Explorations in Experimental Teaching of Traditional Chinese Medicine Instrumental Analysis Based on the Training of Innovative Talents

Chenyan LIANG, Chengzhi DU, Xu FENG, Yunli TANG

Guangxi University of Chinese Medicine, Nanning, Guangxi 530200, China

Abstract Training students’ innovative thinking is an essential task of talent training in colleges and universities, and how to train students’ innovativeness in experimental teaching is the focus of modern education. Experimental lesson of instrumental analysis is an important section for integrating students’ theories and practices, in view of the characteristics of traditional Chinese medicine major and instrumental analysis lesson, this lesson orientates opening up students’ innovative thinking, explores the way of improving students’ innovative ability in an all-around way through reforming the experimental teaching of instrumental analysis according to the teaching objectives.

Key words Instrumental analysis, Experimental teaching, Innovation, Traditional Chinese medicine

1 Introduction

Innovation is the primary force of driving the development, and the fundamental lifeline for scientific research. Training of innovative talents must attach importance to not only the education of basic knowledge and ability, but also to the innovative thinking and capability, in which reform of experimental teaching is the basic work for training innovative talents, and an essential move to strengthen the "new capital construction" and support the high-quality training of talents.InstrumentalAnalysisis a basic course of traditional Chinese medicine major in traditional Chinese universities and colleges, medicine quality analysis, true and false identification, pharmaceutical preparation technology all need the technological support of instrumental analysis, enterprises and public institutions such as scientific research institutes, hospitals, production factories, sales enterprises also need the technicians for instrumental analysis. Experimental teaching plays an undoubted role in instrumental analysis lesson, it is a crucial section of promoting students’ practical ability and training their innovative consciousness and ability. This paper attempts to reform the experimental teaching of instrumental analysis based on the innovative talent training.

2 Current experimental teaching of instrumental analysis

2.1 Instrumental analysis laboratories in traditional Chinese universities and collegesTraditionalChineseMedicineLawwas implemented in 2017, CPC Central Committee and the State Council issuedSuggestionsforPromotingInheritanceandInnovativeDevelopmentofTraditionalChineseMedicinein 2019. With the continuous optimization of policy environment for traditional Chinese medicine development, central government has attached increasing importance to Chinese medicine industry, which also influenced the support to traditional Chinese medicine universities and colleges. Domestic traditional Chinese medicine universities and colleges have invested a lot to purchase advanced large-scale precision instruments, which has contributed to the tremendous improvement of experimental teaching ofinstrumentalanalysis, and also the elimination of the out-of-date instruments, these universities and colleges have built a series of experimental platforms for the instrumental analysis, and started to establish the laboratories for students’ innovation and startup.InstrumentalAnalysisis a basic course of the traditional Chinese medicine major in Guangxi University of Chinese Medicine, the university established the teaching laboratory of precision analysis instruments based on the Key Laboratory of Guangxi Universities and Colleges, invested a lot to the laboratory, and purchased many advanced analysis instruments. In last years, 10 analytic high performance liquid chromatographs, and 4 preparative high performance liquid chromatographs were purchased to update the gas chromatographs, preparative high performance liquid chromatographs and gas chromatograph-mass spectrometers bought in the 1980s. In addition to normal teaching tasks, the laboratory applies open management mode, students can book to use the instruments online, the lab manager is responsible for the use, maintenance and repair of instruments online, thus a mature online lab management system is formed.

2.2 Dilemma of experimental teaching of Instrumental AnalysisUpgrading of instruments keeps pace with the course contents, increasing instruments enable students to have more opportunities to use the instruments, integrate the theories and practices, and further promote students’ experimental operation skills. For students of Chinese medicine major, Instrumental Analysis is one of the most difficult courses, because it is based on the experimental operations, and each chapter is independent and integrates multi-discipline knowledge such as chemistry, physics and math. Most knowledge of the course is basic but abstract theoretic knowledge. Traditional experimental teaching of instrumental analysis always first teaches theories of each instrument, then teaches how to use the instruments in the experimental lesson. "Flipped classroom" in recent years had been a major direction of teaching reform, the reform claimed that students should be the subjects in the experimental teaching, and suggested that the classroom can be enriched by encouraging students to give lectures onto the platform. Because most of the instruments in the Instrumental Analysis experimental teaching are large-scale precision instruments and very expensive, so students are only allowed to learn the use of instruments theoretically without instinctive cognition. Students need to master the complicated structure principles and detection methods of the instruments first, then the continuous systematicness and clear logics, but students fail to master the abstract structure and principles, let alone operate the instruments, so the experimental teaching has poor effects.

