to cultivate new talents of the country!