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| THE GRADUATE COURSE EDUCATION OF HUMAN GEOGRAPHY AND ITS REFORM IN MAINLAND CHINA——Perception and Comparison with Graduate Courses in USA |
| TANG Mao-lin |
| School of Geographical Science, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210046, China |
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Abstract The professional quality of graduates in China is questioned after the great enlargement of the enrolling volume. The irregular course education is an important one of many contributing factors to the decline of the professional quality. The paper reflects the course education of graduates of human geography in mainland China, aiming to highlight the existing problems, and give some innovative suggestions after the consideration of the merits of American seminar. With very limited interaction, the traditional organizing method of graduate course is instructor-centered, which appears its obvious shortcomings after the great leap forward development of graduate education, and lacks dynamics for both instructors the students. The counterpart in the United States is seminar, combining the traditional merits of the universities in UK and Germany. The main purpose of class meeting is not to read the materials but to discuss the problems encountered before class. So it is necessary to transform the traditional method in China from instructor-centered to the American seminar. China's education should make full use of the seminar. When seminar becomes the main organizing method of graduate course in China, the quality of graduate education will be improved. When universities in China decide to transform the traditional method, they need to make full use of the wisdoms of the whole faculty, i.e. academic democracy based on academic freedom as to the academic issues. Seminar can also be used as a tool to encourage the students to pay more time to the academic learning and scholarship, and to settle the enduring problem of lack of reading in the graduate education.
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Received: 18 January 2008
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2009, Vol. 24 
