1.

INTRODUCTION

With the high-speed development of our country, social needs for high-tech applied talents are greater and greater. Photoelectric information science and engineering is a specialty linked and connected by many subjects, such as optics, photoelectronics, micro-electronics, communication, computer science, and so on. It involves the radiation, transmission and detection of optical information, the transformation, storage, disposal and display of optoelectronic information, etc., combining with undergraduate education to enhance students’ practical ability with the purpose of cultivating innovative talents. As a new major field of our university, photoelectric information science and engineering has the characteristics of fast update of specialized knowledge, high demand of theoretical basis and wide range of practical application, and thus has a profound influence on the development of advanced technology of the society. Therefore, cultivating applied talents who have not only theoretical basic but also master the practical skills is the urgent need for social development. This specialty cultivates advanced professional talents who conform to the contemporary objective of personnel cultivation, master basic theories and methods, have better experimental ability and computer application ability, and are able to work on scientific research, scientific and technological development and teaching in physics and scientific and technological domains related to photoelectronics. Recent years, we have made up teaching syllabus in terms of training objective, set up photoelectron laboratory and given consideration to the course selection of similar specialties. During the teaching process of photoelectric information science and engineering, the teaching of specialty experiments plays a distinctive role in cultivation and training of students’ practical ability, research ability and innovation ability which cannot be replaced with any other teaching link. The teaching aims of specialty experiments of photoelectric information science and engineering are to make the students grasp the basic theories of electronic techniques and optics; to learn the applications of optical principles, photoelectric detecting techniques and detecting instruments in practical production and scientific researches; and to let students further learn and master the knowledge in light source, photoelectric detectors and sensors. Through specialty experiment teaching, we can broaden the scope of knowledge of students majored in photoelectric information science and engineering, add perceptual knowledge of students, and cultivate students’ abilities in investigating, analyzing and solving problems in practical engineering to lay a solid foundation for their future career.

Directing at the features of the courses of optoelectronic technique, i.e. large quantity of contents and sound theoretical basis, and weak foundation of students in our university, we adopt the teaching method of transferring class contents, grasping the leading edge of science and optimizing class contents, as well as the explanation of consequences and practical applications. Focus on the explanation of contents of practical applications of optoelectronic technique, maintain the echo of experiments and theoretical knowledge, and give play to the practical effects of course teaching to twice as much can be accomplished with half the effort. Therefore, experimental curriculum plays a vital role in the whole process of teaching optoelectronic technique. According to current situation of practical teaching in the universities, corresponding reform should be taken into consideration to improve the entire experimental teaching effects: integrating actual situation of the university, formulate and perfect operational practical teaching syllabus; reserve the operational experimental teaching forms that have been tested by practices to make a increasingly perfect system which can be popularized and utilized; during the process of experimental teaching, enhance the management and supervision of the process to make it not become a mere formality and thus gain a favorable effects.

This thesis aims at the specialty experiment teaching of photoelectric information science and engineering, and analyzes it from the construction of specialized laboratory, the experimental methods, the experiment content, experiment assessment mechanism, and so on.

2.

THE CONSTRUCTION OF SPECIALIZED LABORATORY

During the process of teaching, the experimental teaching attachments provide a basic guarantee for the experimental teaching. However, during the process of current experimental teaching of photoelectronics, experimental teaching usually can not be done smoothly resulted from the problems of experimental teaching attachments. Optoelectronic technique experiments need a laser as the light source and precise instruments like spectrometer, photo detector, electrooptic display, etc. as the follow-up supports. The common character of these instruments is expensive and easy to damage. The components of the instruments are always damaged by students’ carelessness, and they can not be replaced on time due to the limited experimental expenditure, which is a hinder to the experiments and thus influences the effective development of optoelectronic technique courses. In addition, the changing development of optoelectronic industry leads to the fact that experimental equipment can not keep up with the course contents, which forces the experiment teachers only to provide comparatively backward experimental projects for the students and thus is contradicting to the teaching objective of cultivating applied talents vigorously during the transformation development of the university.

