ACUC: Let students take upon the leading roles in educational reforming
On March 19th, a unique teaching seminar was held in the Tsinghua Xuetang building. In the seminar, undergraduates from different departments gave reports to Professor Yang Bing who is the Vice-President and Provost of Tsinghua University, and other responsible people. Some proposals such as core curriculums reform, free to withdraw, courses for fostering culture qualities, Sunshine Running and etc. were suggested in this seminar which lasted for over 2 hours and aroused fierce discussions between the students and teachers. This meeting was also the second official seminar of Advisory Committee of Undergraduate Curriculum, Tsinghua University (ACUC), which was founded at the end of 2014.
On Nov 3rd, 2014, Tsinghua launched Advisory Committee of Undergraduate Curriculum and started recruiting committee members among all the undergraduates. Once the news came out, a large number of students enthusiastically signed up for the committee. After several rounds of selection, 20 students from different grades in different departments and schools formed the first board of ACUC in junction with the representatives of the Student Union, Professor Tian Ling from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and Associate Professor Feng Wuzhong from the School of Marxism. They announced and had their first meeting on Dec 4th, 2014.
However, the foundation and operation of ACUC has also encountered incredulity: “how effective can the educational reform be? Can the problems that students brought about really get solved?” Facing such doubts, Professor Zheng Li who is the Director of Academic Affairs at Tsinghua University, said, the original intention of establishing ACUC was insisting on “the three-in-one concept which consists of value building, ability fostering and knowledge impartment” and “letting students be the center”, these educational reforms could make the teaching management departments directly listen to the voices from the students.
Also, 20 undergraduates representing nearly 14,000 students participated in the educational reforms. They have shown responsible spirits and high working efficiencies: Lu Sen, who is the chairman of the ACUC and also the senior student from the Academy of Arts & Design, led members of the committee to hold meetings every single week. They proposed more than 10 proposals in one month; by the use of questionnaires, they directly got to understand the thoughts of the students; they also registered a WeChat official account named “Voices of Tsinghua curriculum reforms” and listened to students’ suggestions…. During the second seminar, members of the committee made a research report of more than 10 pages where they analyzed the main factors constraining the teaching quality of the core curriculums, such as the low winning rates and many restrictions for selecting courses, the inadequate matching of courses and interest and low quality of the courses. In order to solve these problems, the teachers and students conducted a deep discussion, though their opinions may have differed, they achieved some common grounds and views and obtained mutual understanding, which is in exchange for more rigorous policies and measures.
The establishment of ACUC is a brave trial; Tsinghua drew on the experience of some world-class universities and fully combined the advantages of Tsinghua students with the teaching traditions and subjects characteristics. Members of the committee came from different grades and studied different disciplines, some of them had experiences of overseas exchange, and therefore they were familiar with the learning situation in foreign courses. Some other students who had strong leadership, good observation abilities and service spirits were also recruited in the committee. This revolutionary event changed the main body of instructional context—students, from the “recipients” to “decision makers” and “rulers”, it respected the “central” position of the students and listened to their “voices” when making policies. Its occurrence had helped students play a key role in curriculum revolution and quality monitoring. This built a positive, active and confluent study phenomenon. Judging from the realistic effects, ACUC played an important role in communication compared to various prior channels. Many problems that weren’t emphasized by the school were proposed, at the same time, students became more understanding of school’s work because they vastly communicated via this platform.
from Spotlight Group
