Keywords: undergraduate teaching; Quality assurance; research university
The guarantee of teaching quality in colleges and universities is the key control point for colleges and universities to use modern educational management concepts to generate teaching quality. According to a certain quality standard system, comprehensive use of systems, procedures, norms, culture and other means to control, review and evaluate, to achieve dynamic management, continuous improvement and improvement of personnel training quality. However, at present, the research on undergraduate teaching quality assurance based on the growth characteristics of research universities in China is still relatively backward, which is mainly manifested in narrow vision and single research method. For this reason, our school tries to conduct a series of research and practical exploration on the construction of a long-term guarantee system for undergraduate teaching quality in research universities from the perspectives of modern educational concept, educational ecological theory, operation and management of innovative talents training, system cybernetics and information theory.
First, the basic concept and value orientation of undergraduate teaching quality assurance in research universities
Philosophical values are the key to quality assurance activities and life trends. Then, what kind of idea and value orientation should be used to construct the undergraduate teaching quality guarantee system of research universities? We believe that it is one of the main tasks to be solved urgently in undergraduate teaching for research universities in the transition period to make use of their own superior resources, reposition their quality consciousness, operate a more long-term management mechanism, enhance talents' scientific and technological innovation and entrepreneurial practice ability, and promote the strategy of rejuvenating the country through science and education and strengthening the country through talents. Based on the current situation, a better choice is to combine the development function of quality assurance with the function of supervision and certification, and take the development function as the core feature of the "dual track" value orientation. This includes two concepts: First, the monitoring and authentication functions are regarded as the basis and premise of quality assurance, and in the process of teaching "input-process-output", the teaching quality is ensured to reach or exceed the predetermined benchmark through rigorous and scientific organization mechanism. The second is to establish a developmental teaching quality assurance system, realize self-motivation, self-evaluation, self-diagnosis and self-adjustment through a relaxed and harmonious management culture, and cultivate top-notch talents with comprehensive and coordinated development of cognition, skills, attitude, intelligence and personality and strong competitiveness.
Second, the organizational structure and functional modules of undergraduate teaching quality assurance system in research universities
In order to improve the effectiveness of the quality assurance organization system, based on the viewpoint of educational ecology, we have added an exchange and incentive system that emphasizes the development function on the basis of the traditional teaching decision and command, publicity, education and support, condition guarantee, information collection and processing, evaluation and diagnosis, information feedback, audit and arbitration system. The focus of the reform is to change the management mechanism, optimize the organizational structure, promote the interaction and participation of teachers, students, managers and other guarantee subjects on the basis of consolidating the responsibility system for teaching quality, and implement the "green" quality guarantee combining "people-oriented" management and scientific management with "harmonious campus" as the leading idea.
In the functional operation of quality assurance, we use ISO management ideas for reference, sort out the quality control points of undergraduate talent training in research universities, apply the viewpoint of system flow and dynamic monitoring and the design method of "factor group" indicators, and establish relevant functional modules (see table 1). Strengthen the scientific formulation of quality assurance elements, issue quality policies, quality objectives, organizational planning and procedural documents related to teaching plans, syllabus, theoretical teaching, practical teaching, examination and teaching evaluation, and pay attention to the relationship between standardization of teaching management and diversity of disciplines, which has laid a good foundation for cultivating high-quality talents.
Third, the key links and practical exploration of undergraduate teaching quality assurance in research universities
In recent years, we have focused on the construction of teaching objectives (performance), conditional indicators and process factors, promoted the reform of talent training program with the renewal of quality concept, made breakthroughs in promoting the construction of research-oriented teachers, innovative teaching system and the whole process monitoring of teaching quality, improved the long-term guarantee system of teaching quality, and created a brand-new atmosphere for talent incubation.
1. Strengthen the top-level design of the quality assurance system and base on the cultivation of elite talents.
First of all, according to the strategic needs of research universities to serve the construction of an innovative country, the orientation and thinking of running a school are established, and the educational concept of "thick foundation, wide caliber, emphasis on quality, individuality and innovation" is put forward to form a scientific concept guarantee.
Secondly, carry out the idea of quality education, formulate teaching quality standards that meet the positioning of research universities, change the one-dimensional evaluation of learning ability into a multi-dimensional evaluation that takes into account innovation and practical ability, and set up strong standards and institutional guarantees.