Therefore, the results of experimental teaching, to some extent, depend on the experimental teaching facilities. In order to improve the experimental teaching effect, more funds should be put into to reinforce the infrastructure construction of the laboratories. Experimental facility is the basic condition of experimental teaching and its significance is self-evident. Deploy the current limited experimental facilities reasonably of the university as the basic guarantee of experimental teaching of optoelectronic technique. Therefore, we have to integrate the existing condition of other labs with that of photoelectronic information complex laboratory; based on experimental facility plan, set up the basic parameters and measurement accuracy of the experimental facility according to service condition; design the structures of new instruments and equipment; improve some structures according to actual use; and purchase experiment materials reasonably to strive for the chances and platforms for every student, aiming at cultivating students’ basic professional skills and improve their engineering practice ability. There is no doubt that cultivating students’ active exploration competence in the laboratories with excellent facilities can greatly stimulate students’ learning initiatives, and better cultivate their operational abilities; therefore, the infrastructure construction of the labs is crucial to experimental teaching. As for the construction of the laboratories, on one hand, apply for the funds of laboratory construction based on discipline basis, i.e. boost laboratory construction step by step through project funding; on the other hand, seek cooperation with coherent units to achieve win-win through project cooperation, i.e. train students’ experimental ability as well as promoting laboratory construction.

3.

IMPROVING EXPERIMENTAL TEACHING METHODS

In traditional specialty experiment teaching of photoelectric information science and engineering, the teaching method is mainly adopted that the teacher explains and demonstrates the experiment and the students imitate and practice it. Although this method is combined with doing experiments themselves, its nature still inclines to explain and pass on knowledge, which cannot stimulate students’ learning interests and go against the cultivation of innovation consciousness. Therefore, more effective experimental teaching method has to be explored based on traditional experimental teaching method to enhance the quality of experimental teaching. Arouse students’ interests in exploring the unknown world with original experimental contents. For instance, when teaching the nonlinear optical frequency transformation technique, raise the question: Can a ray of invisible laser generate various kinds of visible lights under certain condition, which can arouse students’ interests to continue to focus. Then through teacher’s experiment demonstration, invisible laser can be converted into various colors of light like red, orange, yellow, green, etc. under different experiment conditions. With this guidance of intense interest, students can’t help exploring the experiments and understanding experiment principles. Therefore, fine experiment contents and innovative experiment methods can twice the result with half the effort.

At present, multimedia courseware is one of the teaching methods in the universities. It can arouse students’ interests more vividly and directly, stimulate their creative thinking, open up their thinking, broaden their horizons, and thus deepen their understanding of optoelectronic technique. Students can have a visual cognition for some component or device by playing courseware in class, which can enrich teaching contents, make students understand learned knowledge easily, and thus overcome the tediousness of traditional teaching method and arouse students’ interests. In addition, directing at the characteristics of specialty experiments of photoelectric information science and engineering, the teaching of specialty experiments can be realized by combining project teaching method based on experiment facilities with online teaching method based on network resources and virtual simulation technology. By utilizing network resources and virtual simulation technology, students can learn the experiment contents before class, grasp part of them, and propose some questions; they can learn more effectively directing at their questions when doing experiments in class, and thus get deeper understanding of the key contents of experimental teaching.

Aiming at the lack of preparations before class, request strictly both teachers and students. Experiment teacher must have deep understanding of experiment principles and be familiar with experiment facilities. On this basis, require strictly that students do full preparations before class, and postpone the experiments of those who have not previewed the experiments to supervise and urge them to finish their jobs. Not until both teachers and students have full preparations, could they have a definite object in view during the experiments and thus have innovations. Since the preparations have been made, based on the fact that both teachers and students hope to be acknowledged, the subjunctive initiatives of students can really be aroused, the leading role of teachers can inevitably replaced with students, and thus the transformation of educational pattern from tradition to modern can be realized. And students can do productive thinking with teachers’ guidance to make the experiments creative.

