Exploration on the reform path of practical teaching of wood drying

Wood drying science is one of the backbone courses of wood science and engineering majors, and the teaching of wood drying science usually starts from the basic knowledge of wood drying, through the teaching of wood drying medium characteristics, wood drying physical basis, wood drying measurement, wood drying equipment, wood room drying process, etc., so that students can understand and master the basic theory and law of wood drying, master the sawn timber drying process, be familiar with sawn timber drying equipment. and gain the ability to select, design and calculate the drying equipment. Wood drying is the most important process in the production of wood products and directly affects the quality of wood products. Wood drying requires strong professional skills, so it is important to improve the level of practical teaching of wood drying.

The current situation of practical teaching of wood drying and the existing problems

1.The importance of practical teaching of wood drying needs to be strengthened.

After years of teaching reform, the teaching plan of undergraduate major in wood science and engineering has been adjusted to meet the social development, and richer contents have been added; however, other contents have been added, and traditional core courses such as wood drying have to be compressed in terms of credit hours, while it is expected that teaching efficiency will be improved through teaching reform to make up for the shortage of credit hours. The current syllabus is 48 hours, among which 36 hours of theoretical teaching, 4 hours of seminar and 8 hours of practice; 8 hours of practice courses are not enough to complete the experimental preparation of wood drying benchmark, and students can’t actually practice wood drying process.

In some schools, the number of hours of wood drying plan is even less, and the number of hours of practical teaching can be imagined. Of course, general schools also arrange 1 week of course design, but the design of wood drying course is the design of “wood drying kiln”, because of the lack of understanding of wood drying process, students also have a half understanding of the design process of wood drying kiln, and do not do anything. Due to the limitation of school hours, the practical teaching link of wood drying in our school mainly arranges the structure and performance of wood conventional drying equipment, structure and performance of wood special drying equipment, preparation of wood conventional drying benchmark, wood drying quality inspection and so on. In addition, the practical teaching links of wood drying

In addition, the practical teaching session of wood drying requires the preparation of design guidelines and the purchase of pretreatment wood drying specimens, and generally schools do not have large drying kilns like the real wood drying production session. In order to complete the normal drying process of a kiln of wood, it is necessary for the experimental teachers to coordinate the relevant units inside and outside the school, which makes the teaching organization complicated, difficult to manage students, and the safety and security work of students’ food, clothing, housing and transportation is very troublesome.

2.The management means of wood drying practice teaching needs innovation.

In recent years, because the baton of most colleges and universities’ evaluation system is tilted to scientific research, the phenomenon of teachers focusing on scientific research and light on teaching happens from time to time. The period of each practical teaching link of wood drying is very long and generally needs to be completed at weekends.

The number of students in a single experiment is too large, and in order to avoid the heavy load, the instructors of practical teaching prefer to adopt traditional teaching methods and management means, dividing students into several groups, arranging a person in charge of each group, and completing a small experiment together in each group, with the result that often one or two serious students in each group do the experiment of the whole group. In higher education institutions, full-time practical teachers are the main force of practical teaching. Schools have strict requirements for the academic structure, knowledge structure and title structure of the teaching staff, while the requirements for experimental ability are not high.

More opportunities for teachers to further their training and training, and less opportunities for training and learning for laboratory technicians.

Universities generally treat the experimental technology team as “teaching and support” positions, and arrange some teachers who are not competent for theoretical teaching and personnel with low education into practical teaching positions, which leads to the weak innovation consciousness of practical teachers and low teaching management level.

3.The teaching method of wood drying practice is still outdated.

Although the school has carried out a series of reforms in teaching contents, curriculum system and teaching methods, in general, the practical teaching mode is still relatively single, which seriously affects the students’ enthusiasm.

Before the practical teaching, the instructors write the experimental contents, operation methods and steps, report format, etc. into the practical guide, and the guide even contains the possible results of each step of the experiment, and the students complete the content of the teaching regulations in a step-by-step manner and mechanically complete the operation, lacking active and positive thinking, such as the teaching practice is derived from that basic theory, the problems of the experiment done in the actual production process For example, the teaching practice is derived from the basic theory, the probability of the problems of the experiment in the actual production process, and the harm, students generally do not actively think.

Thinking about the ways of reforming the practical teaching of wood drying

1.Link practical teaching with theoretical teaching to improve students’ ability to link theory with practice.

Wood drying is a discipline with very strong applicability. If theoretical learning cannot be applied to production practice, the effect of theoretical teaching will not be too good, and most of the contents will be forgotten after students finish the final exam.

Take wood dry shrinkage and swelling as an example, through the teacher’s explanation and slide demonstration, students understand the phenomenon of dry shrinkage and swelling, remember the dry shrinkage rate and wet rise rate, master the calculation method of dry shrinkage coefficient, but the actual production process, how to measure the dry shrinkage rate, wet rise rate, dry shrinkage coefficient, how to understand the image of dry shrinkage and swelling of the various anisotropy, how to avoid or reduce the harm of dry shrinkage and swelling in the production process, are cannot be obtained directly from books.

