Research On The Construction Of The Second Classroom Of Ideological And Political Education In Colleges And Universities

The second classroom, i.e. extracurricular activities and practical training, is a kind of education different from and complementary to the first classroom, i.e. standard curricular education. In recent years, more and more educators pay attention to the second classroom, and at the meantime, students are getting more and more interested in it. Therefore, the characteristics of the second classroom, such as its mobility, concealment, permeability and autonomy, enjoy many functions and advantages which cannot be found in the first classroom. Furthermore, these functions and advantages can promote a kind of more independent and thorough development of students. Thus, this complementary and interpenetrating influence draws the educators’attention to the combination of the first and second classrooms. However, from the perspective of the unity of theory and practice, the building of second classroom in ideological and political education still has certain problems at present, in spite of some achievements. These problems include the lack of not only theoretical studies but also practices. Certainly, these two aspects are connected. An immature system of theory is always connected with a lack of practice. Because of an incomplete recognition of the importance and necessity of second classroom building in ideological and political education, there are many potential research topics in this field, such as the clarity of definitions and concepts, the researches on theory, the function of policy support, the mechanism of organizational system and the varying formats and contents of the activity. The crucial motive of this dissertation is to discover effective means of second classroom building on the basis of summarizing useful experiences of ideological and political education.According to Modern Chinese Dictionary, theory is always a kind of objective planning which is the systematical conclusion of the knowledge in nature and society summarized from practice. The practical activity without the guidance of theory will turn out to be blind action which will deviate from its original direction. In terms of the building of the second classroom in ideological and political education, the support from relevant theories will perfectly serve its essential purpose in the process of general system formation. Moreover, in this process, it is necessary to include researches on basic theory and independent concepts of the second classroom, which will depict the general outline of the research. Meanwhile, it is also important to figure out questions such as according to what kind of system and institutional structure the second classroom education can be built, what kind of policy support is needed in this process and what contents will be provided in terms of the planning of rituals, rules, procedures of the activity. In the end, the issues of the training of teachers and the establishment of new social connections cannot be ignored.This dissertation starts from basic analysis of educational theories in the second classroom. First of all, from the viewpoint of the means of ideological and political education, it defines the second classroom in order to specify the research scope of this dissertation as well as the education scope of the second classroom in ideological and political education. At the same time, as for the scientific methods in second classroom education, it applies basic theories in pedagogic and psychology, aiming at establishing its theoretical foundation and educational framework. On the basis of analyzing both the history and the status quo of ideological and political education, it also refers to practical experiences in some countries and areas such as the U.S., Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Besides, this dissertation tries to form an effective structure of the second classroom education and proposes countermeasures and implementation in terms of the support from educational concepts, the building of institution, the adoption of certain policies and the establishment of evaluation system.