The specialty of building environment and equipment engineering was renamed from the original specialty of heating, gas supply, ventilation and air conditioning engineering in the new undergraduate specialty catalogue in 1999. This change not only means the change of specialty name, but more importantly, with the development of international scientific research and technology application and the progress of people's understanding, we have redefined the orientation of this specialty, which leads to the adjustment of training objectives and the reform of the whole curriculum system. Through practical exploration in recent years, we have a further understanding of this problem, especially the reform of practical teaching links such as the setting of professional basic courses and curriculum design is an important link to broaden the reform of this major. This paper focuses on the practical teaching reform of this major.
Confusion: "generalist" or "expert"? Can you have your cake and eat it?
I'm afraid this is a problem faced by many applied engineering disciplines. On the one hand, most universities require to increase the number of basic courses and reduce the number of specialized courses, on the other hand, employers complain about the decline of graduates' professional practice ability in recent years. The teaching reform of this major is also facing such a major contradiction, that is, how to meet the requirements of broad-caliber "generalist" training and the "professional" requirements of the educational evaluation standard for registered public equipment engineers under the condition of reducing the professional class hours? Will employers think that the students trained in Tsinghua are engaged in theory in the future and are not suitable for front-line work such as design units? Through in-depth study, we believe that the two can actually be non-contradictory and complementary, that is, the so-called fish and bear's paw can have both.
The so-called "generalist" requires broad and solid basic theoretical knowledge, and the so-called "specialist" should have the ability to flexibly solve professional application problems. Especially from the perspective of international level, the development of modern architecture has increasingly high requirements for the wide-caliber ability of construction equipment engineers and the adoption of advanced theories and technologies in design. Although the rapid development of technology can't be taught in class, we can still find that they are all derived from basic theories. However, strengthening basic theory education can't solve the problem only by increasing the hours of basic courses. Students should be allowed to use it repeatedly in some applications to really learn basic theory knowledge, not just the high scores on the examination papers. Then, the practical training of professional application should be an excellent carrier to strengthen the application of basic theoretical knowledge. If we can use basic theoretical knowledge correctly and solve various professional application problems flexibly, such a person should be both a "generalist" and a "specialist" and have the ability to solve practical professional problems that he has never studied or encountered. The problem that employers criticize graduates who can only read but can't work is precisely because they don't have a solid knowledge of basic theories, but only endorse them divorced from reality and can't use them correctly and flexibly in professional practice.
if such a key contradiction in cognitive orientation is solved, all problems will be solved.
how to have your cake and eat it?
in our teaching plan, the courses in the first three semesters are offered by other departments, and only from the fourth semester has there been courses offered by our institute. We have innovated the teaching methods and training ideas in the teaching process in which we undertake our own tasks, especially from the previous teaching methods that focus on knowledge infusion to the teaching methods that inspire and guide. To realize this transformation, it is far from enough to rely on the improvement of teachers' lecture skills in class, and the composition of the curriculum must be reorganized and reformed greatly.
We can divide professional basic courses and professional courses into two categories: teacher-taught courses and students' hands-on courses. The former is mainly taught by teachers, supplemented by experimental teaching, such as traditional lectures; The latter is mainly based on students' hands-on, supplemented by teachers' guidance, such as curriculum design. This guidance includes appropriate lectures and individual counseling. We appropriately reduce the proportion of teacher-taught courses and increase the proportion of students' hands-on courses in professional basic courses and professional course credits, and also strengthen the role of practical teaching in teacher-taught courses. For example, in the training program, there are 29 credits for specialized courses, including 11 credits for compulsory courses, 12 credits for compulsory comprehensive course design and 6 credits for optional courses. Therefore, it can be said that in the compulsory credits of professional courses, the credits of students' DIY course design are greater than those of lecture courses. We have systematically reorganized specialized courses, emphasizing basic concepts, principles and macro-technical analysis in classroom teaching, and eliminating technical details and specific skills. Because skills cannot be instilled by lectures, technical details and skills are left to be solved in the design class. Only in this way can the class hours be compressed.
In addition, we have done a lot of work in strengthening the practicality of summer internship.
