Paper Keywords: theoretical courses, practical courses, curriculum configuration

Abstract: Curriculum is the basis of teaching. In the development of American higher education, people pay more and more attention to the configuration between theoretical courses and practical courses. From the perspective of the relationship between theory and practice, combined with the problems and experiences in the development history of American higher education, this paper analyzes how to make the theoretical courses and practical courses achieve the optimal configuration, so that higher education can truly serve the society.

? Curriculum is a widely used term with multiple meanings. For different people and under different circumstances, the connotation and extension of the course may be very different. In fact, every curriculum definition implies some philosophical assumptions, value orientation, some ideology and some educational beliefs, thus indicating which aspects this course is most concerned about. Therefore, we can classify each curriculum definition into a specific school of curriculum theory. The main schools of curriculum theory are: emphasizing academic-centered subject curriculum theory; Emphasize the reformist curriculum theory centered on social issues; Emphasize the humanistic curriculum theory centered on students' development. ?

What does modern curriculum mean? All the experiences provided to students under the guidance of the school? . In China's pedagogy, it is generally believed that the curriculum is a planned and systematic teaching content and a collection of a series of teaching subjects. Courses can be divided into broad sense and narrow sense. Curriculum in a broad sense refers to the sum of educational contents selected for the purpose of school education. In a narrow sense, courses refer to a certain subject, such as Chinese courses and mathematics courses. Since 1970s, many scholars have divided courses into two types. One is a formal course. Official courses? 、? Open class? 、? Explicit curriculum? , refers to all kinds of disciplines and purposeful, planned and organized extracurricular activities that are formally included in the school teaching plan to achieve certain educational goals. The second is the hidden course, also known as? Potential courses? 、? Invisible course? 、? Informal course? It is characterized by its potential and unpredictability. It is not reflected in the curriculum plan, nor is it carried out through teachers' planned formal teaching. It plays a subtle role in students' knowledge, feelings and actions.

? A research field basically involves theoretical and practical knowledge. Theoretically, we mean the most profound and correct knowledge, which can be summarized and applied to many situations. Practice refers to the application of procedures, methods and skills to the field of work. ? In the field of curriculum, the connection between theory and practice is dialectical unity.

The United States is considered as the largest economic power in the world today. In education, it is also considered as the center of education development in the world today. In the wave of curriculum reform in the world for nearly a hundred years, the United States has never been the watchman of the trend, but an active participant and even a master. Speaking of American higher education courses, there are many kinds, some of them. Colleges and universities offer more than 1000 courses, including formal degree courses, various advanced courses and extended education courses. ? As far as the undergraduate course is concerned, it can generally be divided into four parts. The first part is compulsory courses, that is, courses that implement basic education and general education, and the academic performance of such courses accounts for about 20% ~ 25% of the total credits; The second part is professional courses, that is, the implementation of professional training courses, accounting for about 20% ~ 30% of the total academic performance; The third part is minor courses closely related to professional courses, accounting for about15% of the total academic achievement; The fourth part is elective courses, which students can choose freely according to their own interests and needs. ? It can be seen that there are many kinds of higher education courses in the United States, but among these many kinds, there will inevitably be contradictions in how to allocate them. For example, undergraduate education is to cultivate generalists or professionals, whether it is centered on general education or arts and sciences, and whether it is vocational education or professional education. When it comes to courses, what we discuss most is how to allocate theoretical courses and practical courses. All these problems have always been a hot topic in American higher education. At the beginning of its establishment, universities took it as their responsibility to cultivate generalists, and later aimed at cultivating professionals. In a sense, the transformation from training generalists to training professionals is a revolution, which adapts to the transformation from feudal society to capitalist society.

The importance of theoretical courses and practical courses in different historical periods of American education development is different. From the configuration between the two, we can also see the track and law of the historical development of education. For a period of time, if the development of higher education is relatively lax, there is no central spirit, and social and economic development is relatively stable, everyone will increase the importance of theoretical courses and strengthen the study of theoretical courses, so as to unify students' lax thinking. For a period of time, the development of universities is nothing new, and the students trained are just reading tools, unable to do any specific work in society, and the economic development is relatively slow. At this time, it is necessary to emphasize the importance of practical courses in the curriculum of higher education, because only in this way can the talents trained by higher education adapt to the development of society and give full play to people's role and serve the society. Create more new values for society. From this, we can clearly see that the development of politics, economy and culture will determine the allocation of theoretical courses and practical courses to a certain extent. At the same time, people are constantly adjusting the relationship between them, so that they can achieve the optimal configuration and serve the society with the greatest efficiency.

