Exploration of Teaching Methods on improving Undergraduates

Liu Xiaoqing

Abstract：The scientific and technological paper is an embodiment of researchers' ability in the field of scientific research. However, at present, the?ability?to?write is not improved significantly for college students in their paper under the current teaching mode. In the study, some new teaching models (case teaching, practical teaching and inquiry teaching) are suggested. Based on the questionnaire survey and statistical analysis method, these teaching models in “Scientific Paper writing” are investigated for improving college students writing capability. The results showed that all the three teaching modes produced positive teaching effects, such as enhancing undergraduates learning autonomy and improving their ability of scientific research. Furthermore, the case teaching mode was superior to other teaching modes and became a better teaching method for improving undergraduates' writing ability in “Scientific Paper writing” course.

Key words：Scientific paper writing; case teaching; questionnaire survey

中圖分类号：H319         文献标识码：A            文章编号：1672-1578（2019)12-0001-03

1   Introduction

Scientific papers are the important carriers of scientific research achievements. The cultivation of writing skills in scientific papers plays a vital role for college students to heightening their structure of knowledge, improving their thinking modes and enhancing their innovative thinking

ability[1].Nowadays,the scientific paper has become an important criterion for measuring the performance of scientific and technical personnel. Furthermore, it is the best way for scientists and technical experts to share the new technology and achievements and get the scientific frontier in all research fields. At present,one the one hand, most domestic universities have established “scientific paper writing” course, but most of them are formality. It is regarded as professional elective courses, which just have 16-24 hours in a semester. Therefore, due to the limited time, teachers only teach the pure theory in class, which lead to the serious lacking of the practical teaching, let along the combination of knowledge

and practical writing. Furthermore, pure theory teaching causes the teaching process vapidity,and the teaching effectiveness is unsatisfactory. On the other hand, in the past teaching and research, it

is more likely to use the traditional teaching, multimedia assisted teaching and the combination of them to evaluate the effect of students' writing ability. What's more, teachers must pay more attention to the teaching of theoretical knowledge from the beginning of the whole textbook to the end. And according to are numerous and miscellaneous knowledge points, it's difficult for students to maintain the knowledge so that their writing ability has not significantly improved[2]. In this paper, the aims is to explore an effective teaching mode for improving writing ability of undergraduates' scientific papers based on the new teaching modes of case teaching, practical teaching and inquiry teaching.

2   Overview of teaching models

(1) Case teaching model: Case teaching is teaching method that guides students through specific cases. To improve students' ability to analyze and solve problems, these students are trained by making full use of existing knowledge to analyze available data. In this method, a number of outstanding scholars are invited to share their own experiences, such as the idea of research, the direction of research, and the discovery and solution of problems. By these ways, students can quickly and accurately find the problem, and determine the research direction as soon as possible.

(2) Practice teaching model: Practical teaching is based on students knowledge, collected material and research question which is solved. In this method, there are many characters such as independent topic selection, extracurricular completion and classroom display. In the classroom, the teacher points out the existing problems and classifies the examples in students' lecture and paper writing. And then the teacher teaches the students some approach to the problem. For example, teachers choose a good article and explain the advantages of the article. By comparing it with the bad one, students can grasp the basic principles of writing the article well.

(3) Inquiry teaching model:Through the combination of lectures and discussions, inquiry teaching guides students to learn knowledge, concepts and formulae

by themselves.Its a student-oriented heuristic, interactive and discussion teaching method to mobilize the students to take the initiative to participate in class.Furthermore,the teaching method can cultivate students' ability of learning and the way of thinking by expressing their thoughts and expressions in class.

3   Research Methods

(1) In the study,the questionnaire survey method was used. 380 questionnaires were issued to students in different schools, and 362 questionnaires were collected (355 valid questionnaires were valid for 93.4%). The survey mainly analyzed and appraised the teaching effect from the followed five aspects: the overall teaching situation, case teaching, practical teaching,inquiry teaching and academic paper writing.

(2) 3 classes of the same profession were  selected, including157 people, 49 people in the first class，53 people in the second class，55 people in the third class. The three groups were divided into case teaching, practice teaching and inquiry teaching respectively. Case teaching, practical teaching and inquiry teaching were chosen as control variables. Students' scores were analyzed by the dependent variables. One-way ANOVA was used to investigate whether there were differences in means among groups (three teaching models).The significant level was set at p＜0.05.

