International Journal of Management Science and Engineering Research Volume 2, Issue 2, 2015 doi: 10.14355/ijmser.2015.0202.06
www.seipub.org/ijmser
An Exploring Study on Teaching Methods of Project Management Course for MSE Shen Liping, Lai Yifei Economics and Management School of Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China lyf37319@163.com Abstract In combination of the characteristics of modernization and internationalization for Management Science and Engineering, and based on improving quality of talents with ability, this paper discusses and explores briefly MSE in terms of teachers procession, case teaching, textbook construction, supervision mechanism, self-study capability and innovation consciousness. Keywords Project Management; Management Science and Engineering; Teaching Mode
Introduction Project Management has gradually developed into an important branch of modern management science, and it is an emerging discipline with great potential and broad prospects. With the rapid development of economic construction in our country, it is in increasingly urgent need of high quality project management talents. In 21st century, how to do a good job in project management education, and how to cultivate thigh level project management talents in the engineering industry have become a common concern in the education sector. As the main course of MSE, Project Management has become one of the courses, which has a wide range of benefits, and has a greater impact on the practical application. The exploration and practice of the teaching mode is the important content of teaching reform in MSE, and it is a complicated system reform project. Facing the modernization and internationalization, how to deepen the teaching reform and explore a typical training mode of MSE professional science master's talents is a new topic. In order to improve teaching quality of Project Management course, in recent years, we have carried out the exploration and practice. In the teaching of teachers, case teaching, teaching material construction, supervision mechanism, students' self-learning ability and innovation consciousness, some useful exploration has been carried out, and good results have been received.
Strengthening the Construction of Teachers, and Realizing the Virtuous Circle of Scientific Research Promoting Teaching The implement of all teaching activities and teaching methods depends on the teachers. The level of teachers, not only reflects the overall teaching quality, but also is the most important factor that affects the realization of the expected goal of education. Project Management is a comprehensive and practical course, involving economy, engineering, management, and other professional knowledge. Concerning the characteristics of civil engineering, water conservancy and hydro-power industry involved in MSE, we strive to combine the characteristics of the source with training program, curriculum and course content , reflecting our characteristics. We put forward specific requirements of the teacher's comprehensive quality and practice ability. Teachers must have engineering background degree or practical knowledge and experience. Curriculum teaching should be closely combined with civil, water conservancy and hydro-power engineering industry. So we improve the overall quality of teachers by improving the level of education and the structure of the title, participating in social practice and other ways. Currently the teachers all have the title of associate professor or above with a doctor’s degree, often participate in project management practice and possess strong practical operation ability. The teaching team of Project Management course has formed an excellent teacher group in which the teachers have good quality of service,
55
www.seipub.org/ijmser
International Journal of Management Science and Engineering Research Volume 2, Issue 2, 2015
solid professional foundation, stable research direction and rich teaching and practice experience. Teaching is a very practical and artistic work. Only paying full attention to summing up and exploration in the long-term teaching practice, can we find its regularity. Young teachers who just start teaching, not only need to be guided, but also acquired a lot of teaching practice. Therefore, when cultivating young teachers, on the one hand, we allocate old teachers with rich teaching experience to guide them, giving full play to the role of mentoring teachers. On the other hand, we fully mobilize the enthusiasm of young teachers, the courage to load, and create conditions for them to participate in teaching practice, so that they can exercise and make progress. Teaching and scientific research in colleges and universities are interdependent, mutually promoting and non separable. Scientific research can more fully grasp the advanced development of the subject, and create experience combined with academic work being personally on the scene. In the class, the teachers give a life to knowledge to enrich the content of classroom teaching, and give the students the guidance to improve the quality of the curriculum, which is conducive to the cultivation of talents with creativity and development. In the past three years, teachers actively engaged in scientific research activities, forming a stable research direction. Combined with project management research, the teachers undertook scientific research project, published academic papers, compiled teaching materials and supporting materials and reference materials and carried out a series of scientific research activities, which greatly improved the academic level of teachers, and promoted the improvement of teaching quality.
Reinforcing Practice Teaching Links, and Focusing on Case and Discussion Teaching The process of combining theory and practice with the teaching mode is uncertain, which reflects the construction of knowledge the students to learn. It needs teachers’ proficient teaching skills and requires them to be familiar with the teaching materials when handling the complicated problems. This is an open teaching mode. The information resource and materials of the teaching, the relations between teachers and students and the process of teaching are all open. Implementation of the teaching mode is conductive to promote the relationship between the teachers and students, making them have the same value orientation and grow together whether in study or spirit. Project Management is a very applied and practical discipline, therefore, the theory teaching combined with case study is in perfect harmony. In teaching methods, we try to adopt an open-minded way and case discussion. Students can integrate and optimize relative knowledge, and take in comprehensive knowledge by means of organic integration learning of multiple domain knowledge purposefully and systematically. Learning project management, if the students are only limited to some provisions, and don’t know the concrete application of the methods and technology; or only broadly discuss some methods, but do not understand the methods of practical application, which just says that they have mastered the knowledge of project management but not its essence. Case teaching is an important way to make students understand and master the methods of project management and operate rules. In teaching, we attach great importance to application of the Master of Engineering, and emphasize on the application of Project Management theory to the field of civil engineering, water conservancy and hydro power projects. In the teaching process, the teachers make the abstract concepts and complex theories clear through the case introduction, analysis and discussion, which have improved the students’ interest in learning, synchronous thinking and have made the class atmosphere active. In the case study, the time of theoretical teaching and case teaching is arranged reasonably, is generally 6:1. When choosing the cases, we emphasize on the typical and systemic cases that explain the questions well but not on its complexity. In case analysis, we strive to cultivate the students’ ability to grasp the key point of a problem and apply the project management knowledge, skills to practice.
