The Exploration of PAD class in the Application of College Education

【Abstract】In recent years， the prevailing of PAD Class has triggered wide discussion in various realms of teaching. This dissertation mainly discusses the limitedness of PAD class in theory， the challenges in its application in college education and its expected improvement in the future. The key idea involves that PAD class is limited in cultivating in-depth researching ability， while the classes designed in higher education should be a project-based constructive acquisition， including dual-building production， the student-centered assimilation and the task-based discussion.

【Key words】PAD Class; PBE（Project-based Education）; Student-centered class

【作者簡(jiǎn)介】丁潔（1986.06.30-），女，北京人，西安歐亞學(xué)院，助教，研究生，研究方向：大學(xué)英語(yǔ)教學(xué)。

The innovated pedagogy on higher education never ceased， especially the trials on college education to trigger students interest or to improve the teaching efficiency. When Xuexin Zhang， the doctor of Fudan university firstly proposed the PAD （presentation， assimilation and discussion） class in 2014， it brought unexpected repercussion among Chinese scholars. However， this essay attempts to challenge one of the chief arguments in PAD and advocate PBE， which is more effective in constructing the mind map for college students in information acquisition and in-depth researching

Part I The limitedness exhibited in previous empirical experiment about PAD class.

a. PAD class means the class is divided into two parts. The first half is allocated to teachers for lecturing and the second half is given to students for interactive discussion. Xuexin Zhang initiated the trial of PAD class in his psychology class and proved the achievement of this renovated model through students questionnaire. However， several issues needed further researching to make it more persuasive. First， the research did not provide a comparative sample when students were asked to assess the satisfaction towards the PAD model. Moreover， when it referred to the requirement towards teachers， Zhangs research showed that over half of students believed senior professors were preferred， while another experiment which conducted by a junior professor exhibited that more than 50 percent of respondents favored the youth professors. This might indicate that the charisma of teachers instead of the teaching model might be a more influential factor in students questionnaire.

b. There permeates the potential risk of over-emphasizing PAD class. Chen asserted that PAD class had low requirement on teachers as it allocated half of the class to students， therefore teachers were unnecessary to concern about students distraction. She also mentioned that PAD class was an effective way to alleviate the burden from teachers since students homework had been peer assessed（2016）. This means that lots of professors might generate a misconception that PAD means teachers just control half of the class， and the other half is devised for students to discuss. However， it should be noticed that students who have limited academic background might find it difficult to organize the activity and have in-depth discussion.

Part 2 Comparison between PAD class and PBE

Project-Based Education（PBE） means the class syllabus is designed as a project. Teachers， playing the role of designers and instructors， outline the expected abilities that the project would require and give specific， measurable， academic-based and realistic instructions. Each project includes four stages： discovering the problem， collecting data， analyzing the problem and solving the problem. More importantly， the assessment consists of three parts： self-evaluation， peer check and teachers appraisement.

PAD class and PBE both emphasize involving students in the class， but it varies in the following four aspects. First， PAD class advocates no preview for students but PBE requires students to do much background reading. Second， PBE is a dual-building production， rather than dividing class to two separate parts. Moreover， different from teacher-centered lecture， PBE encourages students to assimilate information on their own through researching. Finally， instead of asking questions about the topic， PBE highlights task-based discussion so that students focus on solving the problems through pragmatic approach.

References：

[1]PAD Class： The New Wisdom of Chinese Education[J]. Zhang Xuexin，2017.

[2]The Application of PAD Class in College English Teaching[J]. Xu Fulan， Li Shouhua，2017.

[3]PAD Class： Practice and Reflection on the Reform of Classroom Teaching Mode in Colleges. Du Yanfei， Zhang Xuexin[J]. Continuing Education Research，2016.