Construction and Innovation of the “Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses” in Vocational Colleges ()
1. Introduction
“Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses” means that colleges and universities integrate ideological and political education elements, including theoretical knowledge, values and spiritual pursuits, into each course, subtly influencing students’ ideology and behavior. As an important measure in the educational reform of vocational colleges, it contains rich ideas of collaborative education, which needs the joint construction of all parties. However, this initiative has not been proposed for a long time and lacks practical experience, resulting in the failure to highlight the synergy effect. Therefore, by analyzing the value implication and realistic dilemmas of the collaborative construction of “Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses” in the new era, using theories and methods of synergetics, it is pointed out that the construction of the collaborative model of “Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses” in vocational colleges should firstly clarify the work distribution of multiple subjects, constantly improve the concept of coordinated development and timely establish the linkage mechanism. Under the guidance of this idea, Shanghai Publishing and Printing College has explored a set of innovative models of intra-school co-construction, inter-school sharing, and school-enterprise co-promotion in the process of talent cultivation, achieving the same frequency resonance of skill transfer and value guidance.
2. The Necessity of Collaborative Construction of “Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses” in Vocational Colleges
2.1. “Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses” Is an Inevitable Requirement for Running Vocational Education
“From the past to present, every country is cultivating people according to its own political requirements, and world-class universities are all growing up against serving their own country’s development” (Xi, 2018). On the basis of teaching basic knowledge and developing professional capabilities, improve the educational mechanism of moral and skill, highlight the role of vocational education for the Party, socialism, reform and opening up and socialist modernization, realizing the integration of value shaping, knowledge teaching and ability training in the process of education. It is not only the direction of curriculum reform, but also an important sign of running a vocational education that the people are satisfied with. Vocational colleges actively explore the collaborative construction of “Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses”, fully explore the ideological and political elements of each course, and truly integrate the basic principles of being a man and doing things, the requirements of socialist core values and the realization of the ideal and responsibility of national rejuvenation into all kinds of courses (Han, 2018), which answers the fundamental questions of “what kind of talent to train” and “for whom to cultivate people” in vocational colleges, and provides a fundamental direction for running vocational education.
2.2. The Collaborative Construction of “Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses” in Vocational Education Is a Practical Need to Break the Islanding of Ideological and Political Courses
Carrying out ideological and political education in vocational colleges is the key part to achieve the goal of “morality and nurturing”. However, from a long time, ideological and political theory courses in vocational colleges have various degrees of barriers in various general courses, major courses and practical courses when playing its main role. The “main channel” is simply understood as the “only channel” for ideological and political work in vocational colleges. This phenomenon has led to ideological and political courses that are often restricted to Marxist theoretical education, disconnected from the characteristics of students’ major, failing to expand the range of practical and cultural education. In contrast, all kinds of major courses and practical training courses are restricted to one-way major skill, are out of line with the characteristics of students’ physical and mental development, ignoring the value and emotional education of the course, and fail to expand the depth of professional and skill education. Therefore, vocational colleges should integrate their own school-running characteristics in ideological and political work, conform to the rule of vocational education, the growth of skilled talents, and the physical and mental development of students, so that various courses and ideological and political theory courses can go in the same direction to form a collaborative effect. Once playing the role of the main channel of ideological and political courses, it will be natural to break the islanding of ideological and political courses in time and form a unified and explicit education effect.
2.3. The Collaborative Construction of “Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses” in Vocational Education Is the Internal Need to Realize “Three-Complete Education”
In recent years, under the cover of capital logic orientation, pragmatism and consumerism, people’s inner ideas, beliefs and value standards have gradually been constrained by money worship, hedonism and refined egoistic thinking. How to strengthen ideological education in colleges and universities in China to avoid the dominance of Marxism been elevated, it has become one of the key topics that all colleges and universities, including vocational colleges, to explore and pay attention to. It can be said that strengthening the ideological and political education of college students in vocational colleges is a long-term and complicated systematic project. Only by ensuring this project covering all students, all courses, and all-round education, ideological and political education can take effects. Therefore, the vocational colleges shall subtly embed the profound ideological and political education elements and functions which are contained in various courses into every stage of the professional classroom and practical training classroom, thus to realize the unity of ideological and political education and professional knowledge system education. It not only helps to integrate the resources of various departments and form a consensus on educating people, but also helps coordinate various courses to expand the moral education factors of educating people, form a joint force of education, and gradually build ideological and political course system, with feature of comprehensive coverage, profound types, progressive levels, and mutual support.
