I occasionally see some educational experts criticizing some of the curriculum examinations in our country's undergraduate education, especially in some universities, which still use "objective examination" (commonly known as "scratching examination").Mr. Qiu also mentioned the phenomenon of "scientific research" in college students' daily competitions, saying that some competitions based on "objective" answers can stimulate young people's enthusiasm for science.Some higher education practitioners have also criticized the undergraduate curriculum examination, which uses standard answers as the main question type, that is, those who choose to fill in the ABCD answer, that is, "scratching the questions."
I think it seems understandable that elementary, middle and high school education, especially our country's long-term high school education for the purpose of further education, "pushing the subject."Because a person's acquisition of knowledge is usually progressive, the ability to understand is also gradually improved.In my opinion, it is impossible to erase the "objective" question type, that is, the positive meaning of "brushing" to a person's knowledge acquisition process.Those of us who have been in the academic siege for decades know that rote memorization may seem like a "scratching problem," yet it has profound implications for a person's acquisition of knowledge.Our education should follow the basic laws and proceed sequentially, and "pushing the questions" belongs to the important stage of knowledge learning in small-to-middle education.Moreover, if the college entrance examination adopts the "subjective" question type examination, it will bring great challenges to the questions and approval of the examination papers.
In order to supplement the "My understanding of universal values in higher education" section of the recent college admissions report, I read some of the opening speeches of the presidents of several world-renowned universities such as Harvard, MIT, Columbia, Princeton, Yale and Stanford.These presidents have a common feature in their speeches, emphasizing that students should pay attention to the development of independent learning and life skills during college.In the popular language of the public in our society, "University studies cannot read dead books."Here, "reading dead books" is probably the way to study in the middle school level with "scratching questions" as the main examination content.For example, the former president of Harvard University proposed that "college students should learn more outside the classroom than in the classroom"; Richard, who served as president of Yale University from 1993 to 2003."If a student graduates from Yale with some very specialized knowledge and skills, that's the biggest failure of Yale education," Levin said.The core of undergraduate education is general knowledge, which fosters students' ability to think critically and independently and lays the foundation for lifelong learning."It has been said that university students should receive only one-third of the knowledge gained during their professional teaching at university.All of these ideas require students to train independent thinking in college, which requires a lot of subjective curriculum education, and in the process, students' "general knowledge" study is strengthened.On this topic, I asked two students who teach at American universities.Both students teach geophysics at relevant universities in the United States.Dr. Sun, a tenured associate professor at the University of Houston, told me that research (mainly professional) courses are mainly project-oriented, and undergraduate courses usually have lab.Dr. Yang, an assistant professor at Purdue University, told me that the exams are usually completed in the form of course reports, and none of the three courses currently taught are general (regular) exams.
The core of undergraduate education is to train outstanding talents.Although it is impossible for an outstanding person to grow up with only four years of undergraduate education, a high-quality four-year undergraduate education is of great importance to the growth of one's knowledge.This is the main reason why first-class universities in Europe and the United States attach great importanceHowever, the undergraduate education in many of our universities is mainly professional skills education, as can be seen from the undergraduate education goals and specific curriculum arrangements and examination methods of these universities.There is a serious lack of "general education" in university education in China, however, "general education" in undergraduate education needs to pay attention to the "subjective" type of curriculum assessment.The independent thinking habits and abilities of college students need basic training at the undergraduate level.It is impossible to find out the outstanding students with potential in the examination of students' learning status, which has been verified by some students with high scores after graduating from the examination.In my public interest report, Doing My Own Scientific Research, I listed an email from undergraduate students at the University of the Philippines 20 years ago, hoping to get an academic paper I published about their studies.Twenty years ago, electronic literature was not developed, and I sent them a "one-line copy" of these papers to the editorial department for free.How many of our undergraduates can proactively connect with their international peers and get help and guidance from their international academic counterparts?
I have taught two courses in Geophysics (elective) and Geophysics of Zhongshan University and Geoscience and Geological Engineering of Zhongshan University.These professional backgrounds are different, the mathematical basis of students is very different, I generally in the course of the end of the examination are based on the professional specific circumstances of the "subjective question type" based assessment.I remember one time the "Introduction to Geophysics" course in the National Geological Science Base class used an open-book examination, I saw many students from the library borrowed a variety of reference books, different charm.Subjective examination question types will undoubtedly put forward high requirements for the teacher's knowledge, including "examination questions" that meet the curriculum content and objectively and fairly review the examination papers.This requires our university teachers themselves to actively study, constantly improve the knowledge of the curriculum, and lay the foundation for the adoption of "subjective" type of curriculum examination.