Scientific Research Training


Foreign Teacher Egbert-Kanis of Wageningen Honor Students Programme Communicating with Students

The past 79 yeas has witnessed A&F successful exploration in cultivation of innovative talents. To put into practice the educational philosophy of To Enhance the Foundation of Our Nation, To Solve the Problems of Citizens and to Promote the Development of Science, A&F established base class of National Life Science and Technology Major in 2002 and founded the College of Innovative Experiment in 2008, a pioneer of domestic agricultural university in promoting the reform and practice of top-notch innovative talents cultivation, working in the principle of to select excellent students, to organize the powerful resources and to further the model reform. 

Inspiringly, with 5-year effort in the exploration of new cultivation system and mechanism for top-notch agricultural-major talents, CIE has enjoyed the reputation of trial plot for reform of talents cultivation model, test site for teacher’s teaching reform and new land for student-oriented development, forming a special agricultural-model of top-notch talents cultivation of national agricultural university.

Construction of Curriculum for Top-notch Innovative Talents of Agricultural Discipline

When Y2013 graduate Bian Zhan recalled his college life at A&F, he said, thanks to the tight-scheduled curriculum, I could finish 4-year required courses of basic knowledge, general education, teaching practice and international programme within 3 wonderful years. He has been recommended to study for Master Degree at Beijing University.

Nothing but the reform of curriculum can guarantee the success in cultivating agricultural innovative talents. Therefore, CIE has worked out new curriculum characterized with the cultivation of solid knowledge foundation, critical thinking, strong abilities and international view. It emphasizes the reinforcement and integration of the Biology Science core courses and applies the standard of science to the teaching of basic course maths, physics and chemistry. In addition, humanity&nature integrated general courses and disciplinary courses are offered and a systematic practice teaching section is set up covering innovative experiment project, product-teaching-research base and agricultural test site. What’s more, CIE brings in international courses from Wageningen University, Holland, who has region and discipline in common with A&F.

CIE set up curriculum structure in terms of 2-period, 3-phase, x-channels and modularization. In general education and individuality-development-oriented training, all the courses are categorized to three sections of general education, discipline and profession&individuality development. The set of module curriculum varies from sections, so as to enable the students to choose their preferable courses and classes, which profoundly meet the demand of student-oriented cultivation programme.

Di Ning, a Y2009 student of Plant Science discipline said, in the first academic year, the new teaching method and open-style teaching philosophy greatly shocked him as well arouse his interest in study. He still remembers the first time he stood on the platform of Plant Biology class. His confidence was promptly built up as soon as he shared his ideas of knowledge with other. And his ability to express was greatly improved. It is in this way that the students passed worrying examinations of Advanced Maths and Laws of Probability.

To broaden the international view of the students, CIE brings in 7 international courses including Genetics, Mathematical Static, and Scientific Research Method and Writing from Wageningen University, Holland, who has region and discipline in common with A&F. The teaching of foreign teachers greatly benefited the students.

It has been proved a remarkable success that CIE made in international education,which attributed to the good internationalized education environment that CIE made for students, Jia Hangtian, a student of Y2010 Biology Science Experiment class said, first, 4-year-required-finished-in-3-years system is admitted by Wageningen University which spares more time for their preparation for Master’s degree study; second, teachers from Wageningen helped the students know well about the reception university in advance.

Ren Jie, a Y2008 student of Business Administration major said, it is new experience to us that the foreign teachers brought us the teaching content, way of thinking and research and free-discussion teaching method.

As the survey suggests, the degree of students’ satisfaction with curriculum, teaching content, teaching attitude and teaching methods of foreign teachers is as high as 80%-90%. There are four sections of general education, namely, Science Development and Culture Heritage, Cultivation Communication and International View,

Four general curriculum modules including 40 courses has been offered for the students, namely, Science Development and Cultural Heritage, Culture Communication and International View, Humanity Literacy and Life Value, Natural Environment and Society. In addition, Expert Forum, Innovation Forum, Zhixing Association, Study Club and many other organizations are working to enrich students’ knowledge and improve their abilities. 

It was in the past 5 years that with CIE’s endeavor, reform of 73 courses have been facilitated, interactive and group-discussion teaching method have been applied to 71 courses, teaching reform plan and audio-visual teaching materials of 45 courses have been collected and preserved, cooperative teaching model has been applied to over 20 major courses, 10 programs of teaching reform have been financially supported, and over 30 new courses and teaching model have been offered, which enable the student-centered seminar-style teaching.