4   Results and discussions

According to the results of questionnaire survey, teaching effects of “scientific paper writing” course under different teaching modes was shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Survey results of the teaching effects(%)

In Table 1,different teaching methods caused positive effect of teaching. The percentages of “perfect” in case teaching, practical teaching

and inquiry teaching were 80.1%, 70.9% and 69.7% respectively.The percentages of “general” were 2.2%, 1.4% and 2.3% respectively.The percentages of “poor” were 0.4%, 1.2% and 0.8%, respectively. Although different teaching methods had different teaching effectiveness,for the overall teaching effects, there was no poor evaluation in teaching effectiveness. A favorable rate of 98.8% could be found. For the effect of students scientific writing,favorable rate was 95.7%. Most of students were recognized on the three kinds of teaching mode of teaching achievement. However, some students seemed a low satisfaction for practical teaching and inquiry teaching.

To improve this situation, some measures should be taken in “scientific paper writing” course:

(1) Class activities (e.g. PPT and impromptu speech) need to be held to inspire students to participate in and mobilize their learning enthusiasm.(2) Except the teaching in class, videos, pictures and other information also can be displayed, which not only increases students' enthusiasm for lectures, but also helps teachers better understand what students are interested in.(3) Encouraging students to actively explore learning methods is needed. For example, each student chooses a standard of scientific papers as a template to explain the specification of thesis writing. Teacher points out the shortcomings of the students by commenting it and help them to correct.

Furthermore, through one-way ANOVA, there was a significant difference in the influence of different teaching modes on students scores in scientific papers(F=5.363,df=2,154, p=0.006<0.05)(in Figure 1).

Figure 1 Students scores in different teaching modes

Compared with the case teaching mode, student scores significantly decreased in other teaching

mode(practical teaching mode: F=4.668, df=1,100;  p=0.034＜0.05; inquiry teaching mode: F=6.370, df=1,102; p=0.013＜0.05). However, the effects between practical teaching and inquiry teaching were not significantly on students' scores(F=1.252, df=1,106; p=0.266＞0.05).In the case teaching method, student scores were generally good (average score 79). It might be mainly reasons that the outstanding scholars told students how to find problems and resolve

it through their practice and research ideas. Besides, the students were guided by sharing outstanding scholars research direction and research contents[3].Compared with the case teaching, practice teaching and inquiry teaching had little effects on student scores. It was possible reason that students chose their own topics flexibly, which required high quality of students' comprehensive quality, in the practical teaching.On the other hand,it was difficult to complete the writing of the scientific paper because collecting and sorting data would take a

lot of time and energy[4]. Due to openness and expansibility of inquiry teaching mode, it was hard to take all students into account whom from different levels. Whats more, more support conditions were considered in the model, such as experimental funds, small class teaching, sufficient time, social family concept and so on. In addition, the inquiry teaching mode was facing challenge and tended to break down. Teachers and students were required to have a better psychological quality [5].

5   Conclusions

In the process of scientific paper writing, three new teaching modes(case teaching, practical teaching, inquiry teaching) could effectively enhance students' learning interest and cultivate their writing skills of scientific papers. However, in comparison, case  teaching could help students to apply existing knowledge to analyze existing data and improve students' ability to analyze and solve problems. Case teaching was a better teaching method.

References：

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[2] Wang Guoying,Wang Yaqiao.A probe into the teaching reform of technology thesis writing in water supply & drainage science and engineering major[J].Theory and Practice of Education,2017,37(30):46-47.

[3] Yang Huimin. Exploration and Reflection on the co-construction and sharing model of case teaching resources in the ideological and political theory course of universities[J]. Leading Journal of Ideological & Theoretical Education,2010(6):23-28．

[4] Chen Xiyou，Li Guanlin，Zhou Huiwei.Several teaching practices about circuit theory course[J].Journal of Electrical & Electronic Education,2014,36(2):1-4．

[5] Zhou Ning，Li Xiaofeng，Fu Zhi zhong. Research Based Teaching in Random Signal Analysis Course[J]. Journal of Electrical & Electronic Education,2014,36(2):60-63.

作者簡介：刘晓庆，男，博士，副教授，主要从事水利水电工程专业教学和生态环境方面的研究工作。