Discussions on Strengthening the Practical Teaching Capabilities of

Discussions on Strengthening the Practical Teaching Capabilities of
Chemical Engineering Instructors in New Regional Universities
QIU Yu’e
Department of Chemistry, Dezhou University, P.R.China, 253023
[email protected]
Abstract: Targeting on the common situation of relatively weak practical teaching capabilities of
chemical engineering instructors in newly established regional universities, the author has proposed a
series of methods and approaches, including converting education philosophy as well as renovating the
education mode, working at the production first-line of chemical engineering, employing industrial
experts to give lectures on topics of chemical engineering, and optimizing the annual evaluation systems
and policy guidance of professional titles, in order to promote the practical teaching capabilities of
chemical engineering instructors.
Keywords: Regional Universities, Practical Teaching, Professional Teachers, Specialized Lectures
1 Introduction
Newly established regional universities mainly refer to those provincial or regional universities which
were developed from specialized schools since the university enrollment extension, managed by
regional government, funded by regional fiscal appropriation and students’ tuitions, and whose students’
sources are mainly from the same province. Those universities are born under the situation of the
popularization of higher education in China, and are playing a significant role in the process of
civilization. However, due to their short history, they have not developed unique characteristics in
nourishing students. Especially, the qualities of education in some traditional engineering majors now
have been the focus of the society. Targeting on the common situation of relatively weak practical
teaching capabilities of chemical engineering instructors in those new regional universities, and based
on 12 years’ working experience in chemical industry and 17 years’ experience in chemistry and
chemical engineering education and research, the author has proposed the following methods or
approaches, including converting education philosophy as well as renovating the education mode,
working at the production first-line of chemical engineering, employing industrial experts to give
lectures on topics of chemical engineering, and optimizing the annual evaluation systems and policy
guidance of professional titles, in order to promote the practical teaching capabilities of chemical
engineering instructors.
2 Current Situations of the Practical Teaching Capabilities of Chemical
Engineering Instructors in Newly Established Regional Universities and the
Causal Analysis
Most of the newly established regional universities used to contain only single discipline and the
education majors have occupied a large percentage. During the long term of specialized and normal
education process, those universities have developed a rooted mode in student education. Some of those
experiences can still be adapted as the basis of university development, and in certain aspects they are
even the indispensable foundation for the undergraduate education after the transformation. However,
the mental set and cultural tradition formed during the long process can hardly fit into the new
undergraduate education, especially the newly added engineering education. For example, most of those
new universities emphasis on the theory and neglect practice in chemical engineering teaching. The
practical education is not given enough attention and the goal of practical education has not been
fulfilled thoroughly and effectively. Thus the results of higher education on chemical engineering are not
quite satisfactory. In fact, all the above facts are due to the relative weak practical teaching capabilities
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of chemical engineering instructors. Therefore, it is necessary and important to conduct the causal
analysis and seek the solutions to strengthen the practical teaching capabilities of chemical engineering
instructors and improve the education level in breeding chemical engineering specialists in newly
established regional universities.
2.1 The structure of the chemical engineering instructor teams in the newly established regional
universities is the determinant of the lack and the weakness in their practical teaching capabilities
The instructor teams in the newly established regional universities are mainly composed of two parts,
including the existed chemical education instructors before transformation and the recently recruited
young instructors with higher degrees. For example, in 2009, there are 33 instructors in chemical
engineering of Dezhou University, 15 of which are from the chemistry departments of the former
Dezhou Teachers’ College and Dezhou Education College, and 18 are newly recruited Ph.D. and
Masters. Due to the particularity of teachers’ education, the existed chemical education instructors have
very limited opportunities to attend the industrial engineering practice so that they normally lack the
practical teaching capabilities. The newly recruited instructors with Master and Ph.D. degrees usually
have better intrinsic qualities, greater research ability, and can inject vigour into the construction of the
instructors’ team. However, most of those young instructors have stayed at school all the time, directly
from students to teachers, never experienced the real practice of chemical industry and the first line
production, lack the engineering practical experience, thus their theory and the engineering practical
capability are usually not connected, and they can hardly perform teaching activities which relates the
theory with the engineering practice problems and their practical teaching abilities need to be improved.
2.2 The traditional education philosophy and teaching mode have negative impacts on the
practical teaching capabilities of engineering instructors
For a long time, restricted by the traditional education mode, the engineering education in our country
basically follow the education mode of emphasizing theory and neglecting practice, and the instructors
only focus on teaching the theories in the specific fields and neglect the practical teaching process and
the nourishing of students’ practical capability, innovation capability and integration capability of their
knowledge, which are extremely important in the engineering education. Due to this “specialized” and
“refined” cramming method of teaching, students are suffering from disconnection of theories and
practice, weak engineering practical capability, and could not fit to the real need of society when they
graduate. It also has a huge negative effect on the engineering instructors’ thought, quality, and teaching
abilities on practical education.
2.3 The impact of the highly dangerous characteristic of chemical engineering on the practical
teaching abilities of instructors
The chemistry industry is the pillar industry of our national economy and one of the most rapidly
developed industry. However, since most of the production processes involve high temperature, high
pressure, explosive and combustible conditions, the chemistry industry becomes the third highly
dangerous industry behind the mining and fireworks industry. In addition, after entering into market
economy, the existence and development of chemical engineering enterprises are rooted in economic
profits, and most enterprises are considering students taking practical trainings as an extra burden, as the
students will not create economic profits for the enterprise and may even disturb normal production
orders, and bring potential hazardous factors to safety in production. Even some enterprises agree to
accept students, they only allow students to visit and look around instead of practicing by themselves.
So the practical training of chemical engineering students is restricted to the surface, and cannot go deep
into the real chemical engineering production process due to the special characteristics of chemical
industry. It’s easy to imagine the level of engineering qualities and practical teaching capabilities of the
inexperienced instructors directly graduated from universities.