3. The Idea of Constructing the Collaborative Mode of “Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses” in Vocational Colleges
Based on the necessity of “Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses” and the reality of ideological and political work in colleges and universities, research the synergy mode of ideological and political education and other curriculum reforms in vocational colleges, integrate and focus all resources from the top-level design. On the basis of intra-school, inter-school, school-enterprise, clarify the multiple subjects, improve the development concept, build a linkage mechanism for collaborative construction, and provide effective theories for the collaborative practice of “Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses” in vocational colleges.
3.1. Clarifying the Division of Labor among Multiple Subjects Is the Primary Premise
As a vocational education college, the main feature of vocational colleges is to focus on the cultivation of professional qualities and professional abilities, and the training target is high-skilled and practical talents. However, when facing numerous subject categories and professional categories in vocational colleges, teachers of various courses pay more attention on the combination of knowledge and skills in talent training programs, teaching design methods and teaching content. However, the level of understanding of the inherent ideological and political resources of the curriculum is so insufficient that the classroom integration is not effective. The construction of “Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses” stays in the stage of isolated and partial design, some courses have the phenomenon of “labeling” that simply lists the elements of the ideology and politics, and fails to form a collaborative effect. How to break the situation that human resources cannot be mobilized, vocational colleges should make clear the multiple subjects of collaborative construction and form a good atmosphere of working together. Firstly, the school party committee has the main responsibility in promoting course reform. It should systematically adjust the work of various departments from the top-level design to ensure the realization of the goal of coordinated education of various courses and ideological and political courses. Secondly, the Academic Affairs Office, the Student Office, the Youth League Committee and the Scientific Research Department and other departments are the second-level administrative subjects for the implementation. The effective collaboration and cooperation between them will be a solid guarantee for the smooth development of the ideology and politics education in courses. Thirdly, the Marxism Institute (Ministry of Ideology and Politics) is likely a battle position of ideological and political education in vocational colleges, it has key course that undertakes the fundamental task of establishing morals. The teachers of ideological and political courses should play their guiding position and leading role in the collaborative construction. Fourthly, each professional college as the subject of ideological and political teaching in the course, teachers of professional courses should constantly expand their horizons during the course of ideological and political construction of the course, dig deeply into the elements of ideological and political education in the course, and strive to build the relationship between course objectives and ideological and political theory education, is the key link for the smooth implementation of the construction. Fifthly, the enterprise in the school-enterprise cooperation is an important part of the practical course of vocational colleges. Through industry guidance, evaluation and service, students’ professional skills and professional qualities are cultivated, is the effective expansion of the collaborative construction in colleges and universities.
3.2. Continuously Improve the Development Concept of Collaborative Construction
There are a lot of research achievements on what is the collaborative construction of “Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses”, but there is a common misunderstanding of the concept of “synergy”. For the reason why it is necessary to implement collaborative construction, some researchers think that ideological and political courses are boring and need to tap the ideological and political elements from professional courses, thus to realize the transformation from ideological and political courses to professional courses; About how to do, some researchers think that ideological and political education courses and professional courses each develop their multiple roles of moral education functions, which is an effective collaboration. In fact, this is “common” rather than “collaboration” construction, none of them really understand the principle of explicit and implicit education. Therefore, vocational colleges should further improve the concept of collaboration development in the construction of “Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses”. On the one hand, vocational colleges should make clear the leading position of ideological and political courses in moral education, and at the same time give full play to ideological and political teachers’ solid Marxist theoretical foundation, and give guidance to how to integrate the methods, principles and difficulties of ideological and political elements in professional courses into the classroom. Teachers of various professions should keep exchanging of experience and cooperation, demonstrate new methods and effective results in ideological and political classrooms to form a demonstration effect. On the other hand, in accordance with the characteristics of vocational colleges and the overall requirements for the integration of education and teaching reforms and industrial transformation and upgrading, on-campus training classrooms and off-campus practice factories are taken as important carriers for the implementation of ideological and political courses and professional courses. In addition, the ideological and political courses and major courses at different levels of colleges should complement each other’s strengths, work together and jointly explore the methods and paths of ideological and political elements integrated into the professional course education and teaching, so as to form a win-win situation of “resource sharing, responsibility sharing, work on project, and development promotion”.
