Professional Development And Core Competence Promotion Of Engineering Teachers In The New Industrial Revolution

This is an era which is more urgent than ever before for Chinese people to pursue the best higher education,the strongest scientific knowledge and to desire the most excellent talents.China has already been a world-famous education country but it is not yet a country with highest educational quality.To running higher education well,the key is teachers in colleges and universities;to running engineering education well,the essential element is engineering teachers in colleges and universities.Nowadays,accompanying the spring up of Emerging Industrial Revolution(EIR),the strategy of Innovation-driven Development,the initiative of One Belt,One Road put engineering education in China in a brand-new environment and put forward higher requirements for it.And all of these take emerging needs and serious challenges to engineering teachers' professional development and the improvement of engineering teachers' core competence including teaching,academic research and engineering practice.Therefore,based on the research project The Construction of Engineering Teacher in China(Cultivation Research of Engineering Science and Technology Talent,NO.17JDGC018)issued by The Humanities and Social Science Research of the Ministry of Education in China,this study applies multi-research methods for instance literature research method,comparative research method and survey research method etc to study engineering teachers' professional development and research the status,existing problems of the improvement of engineering teachers' core competence and provide solving suggestions to improve and enhance engineering teachers' core competence.The main research work of the thesis is as follows:By literature research method and comparative research method,analyzing and concluding the research status of engineering teachers' professional development in domestic and foreign countries,this study aims to make a new interpretation of the connotation and mode of engineering teachers' professional development.The new connotation of engineering teachers' professional development includes facing academic community,industry,future,career(focusing on endogenous development rather than external drive),innovation(focusing on process rather than results)and age cycle(focusing on different age groups is different).Through the analysis of 1683 engineering teachers' questionnaires and 542 administrative staffs' questionnaires and the interview of 16 leaders of colleges and universities and experts who are familiar with engineering education,this study explores the status,existing problems and countermeasures of engineering teachers' core competence in colleges and universities.By analyzing results of survey research,this study concludes six main problems which are unbeneficial to engineering teachers to improve teaching competence.Firstly,the policy of colleges and universities is out of touch with the demand of improving the teaching competence of engineering teachers;secondly,engineering teachers need to strengthen the study and application of pedagogical and psychological knowledge;thirdly,the improvement of teaching competence of engineering teachers in Colleges and universities lacks sustainability;fourthly,the teaching competence of engineering teachers at the bottom of degree chain and professional title chain needs to be further improved;fifthly,teaching competence of engineering teachers in local colleges and private universities needs to be further improved and there are differences about the improvement of teaching competences of engineering teachers in different regions.Considering the above six problems,six solutions are putting forward in this study.First,to optimize the policy of improving the teaching competence of engineering teachers at university or college level on the basis of demands;second,by integrating pedagogy and psychology into teaching,universities and colleges should innovate teaching training projects and teaching competitions;to realize sustainable development of engineering teachers' teaching competence by Educational Sustainable Development,ESD competence projects and embody engineering teachers learning role under whole career period;fourth,to encourage engineering teacher improve teaching competence at the bottom of degree chain and professional title chain,universities and colleges need to break through the focusing of numbers of papers,projects etc when universities and colleges employ and select engineering teachers and establish reasonable criteria to evaluate professional title;fifth,local and private universities or colleges can construct teaching development centers at the lower college/department level,improve the system of teacher consultation and educate talents;sixth,various regional colleges can universities can take three measures to decrease the differences of improvement of teaching competence of engineering teachers.There are four problems in improving the academic research competence of engineering teachers in China.Firstly,the orientation of academic research in different types of universities or colleges is not clear;secondly,engineering teachers in universities or colleges lack enthusiasm for patent invention and the utility of patent invention is not enough;thirdly,ignoring the Chinese journal papers colleges and universities highlight the evaluation of English journal papers,engineering teachers lack the enthusiasm of publishing journal papers and academic confidence;fourthly,engineering teachers in universities or colleges have different perceptions of the relationship between academic research and teaching.In view of the above problems,this study suggests five countermeasures which can be adopted to solve or alleviate the problems existing in the improvement of academic research competence of engineering teachers.Firstly,universities or colleges should develop with various goals of academic research which can eliminate the unclear orientation of academic research;second,universities or colleges should construct a “V” type classification incentive system to strengthen the enthusiasm of engineering teachers for patent invention and patent practicability;thirdly,universities or colleges should rebuild academic self-confidence and develop the socialist academic system and university evaluation system with Chinese characteristics;fourthly,universities or colleges should take opportunity of teaching academic development to cultivate active academic ability of engineering teacher and shorten the cognitive difference between academic research and teaching;fifthly,changing the concept of University administration,universities or colleges should serve teachers and establish the withdrawal mechanism of university administrative.To improve engineering teachers engineering practice competence in China,four problems need to be tackled.Firstly,the criteria and the policy of the improvement of engineering teachers' engineering practice competence are not established by universities and colleges;secondly,engineering teachers need to deepen their understanding of engineering practice;thirdly,engineering teachers' competence to solve complex engineering problems is insufficient;fourthly,engineering teachers lack the competence of Conceive,Design,Implement,Operate and Recycle,CDIOR in the whole engineering project.Based on the above problems,this study puts forward the following solutions.Firstly,we should establish engineering practice ability standards about engineering teachers and improve policies of engineering practice competence;secondly,the third party engineers accreditation system should be constructed to improve engineering teachers understanding of engineering practice competence;thirdly,universities and colleges should attach equal importance to education and employ engineering teachers and deepen engineering teachers' understanding of engineering practice;fourthly,universities and colleges should adjust and improve the evaluation system for engineering teachers and set engineering practice competence as the first level index;fifthly,universities and colleges should establish a vacation system for engineering practical teachers,encourage engineering teachers to participate in the whole CDIOR engineering process,and enhance engineering teachers' competence to solve complex engineering problems.