How to rejuvenate the classic textbooks of colleges and universities

Source: Guangming Daily

"The logarithmic field transformed from the field of positive real numbers is a 'virtual world', and the logarithmic table is a 'dictionary' between the real-world language and the language of the 'virtual world'!" This classic textbook was edited by the late Li Hansun, a professor at the Beijing Institute of Technology. From the first edition in 1978 to the fifth edition in 2017, after more than 40 years and four revisions, every subtle adjustment in the book is full of the old professor's heart of educating people.

A classic college textbook can stand the test of time and inspire and teach generations of young students. A few days ago, the Ministry of Education issued the "14th Five-Year Plan" Implementation Plan for the Construction of National Planning Textbooks for Undergraduate Colleges and Universities, proposing to promote colleges and universities to establish a inheritance and innovation mechanism for excellent textbooks that have been used for a long time, have a wide range of influence, and have a high degree of recognition by teachers and students, and form a textbook construction echelon that combines the old, middle and young people, innovate the compilation concept, update the content form, cultivate and create a number of exemplary, authoritative and innovative classic inheritance textbooks, and continuously enhance the vitality and influence of classic textbooks.

In the current era of knowledge explosion, students' learning and knowledge seeking methods are becoming more and more diverse, how can the classic textbooks of colleges and universities keep up with the pace of the times and glow with enduring charm in the inheritance?

1. Content adjustment, value leads in knowledge transfer and ability training

During the investigation, the reporter noticed that in the process of "upgrading and iterating", many old textbooks have improved the readability of the textbooks, enhanced the closeness with the student group, and better adapted to the requirements of college education in the new era by adjusting the logical structure, integrating the curriculum ideology and politics, and adding case materials close to the present.

Tongji University's edition of Engineering Mathematics Linear Algebra is an "old face" in the mathematics class for engineering students. After the revision of the 7th edition, the students noticed that the order of the chapters had been adjusted. The relevant person in charge of the Higher Education Press said: "We have fully absorbed the opinions and suggestions of many experts, front-line teachers and netizens, and adjusted the chapter arrangement of Chapter 4 according to the cognitive law of 'from general to special', first introducing the concept of vector space in Section 4, and then using vector space to describe the structure of linear equation solutions in Section 5, which can make the chapter structure more reasonable and more conducive to teachers' teaching." ”

"If you are poor, you will change, and if you change, you will be able to do it for a long time", "I don't know the true face of Lushan, only because I am in this mountain"...... In the 5th edition of "Fundamentals of Circuit Analysis", in addition to the principles, formulas, and circuit diagrams, sentences of ancient poems and famous sayings are appropriately interspersed, which not only skillfully reveals the scientific principles in the circuit, but also imperceptibly stimulates the students' feelings of family and country and mission. In the interview, the reporter learned that when revising the 5th edition of "Fundamentals of Circuit Analysis", Li Hansun not only strived to write fluently and clearly at a clear level, but also combined with the ideological and political requirements of the curriculum, deeply excavated the ideological and political elements in teaching, highlighted the concept of "engineering textbook 'human culture'", and led the value in knowledge transfer and ability training.

In 2023, the 9th edition of Theoretical Mechanics of Higher Education Press is on the shelves of bookstores. Zhao Xianghui, editor of the Mechanics and Civil Engineering Branch of the Social Engineering Publishing Division, told reporters that the content of the revision integrates the achievements of the ideological and political construction of the author's team, and creates more than 60 course ideological and political teaching cases from the three levels of national identity and family and country feelings, engineering ethics and professional ethics, academic aspirations and scientific spirit, and organically integrates them into the teaching materials.

For example, when talking about the static plane force system, by introducing the world's first practical engineering case of using a rocket throwing pilot cable during the construction of the Sidu River Bridge in Hubei Province, the complex engineering and technical problems are simplified into mechanical models, and at the same time, they are combined with examples and exercises in the textbook, so as to achieve the purpose of enhancing students' sense of responsibility and mission to explore the unknown, pursue the truth, and bravely climb the peak of science. For another example, when talking about the momentum moment theorem and the motion of free rigid bodies, the story of Academician Sun Jiadong's lifelong adherence to the aerospace industry and his victory in the "Two Bombs and One Star" Meritorious Service Medal and the "Medal of the Republic" was added, and the teaching content of the professional basic course was related to the frontier of engineering application and the achievements of national economic and social development, and the spirit of scientists and craftsmen of a great country who kept improving was used to stimulate students' feelings and missions to serve the country with science and technology. Such teaching cases not only extend the content of the textbook, but also sublimate the connotation of the textbook, and greatly enhance the educational function of the textbook. Zhao Xianghui gave an example.

2. Change the form and provide solutions for the "new form" of digital and blended teaching

"How many solutions are there for a system of linear equations?" Flip to Chapter 3 of the 7th edition of Engineering Mathematics Linear Algebra, scan the QR code on the book with your mobile phone, and a small exercise is presented. "This revision adds several abstract concepts and formulas in the form of scanning QR codes, and also adds explanatory text to some teaching difficulties. In addition, in order to facilitate students' self-study and consolidation exercises, there are also online self-test questions and reference answers at the end of each chapter, and students can scan the QR code at the end of the chapter to conduct self-testing. ”

The new technological revolution led by digitalization has given birth to a "new form" of digital and blended teaching in the field of education, which has extensively and profoundly changed all aspects of teaching and learning. The reporter observed that many classic textbooks conform to this trend in terms of presentation form, actively seek change through "digital transformation", and at the same time "seek innovation" and "survival" in the form of content presentation, meet the personalized needs of more reader groups by expanding the scene of "learning happens", so that the "tentacles of knowledge" can stretch further.