3.3. Establish Collaborative Linkage Mechanism in Time
According to the current situation of the construction of “Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses” in vocational colleges in various regions, there is a significant phenomenon, that is, overall quantity is high but quality is uneven, and there is no long-term mechanism for coordinated development. The main reasons include two points: on the one hand, the concept of “Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses” raised time was not long, the exploration from “collaborative construction” to the realization of “collaborative education” is still in the preliminary stage, and the effectiveness of moral education has not yet been prominent. On the other hand, some ideological and political teachers and professional teachers in vocational colleges are not well-educated, their ideological and political education awareness is weak, the profound ideological and political elements of professional courses are ignored, and the collaborative construction becomes a formalism. In order to enable “Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses” take root, it needs to be integrated from the top. The national level and local education departments should put a high value to course reform and construction, increase publicity, issue relevant constructive and guiding opinions, and clearly define the concept of “Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses”; material and institutional support should be given and supported; Establish a supervision and evaluation system in the management of courses to ensure the smooth implementation of collaboration. Vocational colleges should formulate a unified leadership mechanism, management mechanism, and course ideological and political construction mechanism according to each own running and professional characteristics. The school party committee, Marxist College, Academic Affairs Office, and other departments should cooperate to form leadership groups and working groups, strengthen the awareness of professional teachers to be virtuous. At the same time, establish a collective teaching and research system cover ideological and political teachers and professional teachers, give full play to the role of primary teaching organizations such as teaching and research departments, teaching teams, course groups. Establish a collaborative assessment system for the effective connection of “Ideology and Politics Courses” and “Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses”, and incorporate the implementation and construction effects of various courses into the evaluation system of teacher ethics, evaluation of merits, and promotion of positions. In particular, highlight the requirement of “Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses” in the evaluation process of teaching achievement awards and teaching material awards, enlarge support for outstanding achievements in course ideology and politics construction. Implement each measure in details and in place during education and teaching reform.
4. The Concrete Development of the Collaborative Mode of “Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses” in Vocational Colleges
As a cradle of Chinese publishing and printing professional education, Shanghai Publishing and Printing College, adhering to the idea of “Integrating of Engineering, Literature and Art”, “Through Editing, Printing and Publishing”, “Interactive Education, Learning and Doing”. In the process of innovative talent training model, the path of “Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses” co-construction, sharing and co-promoting has been explored. It realizes the same frequency resonance of skill teaching and value leading.
4.1. Give Full Play to the Unique Resources of the School and Jointly Build “Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses”
Intra-school collaboration is the foundation and core of curriculum collaboration. Teachers of ideology and professional courses form a good atmosphere for collaborative construction with support from the Academic Affairs Department, the Ideology Department and the Department of Professional Departments. Due to the diverse subjects of collaboration within the school and the complex relationship of collaboration institutions, implement collaboration is difficult. Therefore, under the leadership of the Party Committee of the Shanghai Publishing and Printing College, in charge of the school leadership to lead the establishment of the teaching reform leading group, promote the “Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses” work of the whole school, to ensure the smooth implementation of various tasks of the pilot reform of teaching; Establish a steering committee to be responsible for the consultation, supervision, and evaluation of the curriculum reform of the whole school; Set up a Curriculum Teaching Reform Office is mainly responsible for the construction of courses such as “Imprinting China”, ideological and political theory demonstration courses, professional and comprehensive literacy courses. Under the unified leadership of the course reform group, ideological and political course teachers and professional teachers work closely together to explore the way of “blending morality in teaching”, thus achieving the integration of moral education and technical education.
