“Four-sphere Integration and Linkage” for Talent cultivation
--Hubei University Promotes the In-depth Reform of Chemistry Postgraduate Education in Local Universities
Chen Huaixia Zhang Xiuhua Ren Jun
"Collaborative training" mode of multi-resource coordination”
Diagram of talent training system
Graduate education is the high end of national education and an essential part of the national innovation system. It is an important task of graduate education and teaching reform in colleges and universities to carry out the spirit of the National Graduate Education Conference and cultivate high-level innovative talents.
Hubei University is a domestic first-class University jointly built by the province and the Ministry, with graduate students accounting for more than 40%.In order to realize the macro strategic layout of education reform, the “Postgraduate Education Quality Improvement Plan”, “Top-notch Innovative Talent Training Plan” and the “Ten-year Talent Cultivation Plan” through bachelor, master and doctoral degree were implemented in 2006, with the goal of doubling breakthroughs in both discipline construction and comprehensive strength, and the fundamental task of building morality and cultivating talents. The discipline of chemistry of Hubei University was founded in 1952, and organic chemistry was one of the disciplines that firstly authorized for master's degree in China after the resumption of the college entrance examination. In 1981, Hubei University began to enroll master students and was approved to confer the master degree in chemistry in 2000. In the year of 2006, the first-level discipline of chemistry became a key discipline of Hubei Province and the main supporting discipline of Hubei Province's key preponderant discipline group in 2015. In 2012, the discipline of Chemistry of Hubei University entered the top 1% of the ESI world ranking, which has been increasing year by year.
In order to further improve the training quality of postgraduate students in the chemistry discipline and meet the needs of Hubei and even the national chemistry-related fields for high-level innovative talents, the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering has been committed to the teaching reform, innovation and practice of chemistry postgraduate students for a long time, and achieved remarkable results.
Establishing Talent Training Objectives
In local universities, the graduate students have a relatively weak professional foundation with less scientific research training and lack of innovative thinking and innovative ability. At the same time, some local colleges and universities do not pay much attention to classroom teaching in the process of postgraduate training, but emphasize more on scientific experiments and research results; some college tutors set up rather vague training objectives for postgraduates and believe that students can graduate after completing credits and meeting the basic requirements for graduation, making it difficult for high-level top-notch innovative talents to stand out. In order to solve the above problems, the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, based on the characteristics of chemistry discipline, has proposed the cultivation goal of "five-level advanced and high-end development" for chemistry discipline postgraduates of local universities, namely “solid foundation + practical innovation + humanistic quality + international vision + development potential”. That is, to cultivate innovative talents in chemistry and related fields with a solid theoretical foundation of chemistry, innovative scientific thinking and practical ability, profound humanistic quality and broad international vision. Consequently, the problem of "who to cultivate" in graduate education in local colleges and universities is clarified.
Upgrading Talent Training Mode
Due to the limitation of teaching conditions, graduate students in local colleges and universities share the old training mode, where the loose management, backward teaching methods and single evaluation are detrimental to the cultivation of high-level innovative talents. To intensify the education and teaching reform, the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, based on many years of teaching and management experience, puts forward the “four-sphere integration and linkage” training mode of "whole process management, team guidance, collaborative training and scientific evaluation" for postgraduates of chemistry. Hence this mode answers the problem of "how to cultivate people" in the postgraduate education of local colleges and universities.
1. Whole process management and multi-directional tracking
The School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering took solid measures to improve the source of graduate students, established a graduate student enrollment system and a high-quality student selection mechanism so as to improve enrollment publicity the quality of students. After their entrance, the deans in charge, teaching secretaries, lecturers, head teachers, class committees, tutors and teachers of the team, senior graduate students head, etc. pay common attention to each student. They are ready to answer questions and solve doubts about learning difficulties and scientific research problems encountered by students at any time, guide and teach them learning methods and scientific research skills. A whole chain education and teaching management system will be formulated to improve the talent cultivation. Every graduate student, from the beginning of admission, can learn the talent training plan of his or her own major, and make clear the learning contents and objectives at different stages, so as to formulate his or her own learning plan and realize personalized growth under the guidance of the tutor. Thus, the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering has become a highland for the cultivation of top-notch innovative talents in the chemistry discipline of local colleges and universities.