At the end of 2023, the digital textbook "General Theory of Philosophy" edited by Sun Zhengyu, senior professor of philosophy and social sciences at Jilin University, was officially published by Fudan University Press. Since its first publication in 1998, the book has had a far-reaching influence in the philosophical and educational circles as the first "general theory" textbook to systematically discuss "philosophy itself" after the founding of the People's Republic of China. This "digital transformation" not only reproduces Sun Zhengyu's teaching process with the help of digital video technology, but also adds a poetry and prose video originally dubbed by Sun Zhengyu to the supporting resources of the textbook, carefully designed a case display of hand-drawn animation, theoretical explanation and a knowledge point structure navigation bar covering the whole article, and is accompanied by dozens of extended reading resources with a unified design style and supplemented by pictures and annotations.

"The digital transformation of teaching materials is a means, not an end. While strengthening the advantages of audio and video information transmission and greatly expanding the reading boundaries of readers, digital textbooks can also effectively focus on readers' attention, improve learning concentration, and upgrade reading experience, so that readers can improve their academic accomplishment in a large number of high-quality and efficient reading, form a strong 'love of wisdom', and trigger real 'philosophical thinking'. The relevant person in charge said.

"During the revision of the 9th edition of Theoretical Mechanics, we have granted copyright protection to the digital teaching content of the first-class online courses of theoretical mechanics of Harbin Institute of Technology and published them, including a full set of teaching videos, electronic lesson plans, electronic courseware, and homework exercises. We recorded more than 70 videos for the most difficult example questions, providing the whole process of curriculum teaching resources and service solutions for schools to carry out blended teaching. Zhao Xianghui said.

According to Zhao Xianghui's analysis, the characteristics of the theoretical mechanics course determine that students need a lot of practice to consolidate the knowledge they have learned. "We have developed hundreds of after-class exercises into 'electronic workbooks', which are convenient for teachers to assign homework selectively and targetedly, and students can also complete the paperless submission of homework and leave traces of teaching. In the next step, the discipline large model technology and knowledge graph technology will be applied to the development of digital teaching materials, creating a 'difficult analysis path', making intelligent analysis for students according to their answers, and directly 'linking' to the content of the textbooks and explanation videos that need to be learned. ”

"Personally, I think that it is very likely that digital textbooks will replace paper textbooks in the future. Zhao Xianghui said, "The biggest feature of digital textbooks is that they are updated quickly, because they do not have to be confined to the form of paper books, and they also save the cost of paper media, so they do not have to wait 3 to 5 years to update a version; In addition, its form of expression will be more abundant, which can integrate the functions of explaining and analyzing important and difficult points, explaining problem-solving methods, and online self-test to meet the learning needs of students with different professional backgrounds and levels, and has stronger applicability. ”

3. Long-term prosperity, focusing on logic, thinking, and leadership

When the 9th edition of the new book "Theoretical Mechanics" was in hand, Zhao Xianghui revealed to reporters an "unwritten rule" about this textbook: since the first edition in the 60s of the 20th century, the name of the specific writer has not been signed on the cover, but the "Department of Theoretical Mechanics of Harbin Institute of Technology" has been signed.

"After eight revisions to the 9th edition, which spans 60 years, the current head of the university's teaching and research department has presided over the revision of the new version of the textbook. Until later, the school no longer had the physical organization of the 'Department of Mechanics', but the name was retained as a tradition. Talking about why this textbook has such a lasting influence in the domestic engineering education industry, Zhao Xianghui analyzed that the inheritance of the author's team is very important: "First, it depends on the full guarantee and support of the school, and second, the publishing house will include the textbook in the integrated development action plan and other special projects, so that the textbook can be 'always revised and always new'." ”

In addition to the basic function of imparting knowledge, it is more important to cultivate students' dialectical materialist view of history and shape their thinking ability in the face of the demand for professional talent training. Excellent teaching materials should not only help students build a comprehensive subject knowledge structure, but also form a logical structure that is conducive to the cultivation of thinking. Ma Luting, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Education Sciences, believes that "the long-lasting 'password' of classic textbooks is logical and thinking, and second, leading the trend and advancing with the times." In the future, the teaching materials should reflect a certain degree of difficulty and thinking challenges, and should also be accompanied by tutorial materials and even reference materials. Such excellent teaching materials can expand students' exploration space on the one hand, and on the other hand, they can also help students establish a down-to-earth learning style. ”

Zhao Xianghui said that the digital transformation of classic textbooks has also put forward new requirements for the technical capabilities and team organization of publishing units. "From putting forward R&D needs, determining R&D goals, designing technical routes, and finally implementing R&D plans step by step, it requires the cooperation of discipline editors and technical backbone editors of the digital technology department to form a cross-departmental compound R&D team, which requires two or three years or even longer investment. ”

"I think that in order to better inherit and develop classic teaching materials, first, we must give full play to the advantages of the old and new work mode, make good use of the experience of old teachers, the enthusiasm of middle-aged teachers and the vitality of young teachers; Ma Luting analyzed.

"Digital textbooks are not a simple digitization of traditional textbooks, but a new form of textbooks. 'New' is new in the form of three-dimensional and dynamically generated teaching materials with multi-modal integration, which can adapt to the smart online learning platform and reflect the concept of teaching and learning, and can be continuously upgraded and self-optimized. Wang Changbo, Secretary of the Party Committee of the School of Data Science and Engineering of East China Normal University, analyzed that the digital transformation of classic textbooks in colleges and universities in the future needs to collect and characterize multi-source and multi-dimensional teaching and learning behavior data and generate a knowledge graph through continuous research and iterative development, so as to carry out cross-domain knowledge transfer and adaptive learning, and form demonstration applications in typical disciplines, scenarios and student groups, and gradually form a new ecology of intelligent textbooks.