A Study On The Status Quo And Feasiability Of Orienteering Teaching In Higher Vocational Colleges In Shanxi Province

Orienteering is a sport to develop high-quality personnel. It is both a physical and mental sport which not only develops people in physical fitness, but also trains people to think and solve problems independently because it challenges and encourages people to try new things. It is an adventurous treasure hunt sport, and can give people the thrills of life experiences. People engaged in the sport can interact with one another to learn and share life experiences regardless of their gender, age, ethnic backgrounds, culture classes, social status, etc. It is a low-cost, fun and informative sport.Since the launching of directional movement from the students on the popular favorite, because it can not only enhance physical fitness but also to train students to independently analyze and solve problems, but also to Orienteering has been popular among students because it not only helps them build up their health, but also develops their independent abilities in problem analyzing and solving and in logical thinking and reasoning. It also helps students to develop their sense of competition and team spirit. When students engage in participating in the embrace of nature, and fully enjoy the natural scenery and the fresh clean air, it is all the more helpful to enhance their health.By including orienteering in its physical education, a vocational school, as an important part of higher education, can help to improve its students'enthusiasm to participate in sports activities, which in turn, will make them courageous and innovative. Orienteering also enriches student's knowledge of geography and enhances their understanding of nature and ability to adapt to nature, thus improves their ability of self-survival. In short, orienteering is conducive to better all aspects of students'development.We believe that Shanxi is more suitable for developing orienteering because of her unique geographical location, weaker economic strength and slow pace of educational development. After examining literature on orienteering, and surveying the teachers and students of physical education in several Shanxi vocational colleges by means of expert interviews, questionnaires, analysis and compurgation and mathematical statistics, this study analyzes the status quo of orienteering in Shanxi vocational schools, finds some negative factors in the development of orienteering, and tries to find out some ways and measures of developing orienteering in Shanxi vocational schools. Specific findings are as follows:1. Orienteering has not gained popularity in Shanxi vocational schools and colleges. Orienteering has not been included as an important course. It is mostly provided as an elective course in public sports curriculum. The orienteering course materials used are not unified and suitable materials for teaching orienteering in Shanxi vocational school are yet to be found.2. Teachers teaching orienteering at vocational schools in Shanxi have the basic qualifications as teachers. However, they do not have enough sources of gaining professional knowledge and expertise in orienteering; their professional qualifications are not very optimistic. In terms of students understanding of orienteering at the vocational schools, the male students apparently know better about and show stronger interest in and take a more active part in the sport than their female peers do.3. The major influencing factors in teaching orienteering at vocational schools in Shanxi are the importance attached to orienteering by the leadership, the school's policy support, the amount of funding, the adequacy of teachers, the degree of publicity for orienteering, the adequacy of school equipment and teaching organization.4. There is no reasonable, unified teaching syllabus or scientific schedule for teaching orienteering at the surveyed vocational schools in Shanxi.5. As Shanxi Province is rich in natural resources and enjoys a better location, many places in this province have good topographic conditions for her vocational schools to develop and popularize orienteering.The results show that: the status quo of orienteering at vocational schools in Shanxi is not optimistic because they are left behind by their counterparts in other provinces in China. To keep up with the development of society and follow the trend of the times, orienteering, as a new and much-liked sport by students, should be generally taught at vocational schools in Shanxi and vigorously promoted by standard teaching so that the sport will be continuously improved. Students who participate in orienteering, can develop a keen interest in sports by doing it on a regular basis and an awareness of lifelong exercising, thus building up a strong physique which will enable them to better work for the society and serve the country in the future.