2+X Model Pioneering the Individualized Cultivation Approach

The 2+X cultivation model benefited the students by giving utmost freedom to choose their major, mentors and cultivation channel. Everyone is working hard to achieve their goals through their preferable and suitable approach, said Zhang Jing, a Y2013 graduate of CIE who has been recommend to study in Shanghai Bio-Cellular Institute for Master’s degree.

2+X model refers to the way of discipline-oriented enrollment. The first two academic years focus on non-major-classified education, in which discipline-oriented general education is applied to strengthen the academic foundation and to improve their cognitive competence. Students will be redistributed at the end of second academic year according to their personal choice of cultivation plan. The individualized cultivation plan is supposed to be made with the instruction of personal mentors and to be composed of stable main-channel and other ways of study (study in other colleges of A&F, recommended to other universities or study abroad). As long as the evaluation of 3rd academic year finishes, the students will come to the graduate study phase. The combination of general education and professional education is a manifestation of our student-centered and personality-development-oriented educational philosophy.   

Hence, CIE innovatively proposes and implements the appointed teaching system, referring to four required teaching elements of “outstanding teacher+teaching task+superior teaching resources and management+performance evaluation”. CIE recruited the members of teaching team throughout A&F, in the principle of small-size class teaching, cooperative teaching, teacher-designed teaching and interactive teaching��and placed the teachers the leading position in teaching reform to create student-centered class teaching.

On Micro-Biology class, the teaching team made up of Lin Yanbing, Zhang Lei and Wei Gehong from Life Science College, reorganized teaching content and adopted student-teacher teaching and group-discussion teaching. In addition, basic and comprehensive experiments were designed and explored from which the students were encouraged to find problems and to solve on their own, then to compose scientific research papers.

Appointed teaching system accelerated the reform of approximately 100 courses, in which 10 core courses including College Physics, Organic Chemistry and Biology have renewed the teaching content and published many new textbooks.

One of the appointed teachers Professor Wang Junru of Science College speaks highly of the teaching system, “It offers the teachers a grand stage to practice the teaching reform and promote the development of each student. Teachers and students both greatly enjoyed the process in the pursuit of knowledge.” On his class, interaction between teacher and students accelerates teaching and study, as well as the curriculum reform. Students’s passion in study is greatly stimulated in the activities of class teaching, group discussion and after-class study. 

Student varies from character to personality, which requires attention to the development of each single student for the sake of fulfilling individualized cultivation objects. Therefore, CIE established the dual-mentor system. Students can enjoy the instruction of study mentors from the first academic year and gain support in making academic plan and developing personal interest in discipline. They will be guided from the second academic year when the academic mentor system commenced to guarantee the full training in scientific research, from undergraduate innovative experiment design to the composition of final paper. Mentor of the two types will bring their superiority to full play to give students guidance in character cultivation, research literacy and practice competence, by organizing reports, face-to-face communication, after-class activities and extra teaching in summer vocation.

The system of inter-choose between CIE students and A&F graduate mentors promise the students enough space and chances in making option, and enhance mentors’ expectation to excellent feeder students and diving in instruction to students.

In the past five years, over 200 Doctoral supervisors had preferably chosen the CIE students into their cultivation programme. Professor Song Weining of Agronomy College says: I started my enrollment of CIE students for the doctoral programme from 2008, who impressed me greatly for their solid basic knowledge in bio-technology and strong ability in research and experiments.

Tailored cultivation programme helped the students to make rational option in agricultural discipline and A&F Bachelor-Doctor degree cultivation programme, as well as to develop their optimistic attitude. 83 percent students annually continued to major in agriculture or forestry.

Comprehensive Scientific Research Training 

When former CIE student Xue Yaxin who now studies her Master’s degree in Wagningen University of Holland recalled her experience in CIE comprehensive scientific research training said that, in the first academic year, she with immense anxiety knocked at the door of professor to ask for work in laboratory; in the second academic year, she participated in the Undergraduate Innovative Experiment Project, for which she spent the scorching summer in planting seeds, washing tubes, making reagent and PCR; and in the third year, she spent the whole year in scientific training, doing experiments as composing papers.

The cultivation programme of quality-oriented education and innovative ability training were worked out to strengthen students’ practical ability and innovative spirit, which has been placed the top among the whole programme. Therefore, the students are required to finish at lest 16-week experiments and research training, under the instruction of personal academic mentor.

Meanwhile, the experiments of over 20 agricultural-science courses have been merged, which guarantees the students’ free access to all labs in which they can finish their independently-designed experiments with the instruction of professional mentors, the experiment reports being organized periodically to motivate students’ interests in experiments.

