Exploration and practice of teaching mode based on open type of mechanical engineering practical training in applied undergraduate schools

  1 Overview

  In order to make mechanical engineering practical training teaching guaranteed in higher education, it must be backed up by comprehensive ability and high quality engineering technicians, especially in engineering education should occupy a particularly important position. The setting of mechanical engineering practical training teaching system should highlight the characteristics of application-oriented talents cultivation.

In recent years, although the national universities have been reforming and innovating in teaching system, they are still bound by the traditional teaching mode and education concept to a certain extent, which restricts the improvement of practical innovation ability of college students.

Since in teaching, colleges and universities tend to focus on knowledge inculcation for students, while the cultivation of field practice and innovation ability is insufficient, which also leads to the lack of students’ enthusiasm to participate in scientific research activities and practical activities.

  The open teaching of mechanical engineering practical training in applied undergraduate schools realizes the interaction between scientific research and teaching, promotes the development of student-oriented education concept, and deepens the reform of higher education system. Local ordinary higher education schools, which are in the critical period of development to application-oriented, how to promote and improve the construction of open curriculum system of mechanical engineering practical training, optimize the mode of cultivating application-oriented talents as well as comprehensively improve the quality of students’ innovation and entrepreneurship is an important task for the transformation and development of higher education schools and updating pedagogy at present.

Therefore, it is very necessary to explore the teaching reform based on the open type of mechanical engineering practical training in applied undergraduate schools. This teaching reform aims at cultivating professional core skills and improving comprehensive quality, which is an open innovation and entrepreneurship practical training teaching mode.

  2 Research on the current situation of mechanical engineering practical training teaching in higher education institutions

  At present, there are some shortcomings in the teaching concept, teaching system, teaching content and teaching methods of mechanical engineering practical training teaching in higher education institutions in China, which are as follows.

  2.1 The period of practical training is restricted and the content is not sufficient

  At present, the main contents of mechanical engineering practical training centers in most colleges and universities are general lathe practical training, planer practical training, milling machine practical training, CNC lathe practical training, CNC milling machine practical training, pincer practical training and so on. According to the teaching schedule, 65 people of mechanical design and manufacturing and its automation majors are counted for example (the duration of practical training is 2 weeks), and its mechanical engineering practical training session is divided all students into two major groups equally, and each group is involved in a larger number of practical training (more than 30 people).

The students in each group had 1 week of practical training, and then rotated until the end of the training. In this way, with a limited number of mechanical engineering practical training teaching equipment and a relatively large number of engineering students; each class takes turns to conduct practical training operations according to the groups, and each group has a short learning operation time at its disposal. All these limit the motivation to carry out innovative teaching in mechanical engineering practical training and demotivate students. In today’s teaching, each work type basically emphasizes the safety operation procedures, followed by the explanation of the basic structure and operation methods of the corresponding equipment, and most of them are taught by a single practical training.

  2.2 Mechanical engineering practical training teaching does not get enough attention

  For a long time, many colleges and universities do not know enough about the role of mechanical engineering practical training teaching in talent training, and take mechanical engineering practical training teaching as a supplement and verification of theoretical teaching, mainly in the following aspects: insufficient investment in mechanical engineering practical training teaching funds, mechanical engineering practical training equipment is old and backward, which makes some projects impossible to realize; the status and role of practical training instructors cannot be correctly regarded, which causes the team of practical training instructors The age, education and knowledge structure of practical training instructors are not reasonable.

  2.3 The teaching mode of mechanical engineering practical training is too single

  Nowadays, most of the teaching staffs carry out practical teaching in mechanical engineering practical training, ignoring the hands-on ability, and the teaching mode is single. For example, practical training teachers directly explain and then let students carry out practical operations, and this teaching mode is difficult to mobilize students’ enthusiasm and improve their innovation ability.

The time for carrying out mechanical engineering practical training courses is also limited, which only allows students to master the basic operation skills and ignores the cultivation of students’ awareness of mechanical engineering practical training. As a result, students often encounter great problems in the process of practical operation, such as the process analysis of processing, the accuracy of processing, and the efficiency of processing. Therefore, the results of mechanical engineering practical training in school cannot be put into the actual production of enterprises normally, which eventually forms a vicious circle.

  2.4 The links between the types of mechanical engineering practical training teaching are not closely enough connected

  Mechanical engineering practical training is mainly divided into turning practical training, milling practical training, planer practical training, clamping practical training, CNC turning practical training, CNC milling practical training, etc. Most colleges and universities set the teaching arrangement of mechanical engineering practical training according to the choice of our students, so students do not know why they learn and what is the use of learning when they are in mechanical engineering practical training.