Optimizing the Methods of Teaching, and Strengthening the Construction of Teaching Material Less hours and more content has been a major contradiction in the teaching of Project Management. In order to increase the capacity of classroom teaching, we have developed the use of multimedia and other modern teaching methods. The PPT course-ware scientifically integrates blackboard-writing of each chapter and typical cases, which
56
International Journal of Management Science and Engineering Research Volume 2, Issue 2, 2015
www.seipub.org/ijmser
improves the efficiency of classroom teaching and is convenient for teachers to explain and the students to understand. Facing modernization and internationalization, we have adopted the bilingual teaching and introduced original teaching material, compiled reference books, typical teaching cases, teaching syllabus and trial balloon to meet the needs of teaching. The setting and the content of the course is combined with the engineering practice.
Consummating the Supervision Mechanism, Improving the Teaching Quality In order to improve the teaching quality of Project Management, we have established the system of collective class, tracking visit of a class for old teachers and observation of classroom teachers each other. To prevent going through the motions, the teachers who attend the class are required to take notes and to directly raise questions or make suggestions as far as possible to the classroom teachers when they have some questions. During the teaching and research conference, we discuss and analyze the severe problems of the teachers in the class teaching to help them find out the problems, clarify the teaching content and improve their teaching methods. The process of teaching is the bilateral activity of teaching and learning. In the process of teaching, teachers are the designers, organizers and directors. The students are the objects of the teaching activity, are the educated persons, also the best judges of the teaching quality. Individual students on teaching quality having different views is not surprising, but if the majority of students on the same course have common or similar views and suggestions, which means that the teacher is needed to improve his or her teaching methods and quality. Therefore, on the one hand, the classroom teachers are required to solicit opinions and suggestions from students. On the other hand, the Office of Teaching Management regularly acknowledges the classroom teaching situation by issuing questionnaires to the students, analyzes them and provides the feedback to the teachers. This does good to the teachers' analysis of the specific problems in the teaching, and can improve the teaching methods and improve the teaching quality.
Cultivating Students' Self-learning Ability and Innovation Consciousness Cultivating self - study ability is an important way to improve students' quality, and is also the need of students' lifelong self education. The content of the Project Management courses is copious, so it is not enough only depending on the teaching of the teachers, which is not conducive to the cultivation of students' self-learning ability. Two measures were taken for this purpose. First, the teachers layout some work to consolidate students’ knowledge and train their self-learning ability through. The second measure is that the teachers arrange the students to study independently for some simple content. Students must take notes, which is as the test content. At the same time, the teachers inspect and summarize the content of the self-study. Innovation is the source and power of scientific development. Fostering innovation is an important objective of the course construction. On the one hand, we encourage students to suspect and ask questions. Students’ questions are the results of brains, the outpouring of curiosity and a thirst for knowledge. In the students' questions, a considerable part has research value. At the same time, teachers response to questions, and they receive the results of teaching and learning. On the other hand, according to the training program of Project Management of master of science, the topic selection should come from actual production or definite engineering background and application value, and it must address one (or more) complete Project Management requirements. To develop students' writing and exercising capacity in teaching, we arrange topics according to the teaching content. The students use the Internet, libraries and other resources to find information and write articles, which broaden their horizons, make them understand the research frontier, and help them manage data, analyze problems and problem-solving skills. On this basis, the author of the thesis is required to explain the main contents on the stage no more than five minutes per person. This provides an opportunity for students to participate in classroom teaching, not only exercising the organizational communication and persuasion skills, but also activating the classroom, laying a foundation of completing thesis.
Conclusions Project Management is a set of Management Science, Economics, Finance, Law, Sociology, Environmental Science,
57
www.seipub.org/ijmser
International Journal of Management Science and Engineering Research Volume 2, Issue 2, 2015
Marketing Science, Information Science and other multidisciplinary knowledge cross discipline. It requires the students to have a broad knowledge and certain engineering or technical knowledge. It can play a greater role combined with engineering industry. In the 21st century, the project management personnel should possess the qualities, such as thick stock of knowledge, rich practical experience, an active and enterprising spirit, a good example and the spirit of cooperation, strong organizational and communication skills and persuasion skills, and has the very strong business heart, dedicate body spirit and sense of innovation. Based on the above ways,we are cultivating MSE talents in terms of teachers procession, case teaching, textbook construction, supervision mechanism, self-study capability and innovation consciousness. REFERENCES [1]
Lai Yifei, Hu Xiaoyong, Chen Wenlei. Introduction to Project Management[M]. Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, 2011.1
[2]
A guide to the project management body of knowledge[M]. Project Management Institute,Inc. 2012.
[3]
Lai Yifei. Discussion on the training mode of undergraduate education in Engineering Management[J]. Science & Technology Progress and Policy, 2002.5
[4]
Lai Yifei, Li Keyang. Study On New Approach of Practice Bases for Undergraduates of Property Management. International Journal of Management Science and Engineering Research, 2014, 1, 11-15.
[5]
Cao Peihua. The study on the effective reform and practice of the teaching methods of project management[J]. Managers’ Journal, 2015.1
[6]
Zhao Peihua. Exploration on the cultivation of students' integrated thinking ability in the teaching of Project Management[J]. The Science Education Article Collects, 2014.8
[7]
Zhao Haoyu. The optimization of the teaching of "Project Management" in Colleges and Universities[J]. China Education Innovation Heral, 2013.25
[8]
Qi Rui. Comprehensive reform of the teaching of Engineering Project Management[J]. Journal of Curriculum and Instruction, 2015.13
58