Another Six WKU Courses Listed as Provincial “Top-Tier” UG Courses
Wenzhou-Kean University (WKU) has another six undergraduate courses listed as provincial top-tier courses, according to the latest announcement of the 2022 Provincial Top-Tier Undergraduate Course Scheme released recently. Those courses are General Psychology, Principles of Microbiology, Marketing Research Materials, Principles of Marketing, Introduction to Supply Chain Management, and UIUX Design I. So far, a total of 36 WKU courses have been awarded provincial-level “first-class” status.
In the past decade, WKU has put consistent efforts into curriculum construction and strengthened top-level program design so as to build world-class courses that are not only advanced, innovative, and challenging, but also with the characteristics of the times, pertinence and effectiveness.
WKU will be dedicated to fostering virtue through education, considering student development as the center, further integrating information technology with education, improving faculty’s informational-based ability, developing reformed and innovative teaching models and methods, strengthening teaching process management, so as to comprehensively improve the level of course construction and the quality of talents cultivation.
How are WKU courses set up?
In the 2020-2021 school year, WKU offers 393 undergraduate courses, with a total of 1599 sections.
The university introduces the curriculum system from the U.S. comprehensively, aiming to foster the concept of lifelong learning for students. The U.S. curriculum system covers general education, major education, and elective courses. General education courses consist of basic reading guidance, humanities modules, social science modules, science mathematics modules, and sports health modules. Major education covers major supporting courses, major elective courses, and major core courses.
Elective courses are provided by each college, including fundamental and advanced elective courses. Students can enrich their university studies by choosing their interested courses from those outside their training schemes. WKU provides students with a flexible and independent studying atmosphere where they can choose major electives and interdisciplinary electives according to their interests.
What is the experience of studying at WKU?
WKU is devoted to combing American-style small-class teaching with the inquiry-based model of education. Small class indicates that the average number of students in nearly 85% of the classes is under 30, and ESL courses mostly have 15 to 20 students in order to be in line with the principles of language teaching. The inquiry-based model of education is reflected in the way of encouraging students to use their creative and critical thinking through teamwork in class, attaching great importance to teaching feedback, and ensuring teaching effectiveness.
Teachers would take advantage of network resources, online course platforms, and other modern technology to deepen the practice of American-style teaching, form an education atmosphere of independent learning and subjective exploration, and create new classrooms that integrate content imparting, group discussion, brainstorming and other different kinds of teaching methods. American-style teaching gives top priority to the learning process. The results of the usual homework, quiz, presentation, and seminar are stringently factored into the overall marks of the course, with a smaller percentage for the final exams.
In terms of student assessment, multiple evaluation methods are adopted, focusing on the combination of developmental evaluation, formative evaluation, and summative evaluation. It aims to examine students holistically by diverse assessment methods which value the process of development and the growth of the students in the course.
Translator: TAN Ruixi, FU Yuxi, GU Chang
Proofreader: XIANG Wenwei