3 Explorations of training innovative talents in experimental teaching of Instrumental Analysis

3.1 Learning theories and practices spontaneouslyIn traditional experimental teaching, principles and usage of instruments are taught before the experimental teaching. Such a teaching model has both advantages and disadvantages, the advantage is the systematic theory teaching, and the disadvantage is that students can only image the application of instruments. For some universities and colleges, the experiment class and theory class are even not arranged spontaneously for the restriction on location and time, sometimes theory class ends much earlier than the beginning of experiment class, and sometimes experiment teaching finishes before theory class. In view of this, for some complicated instruments, students should be brought to the laboratory to know primarily about the instruments, taught with the components and principles of instruments in the experiment class, and then taken back to the theory teaching, finally they will be able to master the usage of instruments through specific experiments. For example, students are often confused with the components of gas chromatograph and the needed gas circuit in application, let alone the carrier gas for different detectors. Therefore, students should at first learn about the components of gas chromatograph in the laboratory, and the needed gas circuits in the experiment, as well as the working principles of sampling system, chromatographic column system, detection and recording system, and control system. Back to the theory class, students will then be able to master the analysis principles of gas chromatograph, after that teachers can further instruct them to think about the analysis process, and enhance their understanding using the application examples of gas chromatograph in pharmaceutical analysis, teachers can also change the knowledge points into comprehensive questions and lead students to think thoroughly about the questions and discuss with each other. In this way, students will get the basic principles of instrumental analysis, know well properties and application fields of different instruments and methods, finally master the techniques of applying common analytical instrument in social practices, the experiments help cultivate students’ professional quality, inspire their innovation awareness and spirits.

3.2 Making plan of the experimental teaching contents scientifically according to the teaching objectivesTeaching objectives of the experimental teaching in Chinese medicine major are teaching students’ basic principles, structural characteristics, analytic methods and relevant experimental technologies about general modern instruments, development trends of various instrumental analysis methods, so as to cultivate students’ basic ability of applying various modern instrumental analysis methods to solve realistic problems. Instrumental analysis teaching should plan the experimental teaching contents according to regional characteristics and professional needs, thus it is hard to unify the experimental teaching textbooks across the country or in the whole industry, and the universities and colleges have to make their own experiment handouts according to specific needs. Proportion of comprehensive, design and innovative experiments should be promoted, students study and do experiments more on themselves with the help of teachers, so as to cultivate their initiative, ability of thinking and innovating, and to develop the lab’s function of cultivating students’ innovation ability.

3.3 Using multimedia to assist the experimental teachingUniversities and colleges in the past years have attached more importance to the integration of experimental teaching theories and practices. With the development of science and technology and discipline, it is imperative to promote and reform the teaching methods against the background of supplementing and updating experimental instruments. Precision instruments for the instrumental analysis experiments are always expensive, and it is impossible for students to learn about internal structure of the instruments through disassembling them, thus they have on superficial understanding about the principles of instruments. Therefore, teachers use multimedia tools such as recording videos about the instrument use, and building virtual experimental teaching website, so as to display the internal structures and usages of instruments using vivid cartoons, and help students learn about basic principles of the instruments at first, moreover, other teaching methods like LBL, PBL and RBL are used to instruct students to explore the usage of instruments, and trigger students’ thirst for knowledge. In view of maintenance of instruments, the laboratory also organizes training of different instruments, plays the role of mentoring by inviting senior students skilled in operating the instruments, and the senior students can only participate in the maintenance and mentoring after passing the examination, which will not only enhance students’ understanding about the instruments, but also lay a solid foundation for cultivating students’ awareness of innovation and ability of application.

3.4 Establishing the platform for the industry-university-research cooperationTeaching laboratory is the place for students learning basic principles and simple operations, but for students of Chinese medicine major, they need systematic training in scientific research and production practices to truly integrate theories and practices. In the university, teachers’ scientific research programs are opportunities for students joining scientific research, more cooperative experimental programs can be established in enterprises, so as to train new talents with comprehensive innovative ability through the production practices, which also lay a solid foundation for students’ future working ability.

3.5 Establishing a scientific assessment and test systemTraditional test of the instrumental analysis course is based on the laboratory data, report writing and theory test, while the new assessment system is based on students’ practical operation ability and application ability, focuses on the display of students’ ability of applying comprehensive knowledge and innovating during the operations, analyzes the fruits of students’ learning comprehensively, including preview report, evaluation of learning process, ability of operating instruments, and analysis of laboratory reports. Teachers are responsible for assessing (a) whether students open up their minds before experiments; (b) whether students operate the experimental process normatively; (c) whether they record data accurately, and their ability of handling the problems in the experiments, and the error between experimental results and schemes; and (d) whether students have the team spirits and innovative consciousness. In addition, the assessment and test should be comprehensive and have follow-up mechanism, so as to ensure the objective assessment of students’ experimental ability.

4 Conclusion

Instrumentalanalysisexperimental lesson is an important basic course for the major of traditional Chinese medicine, with the continuous progress of Chinese medicine industry and science, new concepts have raised higher requirements on the modern Chinese medicine analysts, and more challenges to students of this major. Only if the teaching quality of instrumental analysis course is improved by adapting to the changing social needs, students’ innovative thinking ability can be promoted continually.