The focus of “Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses” construction in vocational colleges should be positioned to improve students’ professional qualities, including the artisan spirit of “striving for excellence and pursuing excellence” and the spirit of “meticulous, careful, rigorous style”. Course objectives include knowledge teaching, skill training and value orientation. However, in the traditional vocational professional education, the problem of “emphasizing skills and neglecting literacy” is more prominent. Shanghai Publishing and Printing College has a collaborative model of “Blending Morality in Teaching”, giving full play to the subjective role of teachers, actively guiding professional class teachers to sort out the ideological and political elements of the courses, developing and formulating ideological and political elements into professional courses through scientific research. The teaching objectives and syllabus of the school give play to the ideological and political education functions carried by professional courses. The “Blending Morality in Teaching” collaboration model aims to promote teachers in professional courses to consciously assume the task of moral education when imparting vocational skills, and integrate professional literacy education into courses teaching. On the basis of the preparatory work, professional teachers use situational, artistic, discussion, case-based and other fascinating methods to carry out professional literacy teaching, innovate classroom teaching models, and promote modern information technology in “Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses”, stimulates students’ interest in learning, guides students to think deeply, and improves the level of ideological and political connotation integrated into classroom teaching, so as to achieve the teaching effect of the integration of “morality and technology”. The collaborative path of combining morality with teaching innovatively integrates elements of moral education in the skill-building process, and organically integrates explicit skill cultivation and recessive literacy cultivation.
4.2. Strengthen the Exchange and Cooperation of “Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses” Construction between Schools to Realize Resource Sharing
Restricted by each own teaching conditions, teachers in vocational colleges have a series of practical problems such as low professional titles, low number of teachers, heavy teaching tasks and unsatisfactory research environment. It is difficult for a single school to achieve the full coverage effect of curriculum reform. Vocational colleges strengthen classification guidance, determine the requirements of unity and difference, continuously strengthen the exchange of experience and collaboration between schools, and improve teaching and scientific research capabilities, which is the proper meaning of collaborative construction of ideological and political courses. On the one hand, the exchange of different professional courses between vocational colleges is conducive to exploring the commonality of “Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses”; on the other hand, the exchange of the same professional courses between vocational colleges is also conducive to exploring the uniqueness of this professional course. In recent years, Shanghai Publishing and Printing College has actively explored a collaborative sharing path among vocational courses. Bring in and carry out various forms of inter-school curriculum exchange activities, timely create a “Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses” experience exchange platform, and share with each other the specific practices and experiences in the professional course teaching; Go out and conduct demonstration tour, introduce experience to peers, and listen to their comments and opinions.
In 2018, with the assistance of a third-party organization, Shanghai Publishing and Printing College held an “Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses” experience exchange advanced seminar. At the seminar, teachers of the ideological and political courses and professional courses made a special report and introduced the experience of collaborative reform to teachers across the country. The essence of “Tao in Education, Blending Morality in Teaching and Education with Entertainment” collaboration model, with “drawing-point finishing, topic embedded, elemental combination” as the implementation standard, has become the pioneer and explorer of the successful reform of “Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses” in vocational colleges across the country. In 2019, Xue, a teacher of the Mathematics Teaching and Research Department of the school, Lai, a teacher from the Department of Cultural Management, came to Xiangxi Vocational and Technical College for demonstration exchanges. Based on the characteristics of mathematics matrix, Mr. Xue transformed ancient metrical poetry into a matrix and incorporated the educational concept of ethnic unity. Through the matrix, he explained the 56 ethnic groups as one family and the national spirit of “Unity is strength”. When Mr. Lai talked about the “Cultural Creativity and Planning Practices” class, combining the functional advantages of ideological and political education, creatively refined 12 elements, and integrated the design of ideological and political education with professional courses and general courses. Through the exchange of “heart to heart” communication, vocational colleges are of great significance for promoting “Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses”, creating an inter-school construction community, driving more similar colleges and teachers across the country to actively participate in the curriculum construction.