1. Teacher-taught courses? Guide students to learn independently
In view of the traditional teaching link of teacher-taught courses, what we do is to introduce practical teaching into the teaching of professional basic courses and professional courses, so as to guide students to learn independently and enter professional practice ahead of time. The diversified teaching methods are:
Practical homework: students do research by themselves
Discussion class: students are the main body, students educate themselves
Examination reform: big homework defense, open-book examination
Example 1. Building Environment
The professional basic course "Building Environment" won the title of national excellent course in 25. Although this course is an important professional basic course that can best represent the essential characteristics of the subject, it only has 32 hours and 2 credits, but students feel that they spend the most time in this course. Moreover, through this course, they have a great understanding of the characteristics and significance of the specialty and become the starting point for undergraduates to enter the research room to participate in professional practice.
This course is aimed at undergraduates in the second semester of sophomore year. Because there are few class hours and many contents in this course, it is impossible for teachers to teach everything. Instead, they should talk about the main lines, main points and difficulties, which can play the role of "guide reading" for students to learn textbooks and reference books. At the same time, after each class, they must be supplemented with a large number of homework questions that require analysis and thinking, so as to help students deeply understand the theoretical content and clarify the concepts and principles that are easily confused or misunderstood when reading textbooks. Correcting each homework well and answering questions in online forums have become very important ways to help students learn, and of course, it has also brought heavy pressure to teaching assistants, as the so-called "speaking one, practicing two and taking three exams".
In addition to homework (small homework) after class, we also require students to do big homework, which includes at least an experimental big homework and a paper, and the content can be literature review, argument and so on. The assessment method is: students can choose one of the big assignments to make an oral report, accounting for 4%; Another written report accounts for 2%; The final open-book exam accounts for 2%, and the usual small homework accounts for 2%. In the past, we asked students to do three big assignments, but later it was found that students were very clear about the concepts related to the contents of the big assignments, but they did not master enough what was not involved in the big assignments. Therefore, starting from this year, we will reduce one big homework and replace it with a final open-book exam to promote students' comprehensive grasp of basic concepts.
In order to avoid students' lack of ideas on topic selection, we put forward some suggestions, such as: thermal response of the wall to outdoor meteorological parameters, the influence of hanging curtains, the difference of natural room temperature in rooms with different orientations, the influence of climbing plants on the thermal process of the wall, the influence of different underlying surfaces on microclimate, the influence of different community layouts on the wind field of the community, and the influence of traffic noise on different floors. In addition to these topics, students can make their own topics according to their own preferences. Teachers and teaching assistants help them determine the specific content and technical route, contact graduate students who are familiar with the research content in this field, and arrange experimental equipment. Postgraduates can also post experimental topics that they want undergraduates to help them do in online forums, and undergraduates can choose them.
The students are very enthusiastic about doing big homework, and they are very active in drawing up topics, looking for literature and consulting graduate students. Some students tested and analyzed the indoor air quality, thermal comfort level and lighting level of different classrooms and dormitories in the school. Some have tested and analyzed the heat island situation in different areas of the school; Some have tested the traffic noise level and wind field of nearby residential quarters; Some students introduced their own natural room temperature models of rooms with different orientations, and ran back to their rural homes in Hebei to test the natural room temperature of rooms with different orientations without heating effects to verify; Some students summed up the different ecological strategies of Chinese and western ancient and modern architecture and put forward their own views on the development of "ecological architecture"; Some students analyzed the reasonable and dross contents of "Feng Shui".
students generally report that practical homework has a great influence on their learning methods, which is reflected in: knowing the major and greatly improving their interest; Change from passive learning to active learning, learn not to rely on classroom and teaching materials, use reference books and consult documents; Doing research-oriented experiments for the first time to understand what research is; From the second grade, I took the first step to enter the laboratory; Learn to write academic papers and make academic reports for the first time; Achievement depends on the usual accumulation and has little to do with accidental factors such as improvisation.
Because most experimental projects are completed under the guidance of graduate students, the results are the basic data that graduate students need in the project, especially the experimental data that need to be accumulated over the years, and at the same time, they also exercise their scientific research organization ability. Therefore, graduate students are very active in guiding undergraduates to do big homework, achieving a "win-win" effect.
