Abstract
Yun Ying has pioneered a course that forces physics students to take
the initiative and teaches them the English that they will need
NANJING, CHINA--China is in the midst of one of the most remarkable
expansions of higher education ever attempted. And although Yun Ying,
a semiretired professor of physics education at Southeast University
in Nanjing, may be only a bit player, she's passionate about reforming
science education. And she has a lifetime of experience.
In her nearly 6 decades as a teacher, she's weathered the Great Leap
Forward and Cultural Revolution and benefited from China's opening
to the West. Now, the 82-year-old Yun is leading her own minirevolution.
Her introductory physics course addresses a national priority, namely,
to foster economic growth by producing not just more, but more creative,
scientists and engineers.
Yun has been wrestling with the challenge of revamping physics teaching
since she returned from a 1980 tour of major U.S. research universities,
which convinced her that Chinese students who hoped to study abroad
needed to learn English tailored to those academic subjects. She
also realized that "it is very important to ask the students to do
some work on their own initiative."
Those two principles underlie her "Bilingual Physics With Multimedia"
text and CD-ROM, a freshman course she has been developing since
the mid-1980s that has been adopted by 10 Chinese universities. The
course not only teaches the English that students need to discuss
physics but also requires students to research physics topics and
present their findings to the class. That's a dramatic change from
the memorization demanded in typical introductory science courses.
"There are no other texts like this for physics" in China, says engineer
Xue Jingxuan of the Institute of High Energy Physics in Beijing,
who is also concerned about science education in China. Xue says
few university teachers put time and effort into developing course
materials.
History lessons. Yun Ying has spent 60 years working to improve physics
education.
CREDIT: COURTESY OF YUN YING
Creating a course may seem insignificant compared to the challenge
of reinventing Chinese higher education. University enrollments have
jumped sevenfold since 1998, to 21 million in 2005, according to
the Ministry of Education. Not surprisingly, classes are crowded,
teaching loads are heavy, and building sprees have left many universities
with staggering debt loads. And although funding has risen, it hasn't
quite kept pace with the rising numbers, leading some universities
to increase tuitions and try other means of raising funds.
But many officials say that the bigger challenge lies in reforming
outdated curricula and teaching methods, particularly in science,
technology, engineering, and math. Teaching methods and curricula
still emphasize memorization, especially at the freshman and sophomore
levels, and the goal is to foster creative researchers capable of
making discoveries at both the basic and applied levels. "We have
to have our own intellectual property," explains Rao Zihe, a structural
biologist who is president of Nankai University in Tianjin. Rao fears
that a dearth of homegrown creativity will forever relegate China
to the status of refining innovations made elsewhere.
Yun is well equipped to take on that challenge. A 1947 physics graduate
of Furen University, she spent 1 year in a master's program before
joining what later became Southeast University. (Teachers with only
a bachelor's degree were not uncommon at the time, although most
university professors now hold Ph.D.s.) She had taken English since
primary school and thought it appropriate for science courses. But
after the Communist Revolution, she says, "we all learned Russian."
Yun's course deviates from the traditional approach in Chinese schools,
notes Xue, in which "those who can memorize get better scores on
tests than those who learn the text creatively." The textbook contains
standard freshman-level lessons in momentum and energy, harmonic
motion, and wave-particle duality. All explanations are given in
depth in English with Chinese translations of key passages. The CD-ROM
includes video clips illustrating various principles.
The videos "gave a deeper understanding of how the laws of physics
apply to daily life," says Hu Te, a Southeast software engineering
student who took Yun's course. Even more unusual is the requirement
that students select a topic, research it on their own or in a small
group, and then present their findings in a class seminar--all in
English. Other students can ask questions, make comments, or challenge
the conclusions--unprecedented conduct for Chinese undergraduates,
says Xue.
Despite the use of English, Yun hasn't watered down the content. Some
of that may be due to Southeast's ranking as one of the country's
top 10 comprehensive universities, with a particular strength in
engineering. Li Xin, a sophomore honors student who was required
to take Yun's course as a freshman, says it was completely different
from his high-school physics courses, which were "just theories and
equations and formulas--and boring."
Du Yuan, another honors student required to take the course, says
the opportunity to independently research a topic--his was the "Yesterday,
Today, and Tomorrow of Space Flight"--was a rare treat for a freshman.
And Hu says the vocabulary learned in Bilingual Physics allows him
"to read about the theories of Nobel Prize winners, which haven't
been translated into Chinese."
Yun is pleased with the positive reaction to her course. Two years
ago, she offered a teacher-training course for schools considering
adoption of the text and CD-ROM, and now she's working on a teaching
and learning guidebook.
Xue speculates that the course hasn't attracted more attention because
old habits die hard among university professors, who he says are
focused on their research. But the increasing number of faculty members
who were trained in the United States or Europe has sparked interest
in reforming teaching at Chinese universities. A one-semester course
taken primarily by engineering students may have a limited impact
on Chinese education, he admits. But for those calling for an educational
revolution in China, it's a good place to start.
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