For a long time, Xi’an Peihua University has been adhering to the teaching mode of “promoting teaching with competition, promoting learning with competition, promoting training with competition, and combining competition, learning and training”, adhering to the six-level competition mode of “College-University-City-Province-Nation-Globe”, and carrying out the combination of competition and curriculum, competition and teaching reform, and competition and innovation, which has opened up the way of the synergistic and practice education system of “integration of curriculum and competition, integration of industry and education, and integration of science and education”, creating a good nurturing environment, improving the innovation consciousness and innovative thinking of college students, and helping students’ all-round development.
--Innovating the cultivating mode of education through practice, and empowering the cultivation of practical ability. First, integration of courses and competitions: on the basis of analyzing the structure of courses and the types of disciplinary competitions, the curriculum system is reconstructed by combining general courses with theoretical disciplinary competitions, basic disciplinary courses and basic professional courses with applied disciplinary competitions, and professional courses with disciplinary innovation and entrepreneurship competitions, so as to promote the reform of course teaching. Secondly, the integration of industry and education: the cultivation of applied talents should meet the job demand of industry and enterprises with professional training objectives, support the professional training objectives with the teaching objectives of the curriculum system, and support the professional training objectives with the graduation requirements, so as to realize the closed loop of teaching. The school combines curriculum and vocational qualification certification, integrating the knowledge elements and skills of vocational qualification certification into the curriculum system, to enhance the relevance and practicability of curriculum teaching, highlighting the characteristics of application-oriented teaching. Third, the integration of science and education: the integration of scientific research and teaching is to improve the ability of college students in scientific design and scientific research and in analyzing the nature and characteristics of disciplinary applied competitions. Application-oriented competitions are generally carried out within three to four days, and the works are completed through teamwork, and the form of the work can be either an academic report or a work submitted with the function of the competition. The application-oriented competitions of disciplines are implanted into the training of talents to implement the “3+1” mode, i.e., three course designs and one graduation design are added to engineering, and three academic year papers and one graduation thesis are added to liberal arts. In the training of talents, the curriculum design and academic year thesis are planned in conjunction with teachers’ scientific research projects and disciplinary competitions, which effectively improves students’ ability of innovation and creativity and empowers the cultivation of practical ability.
--Explore the new mode of integration of curriculum and competitions to stimulate students’ innovative power. The curriculum is the hardest part of the teaching reform, and the teachers are the most challenged part of the reform. The integration of courses and competitions is a need to deepen the teaching reform, and it is the goal of the gold courses of “two qualities and one degree” (i.e., quality of high-level and innovative, and challenging degree). It integrates deep learning and transfer learning with subject competition projects, enriches high-level knowledge, and cultivates students’ thinking ability, innovation ability and challenging ability. According to the category of subject competition, for example, as individual projects of subject theory competitions, elements of the National College English Competition and the “Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press Cup” National College English (reading, writing, speech, debate) Competition are integrated into the college English courses; elements of the “China Financial Futures Exchange Cup” National College Financial Knowledge Competition are integrated into the basic financial course; elements of the National College Mathematics Competition are integrated into advanced mathematics; elements of the National College Zhou Peiyuan Mechanics Competition are integrated into the mechanics course; and elements of the ACM-ICPC and CCPC College Programming Competition are integrated into programming, etc.. Representative team projects of subject application include elements of the National College Electronic Design Competition and the National College Mathematical Modeling Competition, etc., which are integrated into multiple courses, etc.; for example, subject innovation and entrepreneurship competitions. Representative competitions include the “Challenge Cup” National College Extracurricular Academic and Technological Works Competition, the “Challenge Cup” China College Students Entrepreneurship Plan Competition, the China “Internet +” Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition, the National College Students Energy Conservation and Emission Reduction Social Practice and Technology Competition, etc., which are integrated with the second classroom to improve students’ ability of independent learning.
Peihua students won the second prize in the 14th “Challenge Cup” Shaanxi University Students’ Extracurricular Academic and Technological Works Competition.