Example 2, Building Automation
The specialized course "Building Automation" is a course taught by Academician Jiang Yi, with 48 hours and 3 credits. It is aimed at junior undergraduates in the next semester and uses English textbooks. Because of the teaching method of discussion class, students take the initiative to participate and teach themselves, and their enthusiasm is very high. This course is welcomed by students and has been among the best in teaching evaluation for many times.
in addition to 48 class hours, this course has 2 extra-class hours for experiments and visits, and * * * has 6 experiments and 1 on-site visit. In addition, the whole course has 4 ~ 5 big assignments in different stages, the content of which is to design a building automation system (BAS) scheme for a certain type of building equipment system, and to complete the assignments in groups of 3 ~ 4 students. There are many discussion classes at different stages, and each group sends representatives to make oral reports on homework, and other groups and teachers question them. At the end of a semester, each student has at least one opportunity to give an oral report. The final grade is mainly given according to the scores of several big assignments and oral reports.
in the discussion class, not only the students who speak have a strong sense of participation, but also the students who listen to the report have a strong sense of participation. Because everyone has done BAS schemes, they are very interested in other people's schemes, and they are very enthusiastic in questioning and discussing, and everyone is scrambling to express their views. Through this discussion, the students have made clear the problems that the teacher has not talked about in class or have not thought about in their own plans. In the discipline evaluation of the Ministry of Construction in 22, the activity of this course impressed the experts of the inspection team and gave them a high evaluation.
In addition to the above two examples, other professional basic courses and specialized courses all adopt new classroom teaching methods and assessment methods to varying degrees, which has played a role in promoting students' active self-learning.
2. Students' hands-on courses? Simulation curriculum design
The reform way of professional curriculum design is (1) integration (2) actual combat simulation. At present, the professional curriculum design is 12 credits, 192 hours in class, unlimited after class, running through the whole semester.
The design of specialized courses is carried out in the seventh semester after the completion of specialized courses and operational practice. The reform method is not only to combine the original five small course designs of 1-3 weeks following each specialized course into a comprehensive course design, but also to increase the total course design hours by compressing the specialized course hours.
the reason for the integration of curriculum design is that there are obvious limitations in the original design of several small courses. Students are only trained to design subsystems (such as air conditioning system, ventilation system, heating system, cold source and heat source), lacking the overall concept of HVAC system, and even lacking the macro grasp and optimization ability of the overall scheme, because what kind of subsystems are used in practical projects is related to the whole large-scale system scheme. For example, if heat pump is used as heat source, high-temperature heating cannot be used, and another example is radiation. The original method does not reflect the characteristics of training students to comprehensively use various professional technologies to solve practical problems, but only goes through the steps of subsystem design, such as how to determine a certain coefficient, how to look up the table, and which formula to use. As a result, it only trains students' ability to follow the command and make a look-up machine and calculator, but does not learn the essence of technology, let alone cultivate students' innovative ability.
in addition to integrating the course design content, it also introduces the content of interdisciplinary cooperation, so that the students of this major can cooperate with the design of HVAC system, cold and heat source system and annual operation and automatic control scheme for the 3, ~ 4, square meters star-rated hotel designed by architecture students. The design is divided into groups, with 3-4 people in each group, and the design team leader is selected, and all members work together to complete the whole design. The steering group consists of 5 teachers, 1 teaching assistant and 1 engineer from architectural design institute. The progress includes four weeks of scheme demonstration, six weeks of preliminary design and six weeks of construction drawing. Among them, the work in the scheme and preliminary design stage includes discussing with architects the determination of thermal performance of envelope, the setting of shading, the adoption of passive energy-saving methods, the arrangement of computer room and tube well, and the division of fire protection zones, which has trained students' ability of cross-disciplinary cooperation.
In order to simulate the real design process, at the end of the stage, there will be a defense of scheme review, a defense of preliminary design review and a defense of final design project acceptance review to guide the teacher group to simulate the review expert group. According to the scores of students' three defenses and the assignments (design instructions, drawings and electronic documents) submitted at the end of the term, the total score is given. The innovation of students' design and the difficulty of the scheme are tilted in the evaluation of grades, which protects and encourages innovative thinking.
through the above training process, students can further digest the knowledge of basic courses and specialized courses, learn how to deal with complex engineering problems, learn engineering design methods and processes, understand the application of standards, norms, laws and regulations, and train three abilities at the same time: (1) organization and cooperation ability, including the ability to cooperate with other majors and people in the same group, and the organizational ability of design team leaders; (2) applying basic knowledge to deal with unconventional problems. Students who have spare capacity can also learn to use some design and calculation analysis software in course design.
Through the discussion in the graduating class, students reflect that this link has an important role in promoting the cultivation of students' comprehensive ability.
3. Practical operation practice to solve practical engineering problems
In all practical links, operation practice (formerly known as production practice) is our key construction practice link. The internship period is 5 weeks and 5 credits. The task content is generally the actual engineering project entrusted by other units, that is, to go to the problematic public * * * construction site for heating, ventilation and air conditioning.