If the basic theoretical knowledge is explained through classroom teaching, and the phenomenal cognition is realized through practical teaching, students are guided to think about the causes and confirm the basic theory through the phenomena, and use the basic theoretical knowledge to explain the various phenomena of the experiment. Students’ ability to link theory with practice will be greatly improved.

2.Change the form of practical teaching in the course to improve students’ interest in learning.

As an applied science, the practical teaching form of wood drying should be significantly reduced in a monolithic and indoctrination teaching way, strengthen the communication between teachers and students, and provide more and free practice opportunities.

At present, with the reform of university teaching, students have more opportunities to choose courses freely, so the time each student can spend on experiments is no longer uniform. If the teaching method of uniform time for theoretical courses is still adopted, it will inevitably result in the formalization and superficialization of practical teaching, and students’ interest in free exploration will be greatly reduced.

With the development of Internet technology, the implementation of a system for students to book practical courses on the Internet will yield better results. By using the campus network, students can conveniently know the opening hours of the laboratory, and then make appointments with the instructor through the network for the details of the experiment and conduct the experiment on time. After the experiment, the instructor will guide the students to think further and conduct more innovative experiments based on their completion. The web platform can also provide some innovative experimental content for students to freely choose, and the instructor will guide students to complete the experiments, solve the problems in the experiments, and find information to explain the phenomena in the experiments. In this way, students’ interest in independent learning is increased and their problem-solving ability is improved.   

3.Increase students’ participation outside of class through the leading role of college students’ innovation program projects.

The university student innovation program is similar to the management form of a small scientific research project, giving university students the opportunity to independently select scientific problems to be solved, which are generally not very difficult to select given the low knowledge base of students. Training of university students in innovation programs allows students to start with observed experimental phenomena, ask some vague scientific questions and discuss them with their mentors.

Students review the literature under the guidance of their mentors to clarify the scientific problem, understand the current state of development at home and abroad, and then design an innovative experimental plan. During the execution of the project, the supervisor should adhere to the main position of the students, guide more and intervene less, communicate more and inform less, so that the students can learn the ideas and methods to solve scientific problems independently.

It is enough for the instructor to control the progress of the project and coordinate the experimental conditions and the relationship with other courses. Through the training of college students’ innovation program, students can freely explore the mechanism of moisture movement in wood drying, study the conventional drying energy-saving methods of wood, analyze the causes of wood drying defects and the effects of wood drying defects on wood processing. After the implementation of the project, the basic theories and knowledge that students master will be more solid, and students’ abilities will be greatly improved.

4.Improve students’ awareness of the importance of wood drying through the project-oriented system.

With the strengthening of the state’s attention to scientific and technological innovation, the state invests in scientific research funds year by year, and there are more and more projects entrusted by enterprises to universities for technical research and cooperative research, students have more opportunities to participate in the scientific research projects under the responsibility of teachers during their study.

Through topics related to solid wood furniture design and manufacturing, students’ awareness of the importance of wood drying can be improved. Wood drying is an important pre-production step in the production of solid wood furniture, and the quality of wood drying will directly affect the quality of solid wood furniture. No matter how teachers emphasize the importance in the theoretical classroom and how practical instructors demonstrate in practical teaching, it is not as deep as what students experience in the process of designing and manufacturing a piece of solid wood furniture, such as experiencing first-hand the warping, deformation, cracking and other problems that may occur in wood that is not well dried.

The furniture just produced looks beautiful, after a while cracking occurs due to uneven moisture content, or may be deformed because it was transported from the south to the north, how good the materials, design level, manufacturing process will become the accompaniment of substandard products. Through the implementation of the project, students will practice independently and experience more deeply and truly, and the importance of wood drying will not need to be mentioned extra to students.

5.Strengthen the management of the experimental process and improve the practical working ability of students.

Any practical course should not only teach students to complete practical teaching tasks, but also let students understand the importance of the course through practical teaching and enhance students’ love emotion for the profession. The process management of practical courses is very important for students.

Improving the process of offering and organizing practical teaching courses so that students can conveniently reserve labs and instructor’s time for innovative experiments through their computers or cell phones.

Through the practical teaching management platform, students can communicate with instructors online and can submit questions about the experimental process to instructors, who can answer them at the first time or make appointments for on-site answer arrangements.

Teachers can view the progress of each student and each experiment through the practice teaching management and urge students to step up the progress of the experiment. Through the operation of online workflow, students can be familiar with the process management norms of large-scale industrial production and improve their practical working ability.

Conclusion

As the teaching reform and scientific and technological innovation continue to deepen, the wood processing industry has put forward new requirements for the practical teaching of wood drying.

  1. Starting from the basic requirements of personnel training, establish a scientific practical teaching system with ability cultivation as the main focus, multi-module and easy to connect, and form a good interaction with theoretical teaching.
  2. The teaching contents of wood drying are closely integrated with engineering and social reality, and timely introduce contents that meet the needs of society and industry and are conducive to improving students’ hands-on ability and technical level.
  3. Introduce information technology means, improve the network management platform, and enhance the level of practical teaching service to cultivate talents.

The university should establish the student-oriented concept, further improve the practical teaching system that integrates the coordinated development of knowledge transfer, ability cultivation and quality improvement, and improve the level of talent cultivation in all aspects.