In 2019, the Ministry of Education issued the "Implementation Opinions on the Construction of First-class Undergraduate Courses" (hereinafter referred to as the "Implementation Opinions"), clearly proposing the implementation of the "Double Ten Thousand Plan" for first-class undergraduate courses, and the "first-class courses in social practice" entered the public eye.
The "Implementation Opinions" put forward the general requirements of "promoting the close integration of ideological and political education, professional education and social services, cultivating students' awareness and ability to understand, research, understand and serve the society, and building a first-class curriculum for social practice". In 2020 and 2023, a total of 10,869 national first-class undergraduate courses will be recognized by the Ministry of Education, of which 491 are social practice courses.
At present, there are some problems in the first-class courses of social practice in some colleges and universities, such as insufficient attention and understanding of the subject, and poor implementation of the course. From the perspective of the nature of the course, the first-class course of social practice is not only different from the "practical training" and "practice" courses, but also different from the social practice activities, and we must start from its characteristics, attributes, conditions, resources, standards, evaluation and other dimensions to explore its basic connotation, characteristics and construction path.
Value-led is the primary feature. **The general secretary pointed out that it is necessary to integrate moral education into all aspects of ideological and moral education, cultural knowledge education, and social practice education, and run through all fields of basic education, vocational education, and higher education. In the course construction, we insist on the fundamental task of cultivating people with virtue, and first of all, we must clarify "what people to cultivate, how to cultivate people, and for whom to cultivate people are the fundamental issues of education". The first-class course of social practice is unique because of its unique sociality, practicality, and the convergence of educational elements, and the leading role of value is highlighted. In the specific operation, teachers guide students to go out of the classroom and out of the school gate, to the front line of reform and development, the grassroots of society, observe, participate, and understand, integrate theoretical learning, technical services, social investigation, problem solving, etc., and realize the organic unity of value shaping, knowledge transfer and ability training in the social "big classroom".
Take the professional foundation as the basic support. The first-class course of social practice is not "practice for the sake of practice", nor is it "planning an activity", but it should be closely integrated with professional teaching, build a "professional + practice" curriculum model, and guide students to use solid professional knowledge to analyze and solve some specific problems in related fields in real life, so as to truly combine learning with application and apply what they have learned. Teaching organizers should start from the talent training goals of the colleges and universities, analyze the needs of students and society, "tailor-made" course objectives, and through "theory + practice" teaching, so that students can have a solid grasp of professional knowledge, improve their ability and quality, and help students better adapt to the employment needs of the new era and achieve sustainable development.
Open practice is an important attribute. The first-class course of social practice should follow the teaching theories of "learning by doing" and situational cognition, emphasize the "unity of knowledge and action", and help students complete problem-based learning by building a community of practice between teachers and students, learn to obtain real problems from the real world, and try to solve them, rather than finding problems from textbooks or other people's experiences, so as to establish a more conscious sense of subjectivity. From inside the classroom to outside the campus, students learn in the "two fields", on the one hand, they further broaden their horizons through observation, participation and experience, understand the social ecology, and get the nourishment of ideological and political education and cultural heritage; On the other hand, in the curriculum design of the integration of knowledge and action, the ability and quality are truly improved.
Resource pooling is an important condition. The change of the learning environment has triggered a series of "re-adaptation" of relationships, such as the relationship between teaching and learning, the relationship between teaching resources inside and outside the school, etc., forming a relatively "open" practice classroom. How to open up the relationship between classroom teaching and practice, between class and class, and between school and society has become the key to running a "live" practical course. In terms of teachers, the school can fully tap the "double-teacher" teachers in the school, as well as experts and experienced senior practitioners in related fields outside the school, to jointly build a curriculum teacher team. In terms of practice bases, schools should actively link with local governments to find characteristic venues and industry production bases suitable for practical teaching, so that practical learning can be implemented.
"One degree for both sexes" is an important criterion. In 2018, the Ministry of Education issued the "Notice on Paying Close Attention to the Implementation of the Spirit of the National Conference on Undergraduate Education in Colleges and Universities in the New Era", which pointed out that colleges and universities should comprehensively sort out the teaching content of each course, eliminate "water courses" and create "gold courses", reasonably improve the academic challenge, increase the difficulty of the course, expand the depth of the course, and effectively improve the quality of course teaching. In 2019, the "Implementation Opinions" put forward the "golden class" standards of "improving high-level", "highlighting innovation" and "increasing the degree of challenge" (referred to as "one degree for both sexes"). "One Degree of Gender and Gender" focuses on cultivating students' comprehensive ability to solve complex problems and higher-order thinking, which is a requirement for all first-class courses, and must also be an important criterion for first-class courses in social practice. The "one degree of gender" standard is not only conducive to tapping the potential of teachers and stimulating the vitality of the curriculum, but also allows students to establish an internal motivation in the process of high-challenge and high-input learning, that is, knowledge is no longer an external content that is instilled and has nothing to do with the self, but the existence of starting from their own experience and solving their own puzzles.
Multiple assessment is an important method to test the effectiveness of the curriculum. Assessment is an important part of curriculum construction, and it is the main way to evaluate the teaching quality and students' learning effect. The proportion of practice in the first-class courses of social practice has increased, and it is difficult for the single assessment method of traditional courses to adapt to this change, so it is necessary to build a set of diversified assessment mechanisms that focus on process evaluation and development evaluation. The assessment content should be changed from "assessment knowledge" to "equal emphasis on assessment ability and knowledge", the assessment form should be changed from "single closed-book examination" to "diversified assessment", the assessment method should be changed from "final evaluation" to "process evaluation", and the evaluation subject should be changed from "single subject evaluation" to "multi-subject evaluation".
The first-class course of social practice has important value in helping students complete value shaping, knowledge learning and ability improvement, and further enriches the curriculum system of colleges and universities, opening up a new dimension for talent training. As the implementer of social practice courses, we should fully consider the above six dimensions, based on the implementation of the fundamental task of cultivating morality, aim at the training goals, think deeply about the value of the course, deeply explore the characteristics of the course, and constantly gather teaching resources to form a joint force of education, so as to truly make this kind of course a "golden course" with high student participation, strong content innovation, flexible and diverse forms, and help students grow and become talents.
Author: Zhong Weiping is the host of the national first-class undergraduate course "Project-based Writing" of Xuchang University).