2. Team guidance and many-to-one mode
The research teams composed of teachers from different majors or research directions select and enroll students who are suitable for the research direction of the team independently. In the training process of graduate students, all teachers in the team are the mentors of each student. Under the "many-to-one" guidance, they can timely solve relevant scientific research problems from different research directions, promote students' in-depth researches on the frontier of the discipline, and facilitate interdisciplinary researches. Also, the competition and cooperation among students in the scientific research team can effectively stimulate and enhance students' learning initiative for common promotion and progress, thus creating a learning atmosphere for the cultivation of high-level innovative talents.
3. Collaborative cultivation and multi-resource integration
The School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering has always been at the forefront of graduate education and teaching reform based on the national and provincial teaching platforms and teaching teams. The high-level faculty uses information technology to set up "modern separation methods", "modern testing methods" and other courses, which have been run on the Chinese MOOC platform Xuetangzaixian and other platforms. At the same time, they carry out the construction and practical research of online and offline hybrid teaching, compiling and publishing "modern separation methods" and other teaching materials related to MOOCs.
（1）Promoting collaborative training within the discipline to strengthen the professional foundation
The College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering has established a teaching team of discipline curriculum group headed by the famous teachers in Hubei by introducing and training double-position teachers, revising the training plan of five major directions of chemistry and optimizing teaching contents, methods and modes. Meanwhile, case teaching and ideological and political education are highly concerned, and information-based teaching means has been applied to create high-quality courses and improve teaching quality.
（2）Encouraging collaborative interdisciplinary training to expand the scope of knowledge
Graduate students are encouraged to take interdisciplinary courses and researches, such as biology, food, environment, chemical industry, computer, economic management and Humanities and arts courses, etc. The College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering improves the curriculum system, cultivating students’ humanities plus professional quality so as to improve their comprehensive quality and interest in interdisciplinary research, further laying a foundation for the in-depth research of frontier theories and career development of chemistry as well as other related disciplines.
（3）Strengthening coordinated training between schools and enterprises to develop practical innovation
Based on the development of disciplines and the needs of enterprises, the curriculum system and content have been reconstructed to realize the integration of production, learning and research. Students will be allowed to participate in enterprise research and base training, and enterprise engineers will be hired as part-time professors, together creating practical innovative talents, thus improving the professional development potential of postgraduates as well as their employment quality.
（4）Coordinating training at home and abroad to shape the international vision
The College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering selects postgraduates for joint training and to participate in international academic conferences in foreign universities, and invite foreign experts to give lectures in Hubei University, so as to broaden students’ international vision. In order to cultivate their innovation ability， students are encouraged to pay attention to the frontier and key technical issues of disciplinary development and try to integrate them into their own scientific research work.
4.Scientific evaluation and diversified assessment
The School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering adopts an overall evaluation by taking a comprehensive assessment and focusing on individual development, that is, to establish a diversified and scientific evaluation system that covers integrating learning ability, innovation ability, practical ability and development potential.
Adhering to inheritance and innovation, we are ready to for progress.10 years of innovation and practice of teaching reform has witnessed remarkable achievements made by Hubei University in scientific research achievements of postgraduates in Chemistry, with nearly 100 high-level SCI papers published and about 15 national invention patents obtained per year. A number of outstanding master's graduates have been promoted to professors or engineers in colleges and universities or large enterprises at home and abroad, creating a new model for the cultivation of top-notch innovative talents in local colleges and universities and fostering a number of high-level talents for local economic development. (Chen Huaixia Zhang Xiuhua Ren Jun)