--Implementation of academic tutoring system and creation of extracurricular bonus credits. The first is system guidance and efficient advancement. Around the academic tutoring system, the university developed the measures for the administration of academic tutoring system, selected outstanding teachers to serve as academic tutors for classes, clarified academic tutor responsibilities including answering students’ questions, contacting other teachers for interaction, providing guidance for subject competition, setting up competition team, and providing academic planning guidance. Counselors are responsible for ideological education, extracurricular learning, second classroom activities, club activities, academic education, psychological guidance and other services. Academic tutors and counselors work together to educate students. The second is broadening channels and achieving high quality communication. In order to complete four years of study, students need to study all the courses in their majors, including disciplinary competitions, course design, academic year thesis, study competitions, graduation design and other internships, and the academic advisors need to contact the course teachers to solve the academic problems for the students and create a good learning environment for the students. The third is competition-driven and high-energy training. According to the characteristics of individual and team competitions in disciplinary competitions, students are encouraged to actively participate in various disciplinary competitions and quality competitions at all levels, so as to promote teaching by competitions, promote learning by competitions, promote training by competitions, and competitions are combined with learning and training to increase students’ interest in learning and enhance students’ innovative thinking and innovation ability. The fourth is rewarding credits and raising the standard. Rewarding credits can strengthen the enthusiasm and initiative of students to participate in all kinds of extracurricular competitions, and to cultivate the ability of students to learn independently, investigate and innovate. The implementation of the credit exchange system can enrich students’ cultural life and scientific and technological practical activities, fostering students’ personality development, and promoting the success of every student.
--Establishing a new mechanism for disciplinary competitions and empowering the second classroom with the vitality. The university, around disciplinary competitions and second classroom activities, has built a mechanism of incentives, guarantees, collaboration and publicity to comprehensively promote the participation of all kinds of disciplinary competitions. Firstly, the standardization of subject competitions is established. A six-level competition model of “secondary school-univerisity-city-province-national-international” has been established. The school’s financial support, college organization, comprehensive mobilization and deployment of professional departments, instructors’ active guidance throughout the process, and the participation and collaboration of all students have formed a comprehensive, efficient organizational guarantee mechanism. Secondly, subject competitions are programmed. The first step is to team up and train the contestants, and discuss and analyze previous competition topics. The second is to organize relevant information and research tools, propose design plans and simulation exercises. The third is to conduct in-depth analysis and improvement of the experimental model. The final step is to summarize and analyze subject competitions to form scientific research papers, and carry out defense preparation and review. Thirdly, the experimental models are analyzed and perfected in depth; the scientific research thesis is summarized and analyzed to form a scientific research thesis for the disciplinary competitions, and the defence is prepared and evaluated. Thirdly, the discipline competition is sustained. First of all, the university insists on combining the competition theme with the improvement of professional innovation ability, focusing on the integration of competition works with new concepts, new trends and new technologies in industry development, and emphasizing the combination of theoretical knowledge of this major with other subject knowledge; secondly, focusing on the full-scale nature of subject competitions management, to achieve timely release and extensive publicity of competition information and systems, active mobilization before the competition, strict organization during the competition, and vigorous commendation after the competition; finally, focus on summarizing the competition experience and deficiencies, laying a theoretical and practical foundation for the next competition, and at the same time, based on the performance of the subject competition, an innovation and entrepreneurship competition team will be formed to achieve the sustainability of the subject competition.
Through the disciplinary competitions in the past three years, students have participated in more than 100 items in the Catalogue of Competitions of the National Analysis Report on Competitions of College Students in General Colleges and Universities, the Catalogue of Observations of Competitions of College Students in General Colleges and Universities and various kinds of quality competitions, and more than 60,000 students have participated in competitions inside and outside of the university, and have won 3,684 awards of all kinds, of which 2,152 are at national-level, 1,479 at provincial level, and 53 at municipal level. This has strengthened students’ innovative thinking and creative ability, steadily improving the “six rates” of students, and promoting the high-quality development of the university.