Experiment teachers are employed and managed by experiment center. They take on the teaching task of optoelectronic experiments and are scheduled by experiment center, which is not only beneficial for the management of full-time teachers of experiments, but also creates beneficial condition for the construction of experiment teaching staff. As for resources, all the experimental apparatus and equipment of optoelectronic experiment center are under unified management with specially-assigned person to guarantee the serviceability rate of experimental facilities.

4.

TEACHING EXPERIMENT CONTENTS BY DIFFERENT LEVELS

The specialty of photoelectric information science and engineering has the characters of wide coverage and plenty of knowledge points. Different experiments have different difficulties, and their levels of difficulty are quite large. Therefore, directing at the experimental teaching of photoelectric information science and engineering, conduct the experimental teaching by different levels of difficulty, which conform to the learning psychology of undergraduates. At basic teaching level of optoelectronic experiment, students can read the teaching materials, references and document literature of photoelectric technique experiment corresponding to university level on their own; at high teaching level, students can independently operate or design related photoelectric experiments and productions. On this basis, cultivate students’ abilities of using various kinds of manuals of photoelectric techniques and looking up and selecting related devices and combinations of experiment contents independently to make them reflect on problems of cross-optics and its subdisciplins, electronics and computer science gradually, and thus cultivate their capacity for scientific research.

Let students learn gradually from deeper understanding knowledge points and understanding and applying to specialized knowledge to gaining the ability to find, analyze and solve problems; thereby, improve their operational ability and innovative consciousness, cultivate high-quality talents possessing practical application ability for the society, and thus achieve the goal of serving the society and finally realize the combination with social enterprises, and cultivate students to become professionals built for photoelectric enterprises. In terms of the development trend of experimental teaching and the actual situation of our university, the experimental teaching can be divided into four levels:

5.

EXPERIMENT ASSESSMENT MECHANISM

Experiment teaching assessment mechanism is an indispensable part of specialized experiment teaching of photoelectric information science and engineering. In traditional experiment teaching assessment, teachers check and evaluate students, emphasizing checking and evaluating the acquisition of knowledge, which is not beneficial to the check of students’ practical ability. Traditional question types and pattern of exam are only fit for the evaluation of students’ theoretical knowledge, and the exam results present artificial unfairness due to the differences of content deviation and thus influence students’ learning initiatives. However, experimental ability is a comprehensive ability to apply theoretical knowledge to practices, and traditional question types and pattern are not qualified to the assessment task; thereby, new pattern should be explored for the assessment of experimental teaching.

Therefore, the transformation must be made from monistic summative evaluation to formative evaluation. Not only assess students’ experiment achievements, but also pay attention to the assessment of their experimental process, especially their abilities represented during the process of project experiments, such as ability of looking up data, experiment design ability, cooperation and exchange ability, innovation ability, etc. to enhance their comprehensive quality.

In this pattern, the teacher-student relation, compared with traditional classroom teaching, is more open, interactions between teachers and students are more frequent, the ways of interactions are more diverse, the contents are more, and the contacts between teachers and students are more multiple. In this kind of open environment, student thinking can become more active when students facing different teachers, there are more collisions and blending of different thoughts, teachers can be more satisfied with sense of teaching achievements, and students’ learning enthusiasm can be greatly stimulated and encouraged.

6.

CONCLUSION

This paper aims at the characteristics of specialty experimental teaching of photoelectric information science and engineering; analyzes construction of specialty laboratory, experimental methods, experiment content, and experiment assessing mechanism for the teaching reformation; puts forward four levels of specialty experiments, i.e. basic experiments, comprehensive and designing experiments, innovative research experiments and engineering experiments; and introduces scientific research achievements and advanced technology on photoelectric technology to the teaching of specialty experiments to develop the students’ scientific research ability and make them to be the professionals suitable for photoelectric industry.