Pilot Curriculum in China: The Practice of Promoting the Quality of Higher Education

Abstract

The issue of quality has drawn great attention of the nations around the world in the process of the popularization of higher education. China has launched the construction and assessment of National Pilot Curriculum (NPC) as one of the measures to solve the quality issue of higher education. This chapter first introduces the initiative background of the construction of NPC in China and analyzes the challenges of higher education in the process of popularization in China. Then it presents the quality assessment framework to identify a curriculum as NPC, and summarizes the supporting role of the construction of NPC in promoting the quality of higher education in China. In order to further reveal the impact of the construction of NPC on the quality of Chinese higher education, this chapter also briefly reports two studies that adopt content analysis and survey investigation separately to study the changes of the instructional methods in universities and the ways of resource sharing in the construction of NPC. It can be concluded that the construction of NPC is an innovative movement implemented in China to solve the quality issue of higher education, which has certain values for reference to the policy efforts, faculty development activities in universities, open courseware movement, and other related work in the perspective of quality assurance system.

Appendix

1.1 Assessment Indicators of National Pilot Curriculum (For Undergraduates, 2010)

1.1.1 Description of Assessment Indicators

• (1) The assessment indicators are formulated according to the spirit of On the Implementation of Instructional Quality and Instructional Reform Project for Undergraduates released by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Finance (JG[2007]No.1), On Further Deepening Instructional Reform for Undergraduates to Improve Overall Instructional Quality released by the Ministry of Education (JG[2007]No.2) and the Announcement of Initiating the Construction of Pilot Curriculum in Project of Instructional Quality of Universities and Instructional Reform release by the Ministry of Education (JG[2003]No.3), we established the assessment indicators.

• (2) Pilot curriculum refers to the excellent curriculum with features and first-class instructional level. The construction of pilot curriculum has to embody modern educational philosophy in accordance with talent fostering goals, meets the universal law of scientific nature, advancement and education and instruction, and also has distinct features as well as properly utilizing modern educational technology and methods with obvious effectiveness as a demonstration and radiation for popularization.

• (3) The assessment of pilot curriculum should embody the direction of educational and instructional reform, guide the teachers to innovate the methods of education and instruction, ensure students’ benefit and the improvement of instructional quality and pay attention to the following questions: ① The contents should balance the relationship between the classic and the modern and that between theory and practice, attach importance to cultivating students’ practical and innovative capability in the practical instruction. ② The infrastructure should pay attention to the construction and improvement of high-quality instructional resources and strengthen the assistant instructional function of curriculum websites. ③ The pedagogy should flexibly utilize various instructional methods to arouse the students’ enthusiasm in teaching and to promote the development of their learning capability. It should coordinate the application of traditional instructional approaches and modern educational technology for better integration with the curriculum. ④ The construction of faculty should pay attention to the leading and demonstrative role of the teachers in charge of pilot curriculum so as to promote the structural perfection and the improvement of the faculty.

• (4) The criteria combine qualitative assessment with quantitative assessment to improve the reliability and comparability of assessment results. The assessment indicators are divided into two parts, which are comprehensive assessment and feature as well as policy support and radiation sharing. In the centesimal grade, the comprehensive assessment accounts for 80 % and the feature, policy support and radiation sharing accounts for 20 %.

• (5) Calculation formula of total score: M = ∑K_iM_i, K_i is the coefficient of scoring class, the coefficients of A, B, C, D and E are 1.0, 0.8, 0.6, 0.4 and 0.2 respectively, and Mi refers to the scores of each Class-B indicator.

