Recently, two English courses offered by CIE for summer term have successfully finished---Organic Chemistry and Life and Organic Chemistry. For the refinement of teaching reform and teaching outcome, CIE held the debriefing for course construction. The dean of CIE Wang Xiaoping, the member of NWAFU teaching steering group professor Zhang Linsheng, 8 teachers in charge of the course Organic Chemistry, foreign teacher Uwe Schneider and over 40 students attended the meeting.

Professor Wang Junru, the Teaching Master of Shaanxi Province and Head of the course teaching group, first introduced the current status of online course construction and the challenges facing Organic Chemistry teaching in our university. From the building of teaching team, to the design of curriculum module and the teaching method reform, he offered detailed feedback on teaching outcome and voiced the significance of effective measures to improve the quality of innovative talents training. Then, Professor Yuan Maosen and Associate Professor Zhang Tao successively released the results of 3 surveys on the teaching of Biological Organic Chemistry (Chinese) course, the expected construction of new textbook resources, and the teaching of the Organic Chemistry(English) course. The data showed that the inadequacy of study time was the main factor affecting the learning effect, the interactive teaching was an important way to improve the teaching quality, and the comparatively poor English language proficiency was the main factor of learning quality. Other members of the teaching team also put forward some opinions and suggestions on deepening teaching reform.

On the topics of teaching content, course arrangement and evaluation, each student at the meeting shared their ideas and experience in learning Organic Chemistry and other summer term courses. They also put forward many constructive opinions and suggestions. Most students think that their gains were much greater than expected. A student of Biology Class 1803, Xiangzhoufu said that, the real classroom teaching requires the teachers to adjust at any time according to the needs of different students. It is recommended that the key content of the course be placed in the MOOC as a way of prevision learning, and online+classroom teaching will work well. English word formation played a key role in identifying and memorizing the terms in organic chemistry. It will be of great help if the skills acquired properly. Bing mengyao, a student from Class 1803 of Biotechnology, said that all English teaching and summer courses have been very helpful to the students. The knowledge attained was far beyond  that of in ordinary class. Any questions were welcome and encouraged. The most impressive part went to the group discussion, in which the students were heavily engaged and the English language proficiency was rapidly improved. The shift of teaching language from Chinese to English was a tough challenge to the students. The summer course of Life and Organic Chemistry given by a foreign teacher brought about both chances and challenges.

Last, Professor Zhang Linshen, a member of the university teaching steering group, shared his views on whether the basic chemistry course should be conducted in English, Chinese or bilingual. He put forward a level-based teaching mechanism and emphasized the students' learning outcome in organic chemistry. From the perspective of top-notch talent training in long-run, Professor Wang Junru analyzed the different impacts of English and Chinese teaching on the future development of students, proposed new measures of level-based teaching applied by first-class university to strengthen the connotation of talent quality.

Finally, Deputy Dean Wang Xiaoping extended sincere thanks to the Organic Chemistry teaching team for their contributions to the cultivation of outstanding talents. He then generalized the satisfying effect of CIE’s teaching reform based on the teaching agreement system, group teaching, teaching methods reform, and the achievement of talents cultivation. The changing situation and new missions called for continuous improvement of talents quality. Therefor, it was necessary to persist in teaching in English and offering summer courses. He suggested that teachers make appropriate adjustments in the teaching process according to the students’ learning outcome, and encourage students to conduct research-based learning and autonomous learning more goal-oriented.

The summer course of Organic Chemistry (English) has been carried out for four years by CIE. It is now generally believed that the combination of basic knowledge with the latest research findings greatly enriches and renew the teaching content. The students have had their competence of reading, expression and comprehension greatly improved or enhanced. Adhering to the "double first-class" university construction strategy of NWAFU, CIE will keep promoting the education and teaching reform for the development of talents cultivation, internationalization of our university and the construction of first-class undergraduate education.

Advanced Lecture from University of Edinburgh, UK in the class of Organic Chemistry


Professor Wang Junru Presiding over the Debriefing
                                                                                                                                      (Translated by: Yan Xianhui)