Research On Construction Of Practical Teaching System Of Higher Vocational Education

There is an urgent demand for high-skilled talents; whereas graduates of higher vocational education schools are facing difficulties in employment. The most important reason for it is that the graduates' weak practical ability fails to meet employers' needs. This is the crux to hinder the quick, healthy and sustainable development of high vocational education. Weak practical instruction, which is the main segment and important means of cultivating students' practical ability, is the key factor to lead to the students' poor practical ability. Based on this point of view, research emphasis should be placed on the construction of practical instruction system of higher vocational education and how to build such a system. The following issues are discussed on the basis of a comprehensive mastery and analysis of the review of current research.Firstly, practical instruction of higher vocational education is accurately defined, and its features analyzed. The construction principles and factors of a practical instruction system are then discussed. Conclusion is drawn that practical instruction, in regard to higher vocational education, is a kind of teaching in accordance with different teaching objectives of different majors and based on the talent cultivating mode of work-and-study combination, whose main form is to complete a position task with the aid of a certain project training, whose basic feature is to encourage students' active participation, quest and thinking, and whose aim is to let the students master related position skills and technology, cultivate their vocation attitudes and ability. Practical instruction of higher vocational education is a contextualized, complete, full, open and cooperative instruction.In the second part, based on a clear description of the history of practical instruction thoughts, the domestic development of a practical instruction system of higher vocational education and its features are analyzed. It is pointed out that the thoughts development can be divided into four stages, namely the budding, shaping, falling and growing periods. The key discussion is on Dewey's pragmatism and Tao Xingzhi's "life education" theory which advocates that "life is education", "the society is the school", "teaching, learning and doing should be unified" and "to learn in the process of doing". From the angle of epistemology and axiology, the paper draws a picture of the evolvement of teaching theories since the 20^th century and the development of practical instruction. As far as the practical instruction system of the higher vocational education is concerned, its development can be divided into forming, developing and integrating stages, corresponding to three kinds of practical instruction, namely the hardware oriented, curriculum oriented and system integrated.In the next part, the paper applies concepts and methods of philosophy, knowledge view, learning theory and didactics to elaborate the theoretical foundation of practical instruction in higher vocational education. It is pointed out that philosophical viewpoints, especially the knowledge and study of philosophy of technology, are essential for an accurate understanding of intrinsic features of technology and will provide theoretical support for the curriculum and teaching reform of TVET. The contemporary knowledge view, which is the significant theoretical basis for the TVET reform including the practical instruction of higher vocational education, has transferred its emphasis from the reflection of the objective world to the interaction between people and the world where human beings exist. The development of psychology theories has revealed the happening mechanism of learning and expanded learning functions, which is beneficial for a better understanding of learning and discussions about knowledge learning and behavior-shaping on a basis of learning theories. What's more, the establishment of the dominant position of individual student, the transformation from the knowledge-based teaching to the competency-based learning as well as the epistemological shift from objectivism to constructivism have all provided important basis for the reform and research of practical instruction of higher vocational education.At last, in accordance with the system theory and the thinking logic from concept precedence, process command to system guarantee, the construction of practical instruction system is divided into driving, leading and support sub-systems. The paper has pointed out that the driving system decides the development direction of the practical instruction system, emphasizing several conceptual reforms, including transformations of the teacher's role from the knowledge controller to the communication promoter, of the curriculum concept from presupposition thinking to generation thinking, of the learning nature concept from the acquisition characterization to the practical knowledge view. The leading system is the core of the whole system, comprising of the practical instruction curriculum system, the comprehensive teaching objectives, work oriented teaching organization, action oriented teaching methods, and the teaching environment of work-and-study combination. The support system aims to safeguard the successful running of the practical instruction system.The dissertation is divided into five parts, including Chapter One: Introduction, Chapter Two: Definition, Discrimination and Analysis of Related Concepts, Chapter Three: History of Practical Instruction Theories, Chapter Four: Theoretical Foundation of Practical Instruction System, and Chapter Five: Construction of Practical Instruction System in Higher Vocational Education. Applying literature research, survey method and comparative method, the dissertation discusses how to construct from the conceptual and system levels the practical instruction system in the higher vocational education. At the conceptual level, the emphasis is placed upon the rational knowledge of the practical instruction system of higher vocational education while at the system level the system security of the practical instruction system is stressed.