At the same time, in the top-level design of talent training, we should highlight the ideas of general education and innovative education, formulate an overall optimized three-dimensional talent training plan, and provide high-quality professional and curriculum guarantee:
(1) Attach importance to the construction of basic platforms and operate a flexible professional training mechanism.
Based on the principle of broadening the vertical and horizontal aspects of basic and professional teaching and strengthening the cohesion and coherence between the front and rear courses, a school-wide, interdisciplinary and interdisciplinary three-level basic course teaching platform is established, and the main courses, core courses and characteristic courses are set up according to the first-level subject categories in the early stage; In the later period, a flexible professional education management mode will be implemented, and on the basis of expanding the scope of independent course selection, personalized education featuring three-dimensional interdisciplinary and compound professional training will be gradually formed.
(2) Promote the integration of disciplines and establish a diversified curriculum structure system.
Construct a comprehensive curriculum system and strengthen the complementarity of teaching in different disciplines; Dig deep into the course content rich in Chinese and foreign excellent cultural heritage, and set up a series of quality education courses with natural science and modern science and technology, social and behavioral science, humanities and arts, life science and medicine as the core, so as to provide a multi-knowledge learning atmosphere.
Pay attention to the scientificity and compactness of curriculum structure, while enhancing the systematization of knowledge system, constantly optimize the proportion of various courses, speed up the modernization of courses, add high-quality research courses, and inspire students' innovative thinking.
Taking four-year undergraduate education as an example, the undergraduate curriculum system of research universities set up by our school is shown in figure 1.
2. Take systematic teacher professional development as a breakthrough to improve the efficiency of conditional guarantee.
In view of the fact that teachers are one of the most potential dynamic factors in the guarantee system of undergraduate teaching conditions in research universities, we take the systematic and hierarchical plan of teachers' professional ability development as the quality control of teaching input.
The first level is to train young teachers and novice teachers. Focusing on the characteristics of undergraduate teaching in research universities, new teachers and new teachers are trained in all aspects of educational ideas, teaching methods and teaching ability every year. In order to make young teachers adapt to the needs of undergraduate teaching in research universities as soon as possible, * * * has set up many links, such as attending lectures, checking and guiding, teaching observation, experience exchange and comprehensive evaluation, and runs through the communication mechanism and developmental teacher training mode to help teachers accumulate teaching practice experience and wisdom; Create a discussion atmosphere for new and old teachers, cultivate young teachers' self-improvement ability, and make them grow into research teachers.
The second level is to further play the role of expert teachers. In order to build a high-level teacher team, we try out the responsibility system of curriculum teaching projects led by professors; Give policy and financial support to teachers who are enthusiastic about undergraduate teaching and have made outstanding achievements in teaching research, curriculum and textbook construction, and encourage expert teachers (especially famous professors) to offer undergraduate courses or participate in undergraduate teaching in the form of lectures to improve the starting point of education.
3. Pay attention to the reform of personnel training mode and establish a research-oriented and international teaching system.
The cultivation of research ability, innovative spirit and global consciousness is one of the advantages of undergraduate education in research universities. In the practice of educating people, we mainly construct a new talent training system through three measures.
The first measure is to create a research-oriented learning environment and explore the undergraduate teaching mechanism combining scientific research with teaching depth. Integrate the progress of related research fields at home and abroad and the training of scientific thinking methods into teaching to improve students' scientific research literacy. Establish a multi-functional practice teaching base, encourage an open and comprehensive experimental research teaching mode, and use high-quality research resources to promote the exploratory learning of undergraduates. [5] Start a school-wide, multi-disciplinary undergraduate research and training program to encourage students to get involved in scientific research as soon as possible in the form of project establishment; Organize and support undergraduates to participate in science and technology competitions, allow students to apply for credits with scientific research results, and stimulate innovation enthusiasm.
The second measure is to establish an innovative teaching experimental base and cultivate top-notch research-oriented reserve talents. Relying on various training bases for gifted students, our school is organically connected with postgraduate education in teaching content and mode. Giving full play to the educational function of high-level Industry-University-Research base, carrying out interdisciplinary joint training, whole-course guidance and even excellent undergraduates directly pursuing doctoral degrees are conducive to the vigorous growth of creative talents.
