Recently, the Ministry of Education announced the second batch of new engineering research and practice projects. Kunming University of Science and Technology has 5 projects selected, ranking 23rd nationwide. Among them, the project "Exploration and Practice of Upgrading and Transforming Mining Majors in Local Universities Facing Regional New Economy" led by Professor Tong Xiong from the School of Land Resources Engineering has been successfully approved. This is a national-level new engineering project approved based on the college's continuous exploration and practice of the "11345" training model for innovative talents in mining over the years.
Everything starts with mining, and the future still belongs to mining. On February 17, 1950, Chairman Mao Zedong wrote the four characters "developing mining" when meeting with representatives of students studying in the Soviet Union at the Chinese Embassy in the Soviet Union. For 70 years, he has inspired tens of millions of geological and mining workers across the country to strive for the development of mining. Understanding history to learn from it, and examining the past to understand the present. The spiritual connotation of "developing mining" has shifted from the early liberation period's "three honors" and "four specialities" to the new era's "green, safe, harmonious, intelligent, and efficient." The traditional undergraduate talent training model in mining is increasingly unable to meet the era's requirements for "innovation-driven development," making it urgent to cultivate innovative engineering talents capable of solving complex problems in mining engineering.
Undergraduate students in mining participate in volunteer services for epidemic prevention in their hometown.
As the only college in Yunnan Province with a complete discipline system in geological and mining surveying, the School of Land Resources Engineering at Kunming University of Science and Technology has always adhered to the fundamental task of cultivating virtue and people. Under the guidance of the spirit of "developing mining," it aims to cultivate innovative talents capable of solving complex problems in mining engineering (1 goal), focusing on mining engineering and mineral processing engineering. Through in-depth cooperation with enterprises, it has developed a collaborative education community of "teachers-engineers-students" (1 community) based on high-quality faculty, teaching materials, and courses (3 high-quality resources), integrating teaching and education, in-class and out-of-class, offline and online, teaching and research (4 integration), and incorporating the connotation of the new era's "green, safe, harmonious, intelligent, and efficient" spirit of "developing mining" into the entire process of talent cultivation (5 integration), carrying out years of exploration and practice of the "11345" training model for innovative talents in mining.
Reform measures.
Carry out collaborative education through the entire process and full chain of school-enterprise cooperation.Guided by the spirit of "developing mining," we will deepen the reform of "bringing enterprises into education," widely inviting mining enterprises and research institutes to participate in the entire process of talent cultivation, jointly creating a collaborative education community of "teachers-engineers-students," and promoting a close integration of talent cultivation with industry needs. We will conduct extensive research on the actual needs of enterprises, from jointly formulating innovative talent training programs that meet the needs of the new era to jointly guiding undergraduate graduation design and participating in graduation defenses, carrying out full-chain school-enterprise cooperation.
Build high-quality faculty, teaching materials, and courses to provide resource support for innovative talent cultivation.First, build a high-quality faculty. Combining internal training with external recruitment, mainly using full-time teachers from the university and supplemented by external teachers from well-known domestic and foreign universities and mining enterprises, we have taken multiple measures to build a high-quality faculty team characterized by "high moral standards, strict discipline, excellent skills, willingness to learn, and courage to take responsibility." Second, build high-quality teaching materials. Relying on the national key laboratory for the clean utilization of complex non-ferrous metal resources co-built by the province and the ministry, and the national-local joint engineering research center for the green comprehensive utilization of metal mine tailings resources, among other more than ten national and provincial-level innovative platforms in mining disciplines, we have integrated the new connotation of the spirit of "developing mining" into high-quality teaching materials and monographs used in undergraduate teaching, effectively enhancing students' sense of identity with their major and teachers, and stimulating their innovative motivation. Third, build a series of high-quality courses. We have integrated the concept that "lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets," ideological and political elements unique to mining, engineering ethics and professional ethics education, the latest research results and progress in domestic and international mining selection fields, and actual complex engineering problem cases in mining enterprises into the courses, deeply carrying out reforms of course content that are "new," "excellent," and "deep," and widely implementing student-centered inquiry-based teaching and diversified assessment reforms, stimulating students' curiosity about professional issues, encouraging and guiding them to actively discover problems, think deeply about solutions, and boldly attempt to put them into practice.
Integrate "teaching and education," "in-class and out-of-class," "offline and online," and "teaching and research."Adhere to the fundamental task of cultivating virtue and people, centering on students and guided by the cultivation of innovative abilities, integrating the two classrooms of in-class and out-of-class, and the two spaces of offline and online, expanding the teaching time and space, and deeply promoting the integration of modern information technology with teaching. We will incorporate innovative thinking training into teaching activities to promote students' autonomous inquiry learning; strengthen the educational function of scientific research, timely transform the latest domestic and international research results, especially those solving practical engineering problems in mining, into teaching content, and widely involve undergraduates in laboratory research projects to carry out scientific research practice in advance.
Construct a multi-layered progressive innovative training model to enhance students' innovative practical abilities.The key to cultivating innovative abilities lies in strengthening practical training. Based on the "practical teaching group" that spans four years of undergraduate study, including course experiments, engineering training, course design, electronic internships, geological internships, measurement internships, recognition internships, production internships, graduation internships, and graduation design, as well as the "innovation project group," which includes various "big innovation" projects, extracurricular academic and technological innovation fund projects, and college teachers involving undergraduates in research innovation projects, we drive interest and support innovative practical projects, guiding students to participate in competitions such as the "Internet+" College Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition, the "Challenge Cup" Extracurricular Academic and Technological Works Competition, and the practical works competition for mining engineering/mineral processing engineering students, stimulating students' innovative motivation and potential, and effectively enhancing their innovative practical abilities.