The connection between the types of work is not close enough, which makes it very difficult for students to understand, which obviously affects students’ ability to establish positive concepts and innovation in mechanical engineering practical training.

  3 Reform ideas of the open teaching mode of mechanical engineering practical training in undergraduate schools

  3.1 Reforming the teaching concept and teaching method of mechanical engineering practical training

  Students are the main body of the whole education, and teachers play the role of actively guiding students to learn. To break through the traditional practical teaching mode, accurately combine the current information technology means, such as virtual simulation software, PPT, etc. for dynamic demonstration of the operation process, emphasize theoretical knowledge, highlight the key points of difficulty and safety hidden points, implement teaching with the integration of theory and practice, and give full play to the guiding role of teachers and the main role of students.   

Establishing interest groups, providing mechanical engineering training base with richer teacher resources and equipment conditions for students to manage and teach. In the mechanical engineering practical training to make “interactive” teaching deep in the essence of interaction, such as teacher-student interaction, human-computer interaction way. Teachers also need to form the articulation of traditional teaching and new teaching knowledge structure diversification, students can quickly integrate into the new pedagogy of the link.

  3.2 Update the teaching content of mechanical engineering practical training

  Mechanical engineering practical training is an important core part of the practical teaching of technical foundation courses of engineering majors, and as a compulsory course of mechanical related majors, it provides the following “mechanical drawing”, “mechanical principle”, “mechanical surveying and mapping” and “mechanical design”. “”Course design”” “graduation design” and other teaching links laid an important practical foundation for mechanical-related professional students to provide the structure of equipment, the use of tools, machinery manufacturing technology, machinery manufacturing production process The teaching should be aimed at training students with modern science and technology.

  The teaching should be aimed at cultivating innovative and applied talents with modern science and technology, and at improving students’ competitiveness in the future. It should increase the content of today’s advanced manufacturing technologies and applications, as well as the new materials, technologies and processes applied in machinery manufacturing, to enhance students’ understanding and awareness of these new knowledge. Regularly organize students to read relevant technical literature and assign assignments related to the analysis of machining drawings in order to improve students’ abilities in the corresponding areas. In the usual teaching process, introduce the teaching of CNC automatic machining technology, so that students have a certain degree of familiarity with the equipment and methods of modern manufacturing technology, and to a large extent, master the process knowledge and skilled operation skills of CNC machining equipment.

  3.3 Strengthen the focus on extra-curricular competitions

  Carefully organize and encourage students to actively participate in the National University?W student manufacturing and processing vocational skills competition, equipment debugging and maintenance skills competition and other types of competitions and scientific and technological practice activities, and strive to win national and provincial awards. Taking the participation in the competition activities as a grip, we promote the students’ understanding of theoretical knowledge, the refinement of hands-on skills, and the spirit of solidarity and mutual aid. At the same time, through more activities of related competitions, we can compete with other teams to enhance students’ teamwork spirit and sense of fair competition, so as to lay a solid foundation for further study, work and business in the future and achieve the purpose of “promoting learning through competition”.

  3.4 The faculty needs to be lean and multi-talented

  The establishment of a teacher team with reasonable education, title and age structure is the basic condition to improve the teaching quality, and a high-quality teacher team is the key to the cultivation of application-oriented high-skilled talents. Figure 1 shows that the number of practical training teachers with less than bachelor’s degree gradually decreases and the number of practical training teachers with bachelor’s degree gradually increases, but there is still a shortage of practical training teachers with bachelor’s degree or above. In order to improve the quality of practical training teaching, it is necessary to improve teachers’ education and cultivate teachers’ “double teacher” quality; to take teaching as the root and stimulate teachers’ teaching enthusiasm; to take scientific research as the traction and keep teachers’ scientific research standard; to take application as the guide and improve teachers’ engineering practice ability.

  4 Conclusion

  In the process of cultivating students’ comprehensive engineering practice ability and improving students’ innovation ability, mechanical engineering practical training plays a crucial role, and its teaching reform is the main measure to cultivate innovative and applied talents in higher education. Through the teaching reform and practice of mechanical engineering practical training, and then build a mechanical engineering practical training teaching system that closely integrates theory and practice, and adapts application and innovation cultivation, so that mechanical engineering practical training teaching can play a better role in cultivating students’ comprehensive quality and innovation ability.

In the future teaching research and practice, the course team will encourage students to design their own practical projects, cultivate students’ application ability of analyzing and solving practical problems, innovation and practical ability as well as teamwork spirit, and further explore the application of interactive and open mechanical engineering practical training teaching in the school.