The third measure is to steadily promote the internationalization of teaching and cultivate outstanding talents with strong international exchanges and competitiveness. Up to now, a number of exchange student training and short-term learning programs have been carried out with more than ten famous universities at home and abroad, which has accelerated the construction of courses and management systems in line with international standards, established an international brand of professional teaching, and enabled students to broaden their academic horizons and cultivate global awareness in the multi-campus learning experience.
4. Promote scientific and institutionalized quality control to ensure the quality of undergraduate education.
Pay attention to the quality management reform of modern universities, initially establish a quality control mode of "communication and interaction among managers, teachers and students" and combine process and target management, and form a three-dimensional quality monitoring network through "4A" links, namely evaluation, approval, arbitration and adjustment. [6] According to the educational ecological characteristics of research universities, the system is changing to an open, intensive and intelligent direction.
5. Implement dynamic teaching quality process monitoring with full participation.
Through institutionalized teaching supervision, improve the participation and attention of leaders at all levels to undergraduate teaching; Improve the "supervision chain" of schools and colleges (departments), emphasize developmental supervision, and give consideration to "supervision" and "guidance" to help teachers improve their teaching level; Establish a team of information workers, fully mobilize the enthusiasm of undergraduates to "participate in teaching" and "discuss teaching", and promote teaching and learning (see Table 2).
(1) Establish a multi-level evaluation system for teachers, students, courses and majors.
Teacher evaluation highlights healthy competition and development mechanism. The evaluation content focuses on the application of methods and technologies such as the combination of scientific research and teaching, teacher-student interaction and heuristic teaching. Fuzzy quantitative evaluation and open qualitative evaluation are used to enrich the evaluation information. Try the mode of "cooperative discipline construction", in the expert evaluation, the evaluation parties discuss together to promote the reflection of the evaluated teachers. [8] Start the multi-campus "online teaching evaluation" system based on the digital management platform; Strengthen the psychological control of evaluators and improve the timeliness and accuracy of information.
Student evaluation emphasizes the orientation of innovative education and quality education. In the course examination reform, the evaluation culture of knowledge and ability test, intelligence and non-intelligence cultivation is embodied, and the skills of students' autonomous learning and lifelong learning are cultivated through the combination of comprehensive evaluation, process evaluation and final evaluation. Establish a scientific system of proposition examination and examination quality analysis, and form a high-quality question bank with wide coverage, reasonable difficulty and high discrimination. With the goal of enhancing students' multidimensional abilities such as knowledge application, research and experiment, scientific research writing and teamwork, the formative evaluation of each link of graduation thesis is strengthened.
The on-campus evaluation of courses and majors is closely related to the rolling construction. Taking the evaluation and construction of top-quality courses as a lever, we will guide the continuous innovation of courses in various disciplines from the aspects of construction ideas, teaching contents and course characteristics. Strengthen the in-school follow-up evaluation of the running level of each major (especially the newly added major), and improve the overall teaching strength with the strategy of "grasping both ends and promoting the middle".
(2) Smooth the feedback and feedforward channels of teaching information, and realize efficient and comprehensive quality control.
Implement the "teaching information reporting system" based on the campus network, build the grass-roots teaching status information database, and establish a dynamic publishing system of teaching quality information, forming a "quality ring" management mode of "evaluation, improvement and repeated evaluation" of teaching quality information and a comprehensive control mechanism of teaching quality characterized by "preventive control, real-time monitoring and feedback control".
After several years of practice, the long-term system of undergraduate teaching quality assurance in our university has achieved initial results, forming a number of courses, professional groups and teachers with advantages. In the 11th Five-Year Plan and even a longer period, we will constantly strengthen the first-class consciousness, give play to the role of modern education management as a catalyst for teaching reform, further improve the evaluation mechanism of innovative teaching, and make use of the strong support of the off-campus teaching quality guarantee mechanism to promote the undergraduate education and teaching activities to a more optimized state.
[Editor: Zhang Dongmei]
Chen Hui, Assistant Research Fellow, Academic Affairs Office of Sun Yat-sen University; Deputy Director and Associate Research Fellow of Academic Affairs Office of Zhang Zhongshan University; Li Xiaomei, Associate Professor of Education and Teaching Evaluation Center of Sun Yat-sen University; Liu Jike, Director of Academic Affairs Office of Sun Yat-sen University, Director and Professor of Education and Teaching Evaluation Center.