Comprehensively strengthen institutional construction and implement a closed-loop mechanism for quality supervision and improvement.Based on the PDCA cycle principle for quality improvement, the college has constructed and implemented teaching management regulations and performance incentive systems to ensure the cultivation of innovative talents in mining, such as the "12 Measures for Quality Improvement of the School of Land Resources Engineering," "Implementation Plan for Promoting Teachers to Involve Undergraduates in Scientific and Technological Innovation Projects," and "Implementation Management Measures for Educational and Teaching Reform Research Projects of the School of Land Resources Engineering"; it has constructed and implemented a six-in-one talent cultivation quality supervision and evaluation model involving "school-college-major-employer-third-party platform-student," and continuously improved based on feedback, forming a closed-loop mechanism for innovative talent cultivation.
Reform effectiveness.
The innovative talent cultivation model has achieved significant results, and the quality of education has gained widespread recognition.The reform covers over a thousand undergraduate students in mining-related fields. In the past three years, 100% of the undergraduate graduation project topics have come from actual engineering problems in mining enterprises; the average employment rate is 98.7%, with 65% of graduates choosing to work in challenging mining companies. Undergraduates have led 5 national-level innovation and entrepreneurship training program projects; participated in provincial and above-level subject competitions, winning over 50 awards, published more than 10 academic papers, and authorized over 20 patents. The satisfaction of students and employers with the teaching has significantly increased; the quality of innovative talent training has received unanimous recognition from experts in engineering education professional certification from the Ministry of Education. The effectiveness of talent cultivation is remarkable, with a group of COVID-19 service volunteers emerging, participating in epidemic prevention publicity, information registration, disinfection, and cleaning work in their hometowns, receiving widespread praise from local residents.
The achievements in professional development are substantial.Mining Engineering and Mineral Processing Engineering have passed 4 and 3 rounds of engineering education professional certification (re-certification) respectively. Teachers generally incorporate the talent cultivation concept of "student-centered, outcome-oriented, and continuous improvement" into their teaching. Mining Engineering has been approved as a provincial-level first-class undergraduate professional construction point and a provincial key major, while Mineral Processing Engineering has been approved as a national-level first-class undergraduate professional construction point, a national-level characteristic major, and a pilot program for the Ministry of Education's Excellent Engineer Education and Training Program.
The level of the faculty team has steadily improved, and the effectiveness of teacher ethics and style construction is significant.In the past three years, 2 professors have been introduced under the Ministry of Education's "Changjiang Scholars Program"; high-level part-time teachers have been hired from domestic and foreign universities and enterprises to carry out theoretical and practical teaching, continuously optimizing the faculty structure. Teachers have led a total of 9 national and provincial-level teaching reform projects; young teachers actively participate in various teaching competitions, winning provincial and ministerial-level awards 5 times and school-level special awards 2 times. The effectiveness of teacher ethics and style construction is significant, with a group of advanced individuals in teacher ethics represented by Professor Liu Dianwen, a "Model of Teacher Ethics in Yunnan Province". During the fight against COVID-19, Professor Wu Shunchuan, a "Changjiang Scholar", and Professor Tong Xiong, a national-level candidate for the "Hundred-Thousand-Ten Thousand Talents Project", were invited to give public lectures, with over ten thousand people watching online; mining discipline teachers participated in epidemic prevention work through various means such as voluntary blood donation, donations, and epidemic prevention publicity.
The demonstration effect of the reform is good, with a wide radiation.A national quality course "Crushing and Grinding" has been established, and 6 national-level textbooks such as "Crushing and Grinding", "Slope Engineering", and "Geology and Mining English-Chinese Dictionary" have been published, selected by over a hundred universities; over 40 teaching reform papers have been published in journals such as "China Mining"; teachers have been invited multiple times to give exchange reports at national academic annual meetings for mining engineering and cooperative alliance meetings for mineral processing engineering. In recent years, more than 20 mining universities and colleges, including Central South University, China University of Mining and Technology, Beijing University of Science and Technology, Chongqing University, and Jiangxi University of Science and Technology, have conducted discussions and exchanges on professional development and talent cultivation, affirming the good results achieved by the mining engineering and mineral processing engineering majors under conditions of tight funding and average student quality.
Reform restarts.
In 2020, undergraduate students in the Mining Engineering and Mineral Processing Engineering programs of the college won a total of 5 first prizes, 8 second prizes, and 9 third prizes in the student practice works competition organized by the Ministry of Education's Teaching Guidance Committee for Mining Majors, highlighting the quality of innovation capability training under the "11345" model. Currently, the college is taking the newly approved national-level new engineering project as an opportunity to comprehensively promote the transformation and upgrading of traditional engineering majors in mining into new engineering majors that serve the new economy of the region, striving to cultivate high-quality innovative mining talents oriented towards the mining industry in Yunnan Province, the national green "Belt and Road" construction, and countries in South and Southeast Asia.
(Author's affiliation: School of Land and Resources Engineering, Kunming University of Science and Technology)
Website editor: Gong Li