Text | Xu Ling
Recently, Fudan University held the launching ceremony of the "National Excellent Primary and Secondary School Teacher Training Program" (hereinafter referred to as the "National Excellence Program"), and the first batch of 73 outstanding students who are interested in teaching were admitted.
The "National Excellence Program" was launched in 2023 and 30 domestic universities, including Fudan University, were identified as the first batch of pilots. At present, the first batch of pilot universities have fully carried out the training of graduate students of the "National Excellence Program". The plan aims to promote high-level colleges and universities to train high-quality teachers at the graduate level for primary and secondary schools, and requires the selected graduate students to take teacher education module courses while strengthening the subject professional courses, and proposes a "double graduate degree" system.
This means that the training of graduate students of the "National Excellence Program" needs to take into account both academic and normal nature, and it is necessary to pay attention not only to the study of subject knowledge and academic training, but also to strengthen the cultivation of teacher education knowledge and ability. This is tantamount to a challenge for the talent training of the pilot universities.
Construct a bridge between academic and pedagogical integration
Judging from the plan and implementation plan announced by the pilot universities, the colleges and universities mainly promote the integration of academic and normal talent training from the following aspects.
The first is to carry out joint training. Colleges and universities carry out joint training through internal department cooperation, university alliances and the establishment of practice bases, hoping to integrate resources from all parties and give full play to the synergy of education and teaching.
For example, Tianjin University, Central South University and other universities have assigned graduate students to different departments such as mathematics, physics, and education to integrate the university's advantageous disciplines and teacher education resources, while Xi'an Jiaotong University and Jilin University have signed joint training agreements with Shaanxi Normal University and Northeast Normal University respectively, relying on their own discipline development advantages while leveraging the teacher education resources of normal universities.
In addition, the establishment of educational practice bases in high-quality primary and secondary schools is also a common choice for all colleges and universities. Students go to high-quality primary and secondary schools for educational practice and receive practical guidance from first-line famous teachers.
The second is to build an integrated curriculum system. Combining the advantages of their own disciplines, colleges and universities strive to build an integrated curriculum system that integrates professional knowledge, educational theory, scientific research and educational practice, and promotes the integration of academic and normal talent training from the teaching content.
For example, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics takes advantage of the university's artificial intelligence discipline to offer courses related to artificial intelligence technology in educational scenarios and integrates subject expertise into educational theory courses, while Northeast Normal University has built a curriculum system based on the concept of "integrated teacher education", which consists of three modules: public basic courses, teacher education courses and subject professional courses, and is committed to the deep integration of disciplines and education, theory and practice.
The third is to implement a multi-tutor system. The "National Excellence Plan" proposes to fully implement the "dual tutor system" in which college teachers and primary and secondary school teachers jointly guide educational practice. On this basis, colleges and universities have further refined and implemented a multi-tutor system such as "three tutor system" and "four tutor system", and promoted the integration of academic and normal teachers from the teaching team through the combination of excellent subject education and teacher education tutors.
For example, Shanghai Jiao Tong University has proposed a "three-tutor system" and established a tutor team composed of pedagogical tutors, subject tutors and practical tutors. Northeast Normal University has implemented the "four tutor system", in addition to subject professional tutors and pedagogical tutors, subject teaching theory tutors and primary and secondary school tutors are also included.
The practical problem of the integration of academic and pedagogical nature
Although the pilot universities have made many attempts and explorations to integrate academic and normal nature in the postgraduate training of the "National Excellence Program", there are still many problems in practice.
First of all, the importance of educational practice courses is not highlighted enough. There is no doubt about the disciplinary foundation of the graduate students of the "National Excellence Program", but whether they can effectively process and impart this knowledge to students needs to be exercised and tested in the practice of education and teaching.
The "National Excellence Program" requires graduate students to complete no less than 8 credits of educational practice courses. 8 credits should be the bottom line requirement for practical training, but it has become the goal of practical courses in many pilot universities. In addition, there are various modes of educational practice, and how to assess and evaluate the effect of practice needs to be further clarified and refined.
Secondly, it is difficult to guarantee the joint efforts of multiple mentors. Although colleges and universities have proposed the "two-tutor system", "three-tutor system" and "four-tutor system", the selection criteria, responsibilities, guidance methods, and cooperation models of each tutor are not clear.
Moreover, each tutor usually belongs to different units or departments, and it is easy to lack communication and communication with each other.
This can easily lead to problems such as unclear guidance subjects, overlapping guidance content, and untimely feedback, which may lead to the phenomenon of "multiple mentors" becoming "no mentors" while reducing the enthusiasm of mentors.
Finally, it is difficult to balance the learning of subject education and teacher education. Academic research requires graduate students to invest a lot of time and energy, and on this basis, the task of teacher education and learning is increased, which is easy to cause graduate students to be unable to balance academic research and teacher education learning, or to be in a state of lack of time and energy for a long time.
In particular, for graduate students selected by the secondary selection method, they cannot learn part of the knowledge of teacher education in advance in the fourth year like the exempted students, and they will inevitably face greater learning pressure.
Take multiple measures to promote the integration of academics and teachers
In view of the above practical problems, colleges and universities can start from the following aspects to promote the integration of academic and normal nature.
First of all, it is necessary to strengthen the practicality of teacher education. On the one hand, it is necessary to establish practice-oriented evaluation standards for teacher education. In addition to completing the required course credits and dissertations, "taking a good class" should be regarded as the basic requirement for graduate students of the "National Excellence Program" to obtain a master's degree in education, focusing on the students' practical ability and effect of classroom teaching, so as to avoid students becoming giants in theory and dwarfs in practice.
On the other hand, it is necessary to design a reasonable practical education model. Establish a practice model that integrates apprenticeship, internship and study, guide students to communicate with front-line teachers in practice, learn new educational concepts and methods, innovate education and teaching methods, and take the initiative to discover, research and reflect on problems.
Second, improve the synergy of the mentor team. In the setting of the tutor team, in addition to considering professional ability and subject collocation, the teacher's sense of responsibility and enthusiasm for guidance should also be recognized, and the tutor should be able to guide and be willing to guide.
On this basis, the scope of responsibilities of each tutor should be clarified, and the first tutor should be arranged to be responsible for overall communication and coordination, strengthen process guidance and management, and achieve unity and cooperation in each of their duties. In addition, universities should build platforms and carriers for exchanges and cooperation. For example, we will recruit famous teachers from primary and secondary schools to work part-time in universities, arrange subject education tutors to practice in primary and secondary schools, and encourage mentor teams to cooperate in subject research and discipline competitions.
Finally, the flexibility of education management should be enhanced. Universities need to design flexible education management systems and policies to help graduate students balance academic research and teacher education learning.
In this regard, the first is to carry out teaching flexibly. Small-semester courses for winter and summer vacations are offered, and online and offline teaching is combined to meet the learning needs of students. The second is to implement mutual recognition of the study points of this study. Students who have already taken and passed courses at the undergraduate level may be exempted from the courses at the graduate level. The third is to set up a flexible school system. Graduate students who are selected for the second selection are allowed to independently choose the appropriate learning pace and path according to the requirements of the double degree. Fourth, the introduction of a dynamic diversion mechanism. Pay attention to the process evaluation, allow students who are not qualified for the double degree study task and have a weak professional will to withdraw from the plan, and absorb graduate students with a solid disciplinary foundation and suitable for teaching.
(Author's Affiliation: School of Education, Soochow University)