ZSTU Sponsored the Fifth College Mathematics Forum and the Proposal Session of the Innovation Project of the Department of Science and Technology

The fifth College Mathematics Forum sponsored by ZSTU was held in Hangzhou on Nov. 7th and Nov. 8th. More than 600 representatives from over 300 colleges and universities participated in the forum. Vice Director of the Organizing Committee and President Qiu Songliang made the opening remark in the opening ceremony at which Professor Hu Jueliang presided. Professor Xu Dinghua chaired the group discussion on the theme of Thoughts on and Practice of Teaching Reform of College Mathematics in Non-key Universities and gave a lecture entitled Teaching Reform of Mathematics in The Applied Personnel Training Mode

The fifth forum was co-held by NationalHigherEducationTeachingResearchCenter, Higher Education Publisher, the Steering Committee of College Mathematics and Statistics Education of the Ministry of Education, Chinese Mathematical Society, China Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics and the Mathematics Committee of National Higher Education Research Association. College Mathematics Forum, held annually since 2005, has received wide-spread response. More than 2500 mathematics teachers from over 500 colleges and universities have took part in the forum which has become an annual grand meeting to exchange ideas on the teaching reform of college mathematics. This is the first time that a local university has sponsored the forum since the previous four ones were all sponsored by the universities included in Project 211 and directly administered by the Ministry of Education. Considering teachers needs in the teaching reform. the organizer of each forum invited well-known experts, scholars and teachers in mathematics both at home and abroad to exchange ideas on such topics as course content, curricula and the reform in teaching methods of college mathematics. The forum has greatly contributed to the improvement of teaching quality of college mathematics as an open platform for mathematics teachers all over the country to discuss the teaching reform.

This forum combined reports and seminars with the first one and half days featuring reports bringing forth strong response. Li Daqian, member of the Chinese Academy of Science and Director of the forum committee, Professor Xu Zongben from Xi an JiaoTong University, Professor He Shuyuan from Beijing University, Professor Wang Renhong from Dalian University of Technology and Professor Fang Kaitai, a famous statistician in the world gave lectures on topics such as the teaching reform of college mathematics in the information age, an open mind for mathematics, the application of computation geometry in information science and the informationization and reform of statistics teaching. The audience all responded strongly and raised questions after each lecture.

While listening to the lectures, teachers discussed, in the branch venue, the experience and puzzles in the teaching process. The discussions are carried out mainly around three topics the curricular construction of college mathematics based on the platform of modern information technology, the integration of mathematical modeling into the foundation courses of college mathematics and the teaching reforms in college mathematics in non-key universities.

After the close of the forum, some representatives attended the proposal session of the project entitled The Application and Practice of Scientific Thinking and Scientific Methods in the Teaching Innovation of College Mathematics . The experts and scholars present discussed the project plan, research content and structure and other issues of the project a key innovation project of the Ministry of Science and Technology. President Qiu Songliang and Dean of College of Science, Hu Jueliang will be in charge of one sub-project respectively.

ZSTU also invited Vice President of Xi an Jiao Tong University, Doctoral Supervisor, Professor Xu Zongben and Doctoral Supervisor of Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astranautics, Professor Li Shangzhi to give lectures to students and teachers of the Department of Mathematics of College of Science.