The Faculty of Science and Engineering of the Open University of China (OUC) held a seminar on teaching in the Mechanical and Electrical Engineering majors in Datong City, Shanxi Province, from 2 to 4 June 2021. The seminar was attended by more than 50 leaders of the majors from OUC headquarters and branches as well as members of the Teaching and Research Centre, and was organised into themed reports, sharing of achievements, and other exchanges and discussions.
Zhang Zhigang, president of Datong Open University, gave a welcoming speech, and Zhang Yaobin, secretary of the Party Committee of Shanxi Open University, delivered a vivid report, titled "Concept, Experience and Development", about his nearly 20 years of experience in distance education. Yuan Wei, vice dean of the OUC Faculty of Science and Engineering, gave a speech titled "Teaching Excellence in Science and Engineering Majors", in which she discussed enrollment in the Faculty of Science and Engineering as well as reforms currently being carried out and planned there.
Li Zhixiang, Sun Zhijuan, Ning Chen and Tian Xiao, teachers in the OUC Faculty of Science and Engineering, introduced and exchanged views on problems in the preparations of two new majors (Vehicle Engineering and Robot Engineering), the reform of existing majors, awarding of bachelor degrees, operation and construction of a teaching team, and ideological and political education in basic Electromechanical Control Engineering courses. Teachers from branches in Yunnan, Shandong, Shaanxi, Hunan, Tianjin and Xi'an, as well as representatives of the OUC Publishing & Media Group, delivered reports and shared their achievements in ideological and political education, teaching reform, graduation design, teaching-support services, learning-resource construction, production of media-convergence textbooks, and so on. In addition, the Teaching and Research Centre group of the Mechanical Design and Manufacturing Automation major held its first seminar since work reforms, identifying member responsibilities and the work of the next stage.
A questionnaire was also distributed at the meeting, and showed that the biggest problems in the Mechanical and Electrical Engineering majors are enrollment and teaching practices. The teachers at the meeting made valuable suggestions on reform of these, noting that the development of these majors would need to be founded on the strengths of the expert teams and teachers in the OUC system, and the sharing of high-quality resources; changes to the structure of the majors, and formulation of standards; enhancement of ideological and political education in science and engineering courses via competitions; and university-enterprise cooperation with vigorous promotion of online teaching resources.
The participants were positive about the meeting and its timeliness in terms of construction of majors and promotion of academic research within Mechanical and Electrical Engineering. They noted that the meeting had helped participants reach consensus on the development of its majors.
Written by Yu Qijing;Photos by Wang Qian, OUC