Class-A indicators	Class-B indicator	Main assessment points	Assessment standards	Score (Mi) (%)	Scoring class (Ki)
					A	B	C	D	E
					1.0	0.8	0.6	0.4	0.2
Faculty (20 %)	1-1 Chief teachers	The teaching style, academic level and instructional level of the teachers	Chief teachers have good morality of teachers, with high academic attainments, excellent instructional capability, rich instructional experience and distinctive instructional features, who are in charge of teaching this curriculum for no less than 2 cycles in the recent 3 years	6
	1-2 Team of teachers	Knowledge structure, age structure, personnel allocation and the cultivation of young teacher	The teachers in the team have strong responsibility, good spirit of teamwork and collaboration, with reasonable knowledge structure, age structure and academic geographical structure. The tutors are allocated according to the requirement of the curriculum. The training plan for young teachers is scientific and rational with practical effectiveness. The experts with professional background should be encouraged to participate in the team	6
	1-3 Instructional reform and research	Instructional and research activities and instructional outcomes	Active instructional ideas and innovative instructional reform are required. Instructional research activities promote the instructional reform with significant effectiveness, such as the instructional achievements, planned teaching materials or instructional reform projects at or above the level of province or ministry. Academic papers of instructional research of high quality are published.	8
Content (20 %)	2-1 Curriculum Content[1]	Design of curriculum content	The design of curriculum content should embody modern educational philosophy according to the objectives of talent training, in accordance with scientific nature, advancement and the law of education and instruction.	10
			The relationship of classical and modern contents of theoretical curriculum is properly dealt with. The theoretical contents are fundamental, investigative and pilot, which can bring the latest development outcomes and instructional reform and research outcomes of the disciplines to the instruction
			The relationship of technology, comprehensiveness and exploratory of experimental content (including independent experimental content) is properly treated, which can effectively develop the practice capability and innovative capability of the students
	2-2 Organization of content	Organization and arrangement of content	Put the theory into practice with the curricular and extracurricular combination, integrate knowledge imparting and capability fostering to quality education and encourage related internship, social investigations or other practical activities with remarkable results	10
Infrastructure (20 %)	3-1 Teaching materials	The construction of teaching materials and relevant materials	Select excellent materials (including national pilot teaching materials and those in the national plan, foreign original materials of high level or those composed by the faculty themselves). Have rich relevant materials such as courseware, case studies, and exercises and so on, and provide effective literature and references for the inquiry learning and self-learning of students. The experimental teaching materials are complete to meet the requirements of instruction	10
	3-2 Practice teaching conditions	The advancement and openness of practice teaching environment	Practice teaching conditions can satisfy the requirements of the instruction. Open instruction is allowed with significant effectiveness (curriculum of science and engineering can provide experiments of high level for choice)
	3-3 Web-based teaching conditions	Web-based instructional resources and hardware environment	The hardware environment of the campus network is good enough to run the websites of curriculum, with rich instructional resources, with complete functions of assisting instruction and learning for effective sharing	10
Pedagogy (20 %)	4-1 Instructional design	Instructional philosophy and instructional design	Emphasize inquiry learning and research learning, reflecting the student-centered and teacher-mentored educational philosophy. Make reasonable instructional design according to the curriculum content and students’ characteristics (including teaching methods, teaching means, assessment methods, etc.)	8
	4-2 Teaching methods	The application of various teaching methods and their effectiveness	Emphasize pedagogy reform, flexibly use a variety of appropriate teaching methods to effectively motivate the learning enthusiasm of students and enhance the development of their learning capability	12
	4-3b Teaching means	The application of information technology	Make appropriate and full use of modern educational technology to carry out instructional activities with visible effectiveness in the aspects of stimulating students’ interests in learning and improving instructional effects
Effectiveness (20 %)	5-1 Peer review	The assessment of external experts and internal supervisor group and the fame	The evidence materials are authentic and reliable with excellent assessment and good reputation	4
	5-2 Students’ review	Students’ assessment and suggestions	The original materials of students’ assessment are authentic and reliable with excellent results. The curriculum should have supporting materials of the students’ assessment data in recent three years provided by the instructional administrative office of universities	8
	5-3 Instructional video review	Video of classroom teaching	Effectively use a variety of instructional media, give thorough interpretation of the issues with enthusiasm and appeal with outstanding focuses, clear thinking, mature contents and numerous information. The contents taught in the classroom can reflect or link to the new ideas, new concepts and new achievements of the development of the disciplines, which can inspire the thinking, association and innovative thinking of students	8
Features, policy support and radiation sharing	Experts give scores in accordance with the features and innovation written in the application form of National Pilot Curriculum in 2010			40
	Effective policy and measurements for supporting and encouraging the construction of pilot curriculum in the applied universities			30
	Strong radiation-sharing measurements with promising future construction plan			30

1. ¹According to the types of curriculum, give scores in the part of “content design” in reference to corresponding standards

Class-A indicators	Class-B indicators	Score (%)	Proportion of total score
			Class-B indicators	Class-A indicators
Faculty 20 %	1-1 Chief teachers	6
	1-2 Team of teachers	6
	1-3 Teaching reform and research	8
Content 20 %	2-1 Course content	10
	2-2 Organization and arrangement of content	10
Infrastructure 20 %	3-1 Teaching materials	10
	3-2 Practice-teaching conditions
	3-3 Web-based teaching conditions	10
Pedagogy 20 %	4-1 Instructional design	8
	4-2 Teaching methods	12
	4-3 Teaching means
Effectiveness 20 %	5-1 Peer review	4
	5-2 Student review	8
	5-3 Instructional video review	8