中美课程教学差异分析及启示——基于食品专业“微生物学”视角

以中国南昌大学食品学院开设的"微生物学"和美国University of Minnesota食品科学与营养系的Introductory Microbiology为研究对象,从课程安排、教学过程、实践环节和知识考察等方面对食品专业"微生物学"课程教学进行对比研究,以此窥豹一斑。研究发现,国内高校"微生物学"课程存在教学内容更新滞后、课堂讨论互动不足、考查方式多元化欠缺等问题,学生学习存在投入时间偏少、知识点掌握不牢固、考试后遗忘较快、应用知识解决问题能力较差等问题。要更好地开展食品专业"微生物学"教学,必须以学生为中心,及时更新教材内容,结合现代技术开展启发教学、案例教学,有效建构学生知识体系,施行课程助理制度,完善考核制度,提升教师自身工程化能力,从而助推提升教学质量。

Comparison of microbiology course for undergraduates in food science between China and the United States

The present study investigated the differences in syllabus, teaching methodology, practice, and learning assessment for Microbiology course designed for Food Science undergraduate between Nanchang University (NCU) in China and University of Minnesota (UMN) in the US. The study found that, compared with UMN Microbiology course, NCU Microbiology course involves little advanced contents, lacks of classroom discussion, and mainly relies on final exam for learning evaluation. NCU students tend to spend time to study only before exams, which limits their full understanding of the subjects being taught and does not favor long-term knowledge retention. In addition, their ability to apply knowledge to solving real problems is poor due to lack of practice. Based on the findings of this study, it is recommend that we redesign our syllabus so that it is student-centered, renovate our course materials in order to implement the student-center syllabus and to include updated knowledge in the field, adopt problem-base learning methodology, enhance cases studies, adopt teaching assistant policy, improve learning assessment, and invest in instructor engineering training programs.