4.3. Strengthen the Interaction between Schools and Enterprises, and Jointly Promote the Construction of “Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses”
The school-enterprise cooperation has penetrated into every process of talent training in vocational colleges, and the abundant school-enterprise cooperation resources are a powerful support for “Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses” teaching practice. How to integrate excellent industry and corporation culture as important ideological and political elements into professional training classrooms is an important way to promote ideological and political collaboration in vocational courses. After a period of practical exploration, Shanghai Publishing and Printing College has explored the “Production and Learning” linkage model in which ideological and political courses, professional courses, industry and enterprises cooperate and assist. Under the model, teachers of ideological and political courses and professional courses approach the professional training class, prepare lessons together with corporate personnel, and organically integrate ideological and political points, professional skills and corporate culture to jointly formulate teaching objectives. Ideological and political teachers summarized the ideals and beliefs, seeking truth from facts, observing disciplines and rules, craftsmanship, teamwork, China beauty and etc. These ideological and political points connect with corporation culture like perseverance, honesty and trustworthiness, rule awareness, dedication, love and harmony, order and cleanliness, forming “do not hold back when encountering difficulties”, “honestly say if you know or not, if not, continue to explore and learn”, “After each training, summarize whether the training rules are strictly followed”, “Stricken in operation, patiently polished, strive for excellence”, “Enthusiastic dedication, take the initiative to fill the position, do not split hairs”, “Equipment environmental maintenance, practical training waste classification treatment” professional skills point. Through the one-to-one correspondence between ideological and political points, corporate culture and practical skills requirements, the value-leading role of ideological and political education has been implemented, and the integration of education and teaching with market needs has been realized.
The specific implementation process of the “Production and Learning” linkage model is full of continuity and hierarchy. Enterprise personnel introduce and inspire before class, integrating corporate culture into the training classroom through selected cases. Professional practice training teacher lead students to experience on site, give on-site guidance whether the students follow the training rules and whether there are strong perseverance, whether he/she can love the training environment and other behavioral qualities. After the course, the teachers of the ideological and political class let students share their understanding of professional ethics and professional standards, thus elicit the main points of ideological and political. The “production and learning” linkage model of course thinking and politics effectively integrates the heat of corporate culture, the intensity of skill training and the height of the points of thinking and politics to achieve the promotion of professional skills, the spread of corporate culture, and the strengthening of ideological and political education. The co-promotion effect has achieved satisfactory results with increased industry recognition, increased teacher happiness, and enhanced student acquisition. Through professional ideals and professional ethics education, enable students to deeply understand and consciously practice the professional spirit and professional norms of the industry, enhance the students’ sense of professional responsibility, cultivate discipline and abiding by rules, selfless dedication, honesty and trustworthiness, fair handling, pioneering and innovative, achieve the goal of “Production and Learning” linkage model.
5. Conclusion
In short, the collaborative construction of “Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses” not only meets the requirements of running a socialist university, but also an important reform measure to improve moral education and skill literacy education in China’s vocational colleges. In order to avoid the cognition dilemma that moral education is ideological and political education, so as to realize the effectiveness of all members, the whole process and all-round moral education, it is necessary for vocational colleges to form a positive interactive pattern of ideological and political education, specialized courses, general education courses and practical training courses. Specifically, in the construction of “Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses”, we must first emphasize the importance of forming the right construction thinking of collaborative model, clarify the division of labor between different subjects, and continuously improve the development concept and establish a reasonable linkage mechanism on this basis.
Shanghai Publishing and Printing College is under the guidance of this idea to carry out the collaborative construction of “Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses”, and finally formed a model of intra-school co-construction, inter-school sharing, and school-enterprise co-promotion, realizing the same frequency resonance of skill teaching and value guidance. Of course, we should also note that the theory of “Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses” has not been put forward for a long time, and the construction experience is relatively insufficient. Although different vocational colleges are actively exploring it, there are still many problems and obstacles to be overcome. For example, it is more difficult to integrate ideological and political elements in some courses. How to solve it? How can we avoid the phenomenon that some teachers simply implant ideological and political elements in order to complete the requirements of teaching assessment under the requirements of national and school policies? How do higher vocational colleges use the collaborative mode to meet the market economy’s demand for professional talents in ideological and political courses, especially in the teaching of professional courses? Such problems require a lot of time and energy to think about and fix. We believe that through unremitting efforts, emancipating the mind and diligent practice, a good ecological community of “Ideological and Political Theories Teaching in All Courses” construction will eventually be formed.
Fund Project
The 2018 annual “Yang Guang” project, “Collaborative Construction of Ideological and Political Education Theory Courses in Higher Vocational Colleges” (No. 18YG42). Supported by Shanghai Municipal Education Commission and Shanghai Education Development Foundation.