CIE student Niu Fengjuan, Zhou Yong, Fan Tao and Tang Jun who worked collaboratively on the noon-mentor-instructed experiment of Selection of Wine Yeast and Fermentation of Grape Wine, shared their experience that, “ as undergraduate students, we find it so attractive of our first experiments in so professional lab. What inspired us more is that, the experiment is a complete self-conducted practice, from the deign to the completion, which allow us to further the knowledge gained from class and obtained primary knowledge in micro-biology experiments, to lay solid foundation for future innovative research and self-designed experiments.”  

In general education, 8-credit training programme on innovative quality and ability has been carried out to improve students’ learning methods, understanding of disciplinary advancement, skills of social investigation methods and ability of research experiments. In practice-teaching, the self-conducted experiments and undergraduate innovative experiment project are organized, to combine the undergraduate final thesis with the undergraduate innovative experiment projects, which has the innovative research programme, research training and final paper fully integrated. Students’ ability in practice had been greatly strengthened, which promises the solid foundation for the third and fourth year study. 

Since year 2008, CIE has financially supported 162 experiment projects, 16 excellent ones among which has received further support. A survey to Y2008 students suggest that 46.6 percent students agreed having benefited from the research training.

In addition, CIE has established cooperation with Wageningen University of Holland for Honor Students Programme, in which the courses of Basic Methods of Scientific Research and Writing of Scientific Research were introduced for the students.

Thanks to the multi-training programme, students of CIE received praise of their practical ability and innovative spirit of research from 75% mentor. Professor Kang Zhensheng, director of national key laboratory said, “Students of CIE are very capable of doing experiments and exploring new things. They are the ones who enjoy promising future.” 

Students’ Talents of Innovation and Research

The climate of independent study and pioneering-spirited research that CIE endeavored greatly encourage the students’ pursuit of knowledge, who gained widely acknowledgment of national leading universities by their solid base of knowledge and strong ability in innovative practice,  

It is written in the recommendation letter for CIE Y2008 Animal Science major Yin Yubang  from Doc. Richard Crooijmans of Wageningen University, that “Yuebang performed his minor thesis with me where he processed over 6,000 porcine full length cDNA clones from picking of the clones to obtaining the final 5-end sequence. He performed the lab work in a very good and structured way. Yuebang is a very hardworking student and is eager to learn new things. Yuebang is a social person and always willing to help and is not afraid to work hard. Overall, I think he will be a good PHD-candidate.”

CIE student Wang Longchong of Animal Science major, now is studying for Master’s degree at Wageningen University took the view that, CIE offered an great opportunity of international education for the students to learn to think, to make choice, to strive and to make innovation. Taking the first group of 320 graduates for example, over 200 students with the instruction of mentors, had finished the scientific research innovative practice and individualized cultivation programme at the beginning of their third academic year. In 2012, 8 students had been recommended to study for Master’s degree at Qinghua University, Beijing University, Fudan University and other leading universities and institutes in China, while 18 students received offers from 10 world-wide famous universities, including Wagningen University (Holland) and Maryland University(US), and 169 students participated in the A&F Master&Doctoral degree cultivation programme. 

Pang Junmei attributed her success in receiving admission for Master’s Degree study at Shanghai Life Science Institute to her research experience in the third year study in CIE, when she took part in the summer camps of PTN project of Beijing Life Science Institute, Shanghai Life Science Institute and Shenzhen institute of Beijing University, where she did better in interview.

Y2009 Animal Science major student Hu Dexin, now is studying at A&F Veterinary Medicine College as a Molecular Neurobiology major. Up to September 2013, he had published 3 papers on core journals, 1 paper in processing review and is engaged in composing English paper as the first author.

Director of A&F Academic Division Mr. Chen Yulin commented on CIE students, “enthusiastic with study, active in learning, careful with lab experiments and reports, and having great potential in science and research work”. Professor Huang Lili gave her comments like this, “the students are so capable that half a year training can make them outstand of their team. It is valuable to have such students who have innovative ideas and expressive ability.”

Grounded base of research training and international courses was a conspicuous manifestation of students’ abilities of innovation and research. It has been estimated that 74 academic papers, as fruits of over 400 Y2008 and Y2009 students’ hard work, had been published up to October 2012, including 35 SCI foreign journal papers, 1 EI paper and 38 Chinese journal papers, with the highest IF of 9.646. In addition, 4 new type patents had been obtained ad 47 students won national-class disciplinary contest prizes, which demonstrated the quality of innovative talents.