From May 23 to 25, 2016, the OUC Agriculture & Medicine Teaching Research Central Team Seminar and Conference on the Founding of Central Team was held in Harbin.
At the conference, the following topics were discussed: setting up the teaching research central team for the undergraduate programmes in gardening, nursing, and public health management and issuing the Letter of Appointment; reporting on preparations for the application of status to grant Bachelor's degrees for three majors and the existing problems during the preparation; work related to the central teams and discipline development and teaching reform; reporting on the construction of the curriculum teaching team.
36 members of the research central teams from the OUC headquarters and 19 branches, including vice president of the Open University of China (OUC) Liu Chen, director of the School of Agroforestry & Medicine Guo Xiaoxia, and deputy director Zhang Zhijun attended the conference.
Liu Chen delivered a report entitled Moving Forward in Exploration, in which he discussed the importance and urgency of teaching reform in four aspects and expounded on the tasks and goals of teaching reforms. First, he interpreted the national policy of continuing education. Second, he analyzed the current situation of distance education, mainly analyzing the impact of incorporating continuing education into regular higher education and the influence of the credit bank system on open universities. He also analyzed the adjustment requirement for career-related majors due to the redefinition and classification of industry and professions. He analyzed the effect that the new policies and the open university system have had on higher education institutions and online training institutions; the great enhancement of degree education arising from the reconstruction and rebuilding of the OUC system, as well as enterprise training institutions; the differences between the practical school running & teaching and economic social development (the learning demand of the students). For the third aspect, he sorted out the existing and new problems in the open university system in ten distinct areas, namely: enrollment, teaching model, opening of majors and curriculum, the overall level of the resource construction, teaching staff resources, online teaching, teaching support services, teaching responsibility within the system's institutions, course assessment, and teaching teams. Fourth, he propounded suggestions on teaching reform, "what to reform" and "how to reform". Finally, Liu Chen pointed out that teaching reforms should adapt to economic and social development demands in order to satisfy the needs of national lifelong education. As the first batch of research central team members, they will have the responsibility and capability to bear the burden of agricultural and medical teaching reform. They should actively explore teaching reforms while steadily pushing forward the agricultural and medical teaching work. In the future, they should do research, experiment, and draw lessons from experience in the days ahead.
Liu Chen issued the Letter of Appointment to three members of the research central teams.
Three heads in charge of undergraduate programmes, Fu Jinfeng, Tang Yiting, and Zhao Xinsheng, reported on preparations for the application report of acquiring Bachelor degree granting status and related support materials. Yin Zhiying delivered a report entitled Work Report of Human Physiology Online Teaching Team, in which he introduced the work, achievement, and thinking of online course-based teaching in the "Integration of Six Networks" environment.
Three teaching research central teams will focus on degree application, discipline reform and development, and the "Integration of Six Networks" teaching model in order to fully discuss and explore potential solutions. The team members all expressed their satisfaction with the conference, thinking it necessary and timely. They said they also benefited greatly from vice president Liu Chen's report. Applying for status allowing OUC to grant Bachelor’s degree for three undergraduate programmes is of great significance. The central teams should give full play to its role in promoting discipline teaching reform and strive to lay a solid foundation for future discipline construction and healthy development.
By Zhao Yanfei, OUC