The course plays a very important role in cultivating students’ observation, imagination, practical ability and innovation ability, and it also directly affects students’ learning of subsequent professional courses and their ability to engage in work after graduation. However, there are still a series of problems such as insufficient innovation awareness, disconnection between theory and practice, and inability to deeply integrate teaching and research in the mechanical foundation courses of major universities in China.
Therefore, the author takes North China University of Technology as an example, based on years of experience in teaching the basic mechanics course, through the analysis of its current situation, in order to improve the current problems and make the basic mechanics course play a more important role.
1 Teaching method reform and innovation
Heuristic innovative teaching.
Take students as the main body of teaching, optimize teaching content, and combine familiar examples in real life to lead to problems. As the saying goes, to give students a bowl of water, teachers often have to have a bucket of water, and we advocate letting students find their own water, in order to have a source of living water to come, follow the good advice, guide students to gradually, layer by layer, paragraph by paragraph to analyze the problem, consciously build a mechanical foundation practice scenario, consciously exercise students’ logical thinking ability, image thinking ability and imagination, improve students’ ability to apply engineering design and manufacturing, and then problem solving.
Discussion-based flipped classroom teaching.
Set up a comprehensive analysis topic of mechanical fundamentals, divide students into several discussion groups, so that each group of students has the opportunity to express their views on the problem and propose certain solutions as well as key technical routes, so that students really become the center of the classroom and can give full play to their own initiative, and also listen to the different views of other groups of students on the problem, and can learn from each other, score each other, and catch up with each other. The teacher will give a targeted explanation based on the students’ designs and other content, and draw certain conclusions. This way, for more comprehensive topics, the discussion makes students more impressed, and thus better grasp the key points.
Model-based three-dimensional teaching.
Students often lack perceptual understanding of various three-dimensional, mechanisms, parts, etc. In order to improve this situation, a special classroom for mechanical fundamentals was established. Display cabinets with various commonly used mechanisms, common parts, and three-dimensional models are displayed around the classroom, so that teachers can face the display cabinets at any time during the teaching process, and can use remote control to make mechanisms, parts, and three-dimensional movement, making teaching vivid, visual, and intuitive, so that students have a deeper understanding of three-dimensional models, working principles, structural features, design methods, etc. In addition, students can also use the time off class to observe and think about the stereoscopic, mechanism, and parts, and compare and analyze the pictures in the textbook and the actual model to deepen their memory, which has a good teaching effect.
Internet+ Teaching.
Making full use of Internet+, we have developed high-quality network resources for the basic mechanical courses, which realize the interaction between offline and online learning, including teaching multimedia courseware, full teaching videos, analysis and solutions of typical topics, sample papers of previous years’ exams, and expanded resources of students’ works, which provide a good platform for students’ independent learning, and make students’ learning performance and comprehensive ability improve significantly. Web-based teaching allows students to learn through the Internet, no longer restricted by the time and place of classes, and access the rich text, pictures, animations, videos and other resources on the course platform anytime and anywhere, breaking the walls of the school, and also the inevitable trend of the development of Internet+ education.
2 Flexible application of teaching skills
In the process of teaching mechanical fundamentals, focus on highlighting the main line, focus on the ideas, methods, key points, difficulties, discipline development, engineering applications, with flexible teaching techniques to improve the quality of teaching, the following mechanical drawing course as an example for illustration. Long to square, high flush, width equal is the core law of mechanical drawing, as the saying goes, a red line, throughout; part of the gauge, ruler and other drawing tools for drawing is very important, as the saying goes, the worker wants to be good at what it does, must first benefit from its tools;.
National standards should be strictly observed when drawing, as the saying goes, no rules, no square. Based on years of teaching experience, the author summarized the teaching skills, for solving the mechanical drawing topics play a very necessary role. To be familiar with the projection characteristics of the projection surface perpendicular surface, a cumulative, two similar shape; to be familiar with the projection characteristics of the projection surface parallel surface, a real shape, two cumulative. When seeking the intersection line, give priority to taking the line first and the point first; when seeking the correspondence of circle, arc and bend in the coherent line, give priority to dividing into two and merging into one.
