Construction of Case Database for Postgraduate Course Aquatic Animal Pathogen Biology

Huanying PANG, Miao XIE, Shuanghu CAI, Ziling WANG, Shiping YANG, Yucong HUANG, Jichang JIAN

College of Fisheries, Guangdong Ocean University, Zhanjiang 524088, China; National Demonstration Center for Experimental Fisheries Science Education, Zhanjiang 524088, China

Abstract As an application instructional course for Aquatic Animal Medicine (AAM), Aquatic Animal Pathogen Biology needs to be guided by a large number of examples and cases, but the current case database construction faces many urgent problems. In view of this, this paper analyzes the characteristics of professional education of AAM postgraduate students. With the goal of cultivating applied personnel that meet the requirements of the times, and the guiding ideology of strengthening the reform of the education model in colleges and universities, and improving the quantity and quality of personnel training, it builds a case database for the course Aquatic Animal Pathogen Biology in accordance with modern postgraduate teaching needs.

Key words Case database, Aquatic Animal Pathogen Biology, Aquatic Animal Medicine (AAM) discipline

1 Introduction

With the deepening of China’s reform and opening up and the integration of the global economy, the role of aquatic veterinarians in social and economic development has become more and more important. They have developed from serving only aquaculture in the past to providing technical support and services for animal health and public health at present, which are closely related to the country’s economic development and public health. The connotation of aquatic veterinarian has also developed from a single animal disease treatment in the past to multiple fields such as animal disease prevention and control, zoonotic disease prevention and control, food safety, public health, biological safety and environmental protection[1]. In order to adapt to this development trend, Guangdong Ocean University started to recruit master and doctoral students in Aquatic Animal Medicine (AAM) from 2018. The core of Guangdong Ocean University’s AAM master training is the cultivation of practical ability, while the level of students’ practical ability is an important indicator to evaluate the quality of AAM master cultivation. How to closely combine theoretical knowledge with practice and improve students’ practical ability has become an important