Frontiers in Computer Education

Frontiers in Computer Education – Wang (ed.)

© 2015 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-1-138-02797-8

The teaching reform and practice of hydraulics based on the

Problem-Based Learning teaching mode

J.C. Liu, Y.W. Shi & J. Zhao

School of Water Resources and Environmental Engineering, Changchun Institute of Technology, Changchun, China

ABSTRACT: Problem-based learning is the learning and teaching mode. The paper introduces the PBL teach-

ing mode and it’s application in hydraulics. PBL can reform the classroom teaching mode, encourage teachers’

classroom changes, and is helpful for students to construct new knowledge. It resolves the lack of traditional

teaching mode. The paper takes the cohesion and energy dissipation of downstream drainage buildings as an

example, this fully demonstrates the application of PBL teaching mode in hydraulics teaching, it also provides

food for thought for other courses on the reform of water resources and hydropower engineering.

Keywords: Hydraulics; teaching mode reform; PBL teaching mode

1 INTRODUCTION

Hydraulics is an important professional foundation

course in the water conservancy specialties of water

resources and hydropower engineering, hydrology and

water resources engineering, and agricultural water

conservancy engineering. The hydraulics content is

complex and huge which consists of water statics,

fluid movement of the beam theory, energy dissipa-

tion of downstream drainage buildings, seepage, and

high speed water flow. On the one hand, it involves

many calculations of building of water conservancy

projects, the application of many theories and for mula,

and a lot of half experience and half theory formula.

On the other hand, PBL haves clear engineering point,

the energy dissipation of downstream drainage build-

ings, seepage, high speed water flow, etc all can be

used it to solve the practical problems.

At present, the hydraulics courses mainly adopt the

traditional teaching method, such as classroom teach-

ing, laboratory experiments, and the combination of

multimedia and blackboard. The traditional teaching

method is based on the textbook content, teachers

are always positioned at the centre of organizations,

and they organize and monitor the whole process of

teaching activities, while students can only passively

accept, digest and understand the content. For the tra-

ditional teaching method, students don’t search the

course content which is related to the literature and

engineering case beforehand, when the actual prob-

lems appear, they have no idea what to do, so it is

difficult for them to adapt to the needs of the devel-

opment of the university education system, and their

innovative spirit and practice ability is difficult to put

to use.

What kind of teaching method can be used to

improve the applied scientific research innovation

ability of students in institutions of higher educa-

tion? The diversified teaching method reformation

is reported in literature from domestic and overseas

institutions, however these methods cannot change the

dominant role of the teacher and the passive role of stu-

dents in teaching.As for the learning teaching mode, its

kernel is to place the learners at the centre, the learners

are the main body of information gathering, process-

ing, and knowledge of autonomous refactoring instead

of passively accepting state of external stimulus.

The role of the teachers is transformed from that of a

person imparting knowledge to that of the organizers,

helpers, and promoters of a student’s learning process,

maximizing a student’s enthusiasm, initiative, and

ultimately inspiring learners’ creativity. This method

which integrate the PBL teaching idea has been applied

to the hydraulics teaching reform attempts in the

class of 2010 students in our school, the education

reformation achieved a very good result.

2 CONNOTATIONS OF THE PBL

TEACHING MODE

In 1969 the United States professor of neurology

HowardBarrows at McMaster University in Canada

founded the PBL teaching mode, as a kind of brand-

new teaching mode, which was based on the construc-

tivism learning theory. Dewey’s pragmatism education

theory and Bruner’s discovery learning theory. The

kernel of PBL is case teaching, it takes the student

as the main body, and teacher as the leader. We can

appreciate from B. Hs and Y.B. Du’s literatures.

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