It has been 25 years since 1997 when he began to teach postgraduates at the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (formerly known as the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences). Experience more, naturally there will be some ideas.

Teaching graduate students has many benefits for teachers. For example, when preparing lessons every year, they will read some new books and documents to enrich their knowledge structure. If it were not for teaching, some documents or books might not be contacted. Through teaching, you will also have some new thoughts and insights on academic. It is a very happy thing to study and discuss with young students every year.

Different sounds. I often hear some graduate students say that graduate courses are not useful for future research. Some tutors also oppose that master students spend a year learning some courses that are of little significance. It is better to let graduate students go directly to the laboratory to do experiments. Some tutors compromise and think it is necessary for graduate students to learn some courses. They suggest that the learning time be shortened to half a year to give graduate students more time to do research.

Ability training is the core. Is it necessary for postgraduates to study some professional courses? I think it's necessary. At least it is beneficial for graduate students to expand their professional knowledge and improve their knowledge structure, but graduate courses are different from undergraduate courses, so we can't let graduate students live a five-year life in their first year of study. This is also what I have spent some time in every class in recent years to tell the students who choose courses. In the study of graduate courses, we should first change the learning attitude and learning methods, and don't consider the problem of test scores. The important thing is to learn to think about problems, learn active learning, and learn various abilities required by scientific research activities, such as the ability to read documents, the ability to analyze documents Comprehensive literature ability, speech ability, etc. Postgraduate learning should take ability training as the core. Simple knowledge introduction is not the most important for graduate students. Teachers' understanding of knowledge and their own thinking are very important for graduate teaching.

Do you need fixed teaching materials for graduate courses? This is also a controversial issue. It is better to have multiple textbooks or reference books for postgraduate course teaching, which is better than a fixed textbook. Even if a fixed textbook is used, teachers and students need to refer to many other textbooks or reference books. After all, different authors have different professional backgrounds and different understanding of knowledge points in different fields of the discipline. For graduate courses, the more important knowledge should not be the knowledge written into textbooks, but the new research results. What postgraduates need to know is what concepts, theories or theories in the discipline field are controversial, what disputes are there, and what deficiencies are there. Graduate students have strong self-study ability, so the content of teaching materials should not be the focus.

Postgraduate teaching problems. I think it's best to focus on discussion courses in graduate courses. But now there are a large number of graduate students, who are taught in large classes. It is unrealistic to realize group discussion class. This is also the point that I am confused about teaching in recent years. In large classes, graduate students have different majors and knowledge levels. It is difficult to take care of all students, but we can't help taking care of the majors and foundations of different students. Therefore, it is important to try to avoid turning graduate courses into fifth year courses.

In order to make up for the lack of large class teaching and let graduate students participate in the course teaching process, I will arrange graduate lecture classes. Give several choices, let graduate students combine freely, and teach a problem by consulting literature. Over the years, I still feel some effects. At least in the students' comments at the end of each course, many students have the deepest impression of the speech class.

Record this year's graduate lecture.

This year, six groups of students signed up, involving the behavioral adaptation of primates to high-altitude environment, the trade-off between animal survival and reproduction, the urbanization of wild animals, the adaptation of animals to arid environment, the distribution of Chinese snails and the impact of hydrothermal conditions, the miniaturization of Alvarez dragons, etc.

The graduate students carefully consulted the relevant literature and materials, made a very beautiful slide, and the speech was very clear. Although many aspects need to be improved, this process is very important for graduate students to understand and tell knowledge.

In the discussion session, there are also many in-depth understanding and ideas. For example, with regard to the survival of red foxes in European cities, the students discussed the problem of determining the feeding of red foxes according to the different metabolism of C3 and C4 plants, the change of body shape in urban environment, and the relationship with humans and other urban animals. In terms of animal drought adaptation, some students suggested that animal adaptation should be studied from the aspects of morphology, behavior, physiology and genetics. If some research is carried out on the functional genes of animal resistance to drought from the genetic aspect, we will have a deeper understanding. About Chinese snails, the lecturer said that there was a lack of research on the ecology, behavior and physiology of snails in China. Some students asked what is the status of snails in the ecosystem? A group of students majoring in paleontology introduced the research methods of paleontology, put forward the problem of rapid miniaturization of Alvarez dragons according to Cope's law, and discussed that it may be related to the emergence of flowering plants and the prosperity of ants. When I listened to the students' speeches and participated in the discussion, I felt that this was the state of graduate course learning, and teaching and learning grew together. Many aspects of what the students said are also new knowledge to me.

Therefore, it is worth discussing how to improve the efficiency of graduate courses, how to carry out classroom discussion, how to make graduate students change from passive to active in course learning, and even become the protagonist of the course, better serve the subject, and promote the development of their own knowledge reserve, broaden their horizons and train their thinking.