2.4 The impact of the lack of evaluation systems of promotion on the practical teaching abilities
of engineering instructors
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Research is the internal motivation for university development and the key factor to strengthen a
university’s intrinsic value. So for a long time, during the annual evaluation and professional title
promotion, research findings and papers are highly valued. There are no evaluations for their practical
teaching activities and the improvement of manipulative ability corresponding to the characteristics of
engineering instructors. Therefore, the engineering instructors have lost crisis awareness, pressure and
motivation for improving their own practical teaching capabilities.
3 The Methods and Approaches to Promote the Practical Teaching Capabilities of
Chemical Engineering Instructors in Newly Established Regional Universities
To improve the practical teaching abilities of chemical engineering instructors in newly established
regional universities as soon as possible is an urgent requirement of the chemical engineering higher
education reform. Hence, the universities should take effective actions actively to improve the
undesirable conditions of the lack of practical teaching capabilities for chemical engineering instructors.
3.1 Converting education philosophy, renovating the education mode, valuing practical teaching
The chemical engineering instructors in newly established regional universities, especially the former
instructors majoring in education, should change some of the wrong teaching philosophy completely,
such as valuing theories but neglecting practice, valuing classroom teaching but neglecting practical
teaching, valuing knowledge teaching but neglecting ability cultivation, and change their teaching mode.
The detailed implementation methods include three combinations in chemical engineering teaching,
including combination of basic courses and professional courses, combination of professional courses
and engineering practice, and combination of practice teaching and engineering practice. The goal is to
instill the education philosophy of cultivating engineering practical abilities into the whole education
process ever since students enter the school, in order to cultivate chemical engineering applied talents
with solid theory background as well as strong practical engineering capabilities.
3.2 Working at the production first-line of chemical engineering and improving practical
teaching capabilities for chemical engineering instructors
The best way for chemical engineering instructors to gain relatively thorough and systematic
engineering practical knowledge is to go deep into the production first-line in enterprises. More
detailed, there are two approaches according to the occupational characteristics of instructors. The first
is to work as an “intern” in chemical engineering enterprise. Instructors are quite busy with teaching and
researching during semesters, and they don't have extra time to participate in the practical production
activities. They can only spare some time during the summer or winter vacations to work at the
production first-line in chemical engineering enterprises as unpaid interns, involve in the technical
engineering occupations and help the enterprise to solve technical difficulties. These activities can make
up for the deficiency of technical force in small or medium-sized enterprises, and also strengthen the
practical engineering capabilities. The second approach is that the specialized instructors to collaborate
with the technicians from chemical engineering enterprises on technical research or major technical
reformation engineering projects which are abundant in industry. The chemical engineering instructors
possess solid professional theoretical knowledge, and the technicians have rich engineering practical
experiences. Therefore, the collaboration of the two on technical research or major technical reformation
engineering projects will trigger the economy development in the region that the university serves, as
well as strengthen the instructors’ engineering practical capabilities.
3.3 Employing industrial experts to give lectures on topics of chemical engineering and
improving instructors’ practical teaching capabilities
Currently there are plentiful newly established regional universities have hired “professor teachers” to
participate in the teaching process to cultivate high quality applied engineering talents. It has overcome
the instructors’ disconnections between engineering theory and engineering practical capabilities, but it
also increased the cost of education. Combining the characteristics of the major of chemical engineering
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and technology, we invited some experienced successful entrepreneurs, start-up business owners,
technicians and advanced engineers working at the front-line production with abundant engineering
practical experience from chemical engineering enterprises to give lectures on chemical engineering,
and explain the advancing front in the industry and the latest chemical engineering products and
technology for instructors and students. This could not only extend the knowledge and visions of the
instructors and students, but also strengthen the linkage between the universities and enterprises. Based
on this, we founded some practical teaching bases outside the campus selectively according to the needs
of practical teaching. With the foundation of these practical teaching bases, we can provide various
practices opportunities for the students, and also make it convenient for engineering training of
specialized instructors in the engineering practices frontline.
3.4 Optimizing the annual evaluation systems and policy guidance of professional titles of
instructors and motivating instructors to attend practical teaching activities
In order to encourage the specialized instructors in chemical engineering to participate into practical
teaching activities and improve their capabilities in practical teaching, we should optimize the regulation,
incentive and evaluation mechanisms in the annual evaluation system and policy guidance of
professional titles for instructors. The position stipends for professor, associate professor and instructors
should be established according to the capability, level and working performance of resolving
engineering practical problems, and should be included as an evaluation factor into the professional
titles evaluation. Corresponding academic and technical positions should be entitled to instructors
involved solving major engineering technical problems and making significant performance in practical
teaching activities.
4 Conclusion
Improving the practical teaching capabilities of specialized instructors in chemical engineering major of
newly established regional universities is not only the basic requirement of chemical engineering higher
education, but also the requirement of chemical engineering industry for engineering applied talents. It
is also the requirement for instructors to obey the major orientation and goals of talents cultivation. The
universities should take every effective action to improve the practical teaching capabilities of
specialized instructors in chemical engineering major, especially those young and middle-aged
instructors, in order to raise the level of engineering teaching, and cultivate applied technical talents for
regional economic development.
Acknowledgements:
I thank the financial support provided by China Research Center for Teaching and Learning in
Universities and Colleges (FIB070335-A4-03) and Shandong Provincial office for education sciences
planning (2008GG112).
References
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13(1999), p47 50(in Chinese)
[3]. Yu Guibang, Huang Junwei. On the Functions of "Professional Teachers" to Engineering Applied
Undergraduates Talents Cultivation. Journal of Hunan Institute of Engineering, 16(2006), p76
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