Through the development of Chinese education, growing importance has been attached to the Vocational Education (VE) with Higher Vocational Education (HVE) as its advanced stage. Higher mathematics is the foundation common course of HVE. However, the course is established mainly from the perspective of mathematics itself, ignoring, more often than not, students’ mathematics foundation and their demands in terms of further study and career development.Based on the current contradiction between HVE mathematics curriculum and students’ foundation and demands, I choose the transportation major of a Civil Aviation College as a case study and put forward the following two questions for research, namely,(1) What kind of mathematical knowledge and skills is needed based on the future career development of students of the above-mentioned college?(2) What kind of information technology that is related to mathematical skills and knowledge is need based on the future career development of students of the above-mentioned college?Based on the above research questions, I first did a research overview from the following aspects.1)1present a review on China’s HVE, including its connotation and denotation, target location and development trends of China’s HVE, as well as the positioning and status quo of HVE mathematics course. The review also covers the existing research on mathematical knowledge and skills and the related information technology in HVE curriculum system.2) I give a summary about international researches on the mathematics knowledge and skills and the related information technology used in working places, introducing certain research institutions and teams in this field and the research achievements they made and the research methods they used.3) I probe into mathematics knowledge and skills and related information technology from mathematics curricula in America and Singapore. In particular, two American mathematics curriculum standards----Crossroads in Mathematics’ and Beyond Crossroads compiled by AMATYC, the mathematics curriculum structure adopted by American two-year community colleges, and the results of American curriculum’s basic projects. I also consider the mathematics curriculum design of Singapore Polytechnic.4) Certain related curriculum design theories are also included here. One of the theory shows that content selecting is the first step and the core of curriculum design. Lisa R. Lattuca’s academic plan putting forward against the background of sociocultural environment and the framework cooperating with stakeholder set by AMATYC are two dimensions according to which this paper is written.The main methods in my research are text analysis, observation, interviews and questionnaire survey. As needed, I make up a piece of questionnaire, a copy of observation outline and11copies of interview outline targeted at different people in the course of research. Participants in the research include call center staff (including graduated students) from some airline company, freshmen, professional teachers, computer teachers and math teachers. The data I have collected are as follows:documents from various sources related to my research, HVE textbooks (major-related textbooks, mathematics textbooks, computer course textbooks), questionnaires from freshmen who are from8different classes, interview transcriptions of6students, staff (including graduated students), professional teachers, computer teachers and math teachers.I have done data processing to the questionnaires and interview transcriptions by means of SPSS19.0and ATLAS.ti and formed a Conceptual Analysis Frame Diagram (see below). In the course, to make the research more credible and valid, I have adopted the following methods:VBR, triangulation, respondents verifying. Research conclusions:(1) Mathematical knowledge and skills:this research reveals that the mathematical knowledge and skills the students of transportation major from some Civil Aviation Vocational Technical Institute need in professional study and work are mainly statistics and operation, but the institute mainly provides mathematics courses like Calculus for students; students of this major are weak at mathematics and take a passive attitude toward mathematics;(2) Relevant information technology:the relevant information technology the students of transportation major from some Civil Aviation Vocational Technical Institute need in professional study and work is advanced Excel management and analysis, but in computer science class, teachers do not teach advanced Excel analysis; likewise, in mathematics class, no trace of knowledge about information technology can be seen; students of this major know little about information technology.Suggestions:(1) Duly weakening the position of Calculus and increasing the teaching of statistics and operation knowledge;(2) adopting relevant information technology in the course of teaching; consolidating primary and secondary school students’knowledge about statistics to help them master statistics and operation knowledge needed in college;(3) proceeding from students’ need in professional study and work to select what should be taught in HVE mathematics curriculum;(4) integrating the content of Mathematics with students’need in study and work and developing mathematics teaching cases according to the practical data from work;(5) All members shall reach a consensus on the necessity of mathematics curriculum, and set up appropriate platform to strengthen the communication and cooperation between mathematics teachers, computer teachers, teachers of this major and other staff, and at the same time, enhance the connection and integration among different curricula;(6) further making clear the "scale" from "Theories-sufficiency Scale". Here, scale means that the curriculum shall aim at students’ need in future career development but not in the minimum entry requirements. |