An Investigation Into The Status Quo Of Biological Curriculums At The Normal Universities Affiliated To Ministry Of Education In China

With the rapid development of life science, biological courses in universities have been reformed continuously. Among them, biological majors in normal universities not only play an important role in nurturing talents in the area of biological techniques, but also shoulder the responsibilities to nurture biological teachers. Therefore, biological curriculum in the normal universities has unique characteristics compared to that of other universities. However, domestic studies have paid little attention to biological curriculum in the universities, even less in the normal universities. This study makes up the shortage of biological curriculum in the normal universities, especially providing a valuable reference to the normal universities affiliated to the Ministry of Education.The investigation explores the biological curriculum development at the normal universities in China by document analysis and looks into the biological curriculums in six normal universities affiliated to Ministry of Education by online questionnaires and interviews. Furthermore, this study analyzes East China Normal University as case study in the aspects of major goals, curriculum system and syllabuses.The study shows that there are obvious differences between majors, but normal universities have not their own characteristics of the same majors. Major goals are set at the basic level of theory, knowledge and skill.Few normal universities have requirements of frontiers information. All of six normal universities affiliated to Ministry of Education conduct "section" model although the names of sections are different. The common section structure includes: A. liberal education B. subject basic C. subject compulsory D. subject selection E. practice. The biological teacher majors need to take teacher training courses.The study also indicates that students from the normal universities affiliated to Ministry of Education are satisfied with the teacher training courses. They think that teaching practice has an obvious effect on teaching capability in classroom and class tutor capability. Students are also satisfied with biological experiments courses, but they complained that the shortage of independent operation and creative experiments. However, students are not satisfied with the theoretical major courses due to out-of-date contents, de-appreciation from teachers and students and so on. At the same time, students express that there are great gaps between their expectation and the current biological curriculum system.Based on the status quo and the current problems, I raised four pieces of suggestion which could be applied to biological curricula in normal universities. First, major could be designed based on the model of "students have the options to choose major at the senior grades". Secondly, normal majors should add courses of middle-school relevant pedagogy. Thirdly, biological technique majors should represent innovation. Fourthly, biological curriculum should bear job markets in mind.