Regarding the dialectical relationship between theory and practice, Marx once pointed out that theory comes from practice and reacts to practice, and practice is the only criterion for testing truth. Theory is the foundation of the development of things, and practice is the necessary link of the development of things. The relationship between them is dialectical unity. Only when the theory is mature can it be applied to practice and produce new and higher value, otherwise the practice based on no theory will have no value at all. On the other hand, only through continuous practice can we discover the truth and importance of the theory, and can we constantly produce new theories to better guide practice. Therefore, practical courses are based on theoretical courses, which are the basis of practical courses. Only by learning some basic theoretical knowledge can we better enter the practice course. At the same time, certain practical courses will test the learning effect of theoretical courses and help students to translate what they have learned into real life. In continuous practice, students will discover more theoretical knowledge through their own subjective initiative, so as to achieve the best learning effect.

After understanding the relationship between theoretical courses and practical courses, the most realistic problem before us is how to allocate them most effectively in the process of students' learning, so as to achieve the best results and improve students' learning efficiency. At this point, the American higher education community has gradually begun to pay attention to it. ? After World War II in the last century, the American higher education curriculum, which emphasizes general education and professional education, is like a pendulum, swinging back and forth and arguing endlessly. Some people think that the limitation of professional education is too strong, which makes students divide their majors prematurely without laying a good foundation. Others criticize that it is a waste of time and money to let students learn some theoretical knowledge that has little to do with reality in four years. ? After 1957, American universities began to pay attention to basic knowledge education. However, the student movement in the 1960s seriously weakened the basic knowledge education. Subsequently, American higher education once paid more attention to the study of professional courses, which was more professional. In the early 1980s, hundreds of colleges and universities in the United States set off a wave of curriculum reform. This curriculum reform is equivalent to primary and secondary schools? Back to the original? Exercise. But at the same time, they also attach importance to the cultivation of students' ability. With the development of society, professional courses are no longer the main courses in American universities, and more and more people and schools have discovered the value of general education and basic knowledge. Therefore, paying equal attention to professional education and general education, basic knowledge education and students' ability training, and theoretical courses and practical courses have become one of the main trends of curriculum reform in American universities.

Studying the curriculum history of American universities should be based on? Get rid of the dross and get the essence? Principles, out of a truly suitable for the development of higher education in China. Since the founding of New China, China's higher education curriculum has been influenced by the planned economy and the Soviet model for a long time, which has played a positive role, but there are also many shortcomings and drawbacks, especially when the economy is in transition and entering the new century, there are many outdated and urgent reforms. Learning from foreign experience can help us avoid detours.

In a word, higher education is a subsystem of society, and its role in social development can not be ignored. The carrier of higher education? In universities, courses are the most basic part. Under the background of today's times, it is urgent to discuss and solve the problem of how to allocate theoretical courses and practical courses. We should look for the key to solve our own problems from the historical experience of American higher education curriculum reform, so as to promote the synchronous development of China's higher education and society.

To annotate ...

Prescription. Curriculum theory? The foundation, principles and problems of the course. Education Science Press, 1996: 1.

[America] Allen? Francis C. ornstein? P. hankins. Courses: Fundamentals, Principles and Problems. Jiangsu education press, 2002:23~24.

He Guoqing, China. Trends and trends of curriculum reform in foreign universities. Hebei University Press, 2000: 17.

He Guoqing, China. Trends and trends of curriculum reform in foreign universities. Hebei University Press, 2000:24.

refer to

Yuan Zhenguo. Contemporary pedagogy [M]. Beijing: Education Science Press. 2004。

[2] Baiyue Bridge. Introduction to curriculum reform [M]. Hebei: Hebei Education Press. 1996.

[3] Ivor Goodson. Courses of study (new york: Teachers College Press, 1994).

[4] Allen c ornstein. Analysis course. NASSP announcement (1993).

[5] The Course of Understanding by William F. pienaar, William M. Reynolds, Patrick Slattery and Peter M. taubman (new york: Peter Lang, 1995).

Papers related to access: graduation thesis model, computer graduation thesis, graduation thesis format, administrative management thesis, graduation thesis;