When analyzing the combination process of the combination with the form analysis method, priority is given to the combination form of fusion, intersection and tangency; when analyzing the correspondence of the line frame in the view with the line surface analysis method, priority is given to the accumulation if there is no similar shape.
3 Establish virtual experimental teaching platform
Experimental teaching occupies a very important position in the basic mechanical course system, through experiments can make students better understand the basic theory and basic knowledge in the textbook. Reducer disassembly experiment is an important experiment in the basic mechanical course, the main purpose is to let students master the structure inside its box, especially the gear and shaft system structure, familiar with the disassembly and installation process of the reducer and the disassembly sequence, etc., to lay a solid foundation for engineering applications.
In the traditional teaching experiment, students mainly face the actual reducer model, which has the advantages of realism, but also has the shortcomings of taking a long time. In order to enable students to understand as many types of reducers as possible in a limited time and to understand their internal structure in more detail, the secondary development of the 3D software Creo has established seven types of primary cylindrical helical gear reducers, secondary cylindrical spur gear reducers, etc., written the procedure of reducer disassembly and assembly, realized the disassembly and assembly of its parts in a certain order, and developed a reducer disassembly The virtual experiment was developed so that students can simulate the disassembly process of the reducer on the computer.
By comparing the actual reducer disassembly experiment and the virtual reducer disassembly experiment, students have a more comprehensive grasp of the working principle, structural characteristics, and design methods of various types of reducers, which not only improves their hands-on ability, but also enhances their imagination and creativity. The speed reducer disassembly and assembly virtual? test is shown in Figure 1 and Figure 2.
4 Formation of teaching and research integration
Teachers in colleges and universities should have the ability of education and teaching and scientific research. The famous scientist Qian Weichang once said, “If you don’t teach, you are not a teacher; if you don’t do scientific research, you are not a good teacher”. Teaching is the way of survival, scientific research is the way of development, the organic combination of the two, coordinated development, and mutual promotion. Scientific research is to raise new questions, elaborate new insights, create new theories, and summarize new laws. To do a good job in scientific research, we need to have a keen eye for discovering scientific problems, a strategic approach to solving scientific problems, the courage to question academic authorities, and the perseverance to seek proof of problems to the end.
Teachers of basic mechanical courses should integrate their professional strengths into scientific research in related fields, further broaden their horizons, broaden their ideas, build up their strengths, target their goals, and consolidate their professional knowledge and improve their scientific research business in practice. While doing scientific research, it should be combined with the graduation design of college students, and it should be combined with the innovation and entrepreneurship competition of college students.
By participating in these scientific research activities, students have the opportunity to get in touch with the latest development of their disciplines, understand the frontiers and trends of science and technology, stimulate their interest in learning and research, and cultivate the sense of teamwork. Only in this way can we form a teaching and research system that combines theory and practice, and teachers and students.
In the past five years, 46 innovative design works of students have won provincial awards, among which five works, including “new wave power generation device” and “360-degree rotatable exhaust air conditioner”, won the first prize in the Hebei Innovation Design Competition. 13 works such as “multi-functional automatic anti-theft window” and “new fruit tree pruner” won the second prize; “pressure-controlled water-saving valve” and “explosion-proof, anti-overload tire nozzle” won the second prize. 28 entries such as “pressure-controlled water-saving valve” and “explosion-proof, overload-proof tire nozzle” won the third prize.
5 Conclusion
The reform of teaching methods, such as inspired innovative teaching, discussion-based flipped classroom teaching, model-based three-dimensional teaching and Internet+ teaching, has stimulated students’ interest in learning and significantly improved the quality of teaching. The flexible application of teaching techniques, the establishment of virtual experiment platform and the gradual formation of teaching and research integration have highlighted the student-centered subject position and realized the combination of theory and practice.
In order to further comply with the trend of development of the times, the basic mechanical courses should build a platform for cross-discipline, communication and integration to maximize the use of school resources and minimize the cost of student training. It is necessary to further develop international schooling, learn from the advanced concepts and methods in engineering education in Germany, Japan, the United States and other countries, and cultivate senior engineering and technology talents with international education background.