Practical Teaching Model for Training of Outstanding Engineers

Practical teaching is an important part of training of application-oriented personnel, and in particular the key to cultivating “outstanding engineers”. This paper provides an analysis of problems with practical teaching at an application-oriented university in China. Then it describes the new practical teaching system and school-enterprise cooperation platform established by our university during implementation of the “Outstanding Engineers Education and Training Program”. This practical teaching system is relatively well-developed and characterized by a “four-step spiral model” that comprises curriculum experiment, course exercise, comprehensive practical training, and graduation project. The cooperation platform was designed to facilitate cooperation between the university and enterprises at multiple levels and it offers both virtual and concrete means of practical training and. This reform has proven to be effective in enhancing all-round practical abilities of the students.