聚焦未来技能,宁波诺丁汉大学英籍教师的创新毕业设计课程获评省一流

大学 作者:宁波诺丁汉大学 2021-12-09 23:29:46

Please scroll down for the English version - Innovation and co-creation lead UNNC module to be recognised as ‘first class’ at provincial level.



不久前,宁波诺丁汉大学马修·派克(Matthew Pike)作为课程负责人教授的《计算机科学毕业设计》被认定成为浙江省省级高校一流本科课程。

凭借面向未来的教学模式与“以学生为中心”的教学理念,这几年,马修在宁波诺丁汉大学计算机科学系的学生中颇受欢迎和好评。




将课程与生活相结合, 

培养适应未来所需技能



初见,他站在讲台上谈笑风生,笑起来时眉眼弯弯,给人如沐春风的感觉。他就是马修·派克,一位明明可以“靠脸吃饭”,却偏要用实力圈粉的英国帅小伙。

马修于2018年9月加入宁波诺丁汉大学,担任计算机科学助理教授,至今已任教超过十余门课程。他的主要研究兴趣集中在人机交互,即模拟现实环境中的人为表现。他曾在华为工作过,是英国高等教育研究院的研究员。

“计算机科学是一个快速发展的领域,新技术范式和技术方法不断被引入。在这种环境下,仅提供‘知识’不会使学生具备适应和未来发展所需的技能。”

马修的教学理念本质上是建构主义,强调学习者的主动性。马修认为,仅逐字逐句地口授知识是浅层次的,让学生从经验中去理解和掌握知识,则是更深层次的。

因此,他非常强调在课堂上将课程材料与学生现有经验联系起来,通过使用实际的、日常的例子解释理论概念,促进学生深度理解与思考,应对未来不断产生的新技术和新业态。

有学生记得,在上《数据库导论》这门课时,马修给出了一个在线商店的情景案例,同学们则扮演顾客和商店的店员。一家商店在它数据库的多个表格中保存了一位长期客户的家庭地址。当使用非标准化数据库时,一旦这位客户的家庭地址改变,这个数据没办法在整个数据库里做出更新,商品可能就送到了错误的地址。随后,同学们重演了一遍在标准化的数据库中的情况——一切数据都会保持实时更新,商品可以配送到正确的地址中。

“这样一来,我们就很好地理解了数据库规范化的重要性,并提高数据库中整体数据的完整性。”这位同学说。





设计匿名反馈系统,

提升教学满意度


在马修看来,敲代码和编写程序有时是很枯燥的。如何保障同学们的学习效率,而不是在反复的错误指令中丧失兴趣,是对课堂教学提出的一大挑战。

他的解决方案是把学生作为一个学习主体,放在教学的中心。他想了很多办法——比如,通过随堂小测直观快速地体现学生的课堂学习成果;设计一个匿名反馈系统,让学生可以大胆地提出他们的意见。针对同学们给出的反馈,马修也会认真反思并不断改进自己的教学方法。


正是因为有了这种高度透明、交互式的沟通渠道,学生们对马修的教学满意度越来越高,他觉得自己的教学水平也在这个过程中得到了很大程度的提高。

计算机科学大三学生杨笑迎就表示,马修是她最喜欢的老师之一,备课充分、教材详细,解答学生问题时更是有十足的耐心。

“马修上课的时候很可爱,有时候为了监督同学们上课有没有走神,他会故意讲错,看同学们有没有认真听讲。在大课上,他还会走到后面吓唬那些开小差的同学们。但是说实话,在马修的课上很难开小差,干货很足。加上他说一口标准的英语,自带英式幽默。在他的课上,同学们都是百分百的全神贯注。”

此次获评浙江省省级高校一流创新课程的《计算机科学毕业设计》,马修就是课程负责人。

据他介绍,这门课的核心是通过机制和技术创新实现学生与导师的无障碍沟通,使同学们能做出优秀的毕业设计。让他非常骄傲的是,通过对课程的不断打磨,学生毕业设计的质量不断提高,不少毕业设计已经达到了优秀科研成果的水准。

教学之余,马修是个运动达人

Innovation and co-creation lead UNNC module to be recognised as ‘first class’ at provincial level


The Final Year dissertation module convened by Dr Matthew Pike, Assistant Professor of Computer Science at University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC), has recently been recognised as a “first class” module course in Zhejiang Province. Because of his student-centred teaching philosophy and future-facing teaching style, Dr Pike has gained considerable popularity among the students.  

Dr Pike joined UNNC in September 2018, and his principal research interests centre around human-computer interaction, which is the simulation of human performance in real environments. In addition to this, he is a fellow of the Higher Education Academy and is responsible for the UK Professional Standards Framework.

“Computer science is a rapidly evolving field, with new technology paradigms and technological approaches being introduced at a continuous rate. In this environment, delivering 'knowledge' alone, will not equip students with the skills necessary to adapt and evolve to future developments,” Dr Pike introduces.  

Dr Pike’s teaching philosophy is essentially constructivism, which views learning as the process where learners generate meaning and construct understanding based on their previous knowledge and experience. He places a strong emphasis on linking course material to students’ existing experiences and promotes this practice by explaining theoretical concepts using practical, everyday examples to develop students’ capabilities to deal with the changing industry environment in the future. 

In order to keep students interested and productive during class, Dr Pike has devised an approach that places students at its centre and employed a number of techniques. For example, he has implemented in-class quizzes that reflect students’ learning outcomes, and has even championed a continual feedback system in all of the modules he convenes to collect students' anonymous feedback on a recurring basis, which enabled him to improve his teaching methods continuously. It is because of such highly transparent and interactive communication channels that students became increasingly satisfied with Dr Pike’s teaching. 

Xiaoying Yang, a Year Three student of Computer Sciences at UNNC, said that Dr Pike is one of her favourite lecturers as he is fully prepared for each lesson, offers a comprehensive set of teaching materials, and is patient in explaining answers to students’ questions.  “He is very funny. Sometimes he will make little mistakes on purpose to check if we are listening carefully. He speaks very beautiful British English with typical British humour, so it isn’t difficult at all for us to pay attention in his classes.”

The key principle behind this recently recognised provincial first-class module is to allow students to create their own success by promoting open and free communication between students and supervisors through classroom practices and technological innovation, which ensures an equal relationship between student and teacher. Thanks to this continuous reviewing of the module, many graduation projects have been graded as “outstanding research achievements”.  





文字来源 | Fay Ma, Lily Su

徐海莹,Elena Yang

图片来源 | 张欣然,苏欣然,FoSE


©Copyright

转载或进一步了解

宁波诺丁汉大学品牌与传媒办公室

commsandmarketing@nottingham.edu.cn

宁波诺丁汉大学

中国第一所中外合作大学

卓越学术 精彩未来




关注公众号:拾黑(shiheibook)了解更多

友情链接:

关注数据与安全,洞悉企业级服务市场:https://www.ijiandao.com/
安全、绿色软件下载就上极速下载站:https://www.yaorank.com/
找律师打官司就上碳链网:https://www.itanlian.com/

限时推广:让每一个问题都有答案:https://ask.0xu.cn
公众号 关注网络尖刀微信公众号
随时掌握互联网精彩
赞助链接