A Comparative Study Of Instructional Development In American And Chinese Colleges And Universities

With the increasing demand on higher education among domestic public and the challenge of ensuring and improving the quality of higher education in our country, how to ensure and improve higher education quality has become an important issue in higher education. Since teachers are foundation of universities' survival and development, enhancing higher education quality should start in strengthening teachers' teaching ability. One of the most significant methods is to boost instructional development in university. With outstanding outcomes in the world America is representative of earliest explorers in instruction al development in universities, which becomes our model of research and study. Comparative study on instructional development in universities between America and China is extension in research on instructional development, furtherance on comparative study on instructional development, not to mention it helps give practical suggestions to boost instructional development in universities in China. The goal of enhancing quality of higher education can be finally achieved as this study can give our instructional development in universities some tips and reference. After experiencing five phases of organizational process of instructional develo pment in universities, namely scholar age, instructor age, developer age, learner age, and internet age, there are diverse organizational patterns in American instructional development in universities, and four main organizational constitutes, among which, school constitutes have the most important and direct influence. Most American universities established center constitutes and council constitutes nowadays which are highly-organized, well equipped with staff, being characterized as rich and various appro aches, humanized and targeted activities as well as diverse sources of financing. In Princeton university of America, Mc Graw teaching and learning center, office of academics and the human resources office take the duty of instructional development together. With desirable atmosphere of instructional development, teaching luncheon, the project of graduate faculty and the plan for middle-aged teachers' career have achieved great progresses. Started in 21 th century, Chinese instructional development in univer sities now is still in the initial step. Since year 2010, our 30 national typical instructional development centers and similar centers in other universities have been concentrating on colorful and individual activities and services, achieved great success during their exploration especially Zhejiang University, which have obtained great effects in terms of its diversified programs and advanced system of e valuation and feedback; however, problems that occur cannot be ignored as many universities still lack the correct awareness of conception, incomplete system and insufficient practice. Combining with the fact of China's instructional development in universities and successful practice in America, China's instructional development in universities should start from concepts, policies, activities and financial resources, aiming to provide reference for our further instructional development in universities.