The Effect of Professional Skills Competition on Educational Reform of Professional Courses

Abstract

Skills competition has achieved more attention with the increase of skills competitions. The front-line teachers of higher vocational education found that skills competition has many effects on professional course teaching during the guidance of competitors. In this paper, it gives a detailed introduction to the effect of skills competition on freshmen’s first class, selection of vocational teaching contents, teachers’ capability for professional course, teaching methods, course arrangement and teaching quality inspection; and thus the reform direction for professional course teaching is concluded. In recent years, national skills competitions among higher vocational colleges have been held frequently, and higher vocational institutes themselves also often hold such kind of competitions; however, is this phenomenon good or bad? Does the skills competition have any effect on reform of professional courses during vocational education? After investigation, students who participated in skills competitions have a sound and deep understanding of what they’ve learned. At the same time, professional teachers can obtain much knowledge beyond the books during guiding students in skills competition, which can promote teachers’ practical ability. That is to say, professional knowledge is the theoretical guidance for students’ participation in skills competition, while participation in skills competition can promote students’ practical skills in turn. By participating in skills competition, students’ mastery of basic knowledge and practical skills can be tested, teachers’ quality of teaching can be tested, and meanwhile curriculum construction and teaching quality in the college can be tested as well. The author of this paper guided vocational students’ participation in “Blue Bridge Cup” National Professional Software Talents Design and Innovation Competition for C programming language[1], during which the author has found that skills competition can make some difference for professional course teaching. These effects are shown in Figure 1. The Effect of Skills Competition on Freshmen’s First Class According to document [2006] 16 from Ministry of Education, the goal of higher vocational education is that higher vocational education should cultivate talents specialized in high-end technology application such as production, construction, management and front-line service. Its value orientation of talents’ cultivation is employment; while students in higher vocational colleges have no clear goal for employment direction, especially for freshmen. They have no idea about their future development direction. They only accept what teachers offer them passively without knowing 5th International Conference on Education, Management, Information and Medicine (EMIM 2015) © 2015. The authors Published by Atlantis Press 1256 the practical application of knowledge, which has seriously affected their activeness. Therefore, in the first class for freshmen, we should present these problems by combining practical application cases in skills competitions with theoretical knowledge. After the reform of the first class, students’ attitude towards study will be more active with a clear mind for future development. Generally, the skills competition can test two aspects of students. On one hand, students’ mastery of theoretical knowledge and application of knowledge can be tested; on the other hand, students’ team cooperation capability can be tested, during which we can see if they can develop large project by discussion and mutual help[2,3]. From the second aspect, we can companies have a high demand for vocational students’ team cooperation capability, which requires corresponding reform in higher vocational colleges so as to meet their demand. Therefore, in the first class for freshmen, I divided students into groups. Each group has four students. I left them with tasks which required team cooperation so that students can get used to company work mode as soon as possible. The Effect of Skills Competition on the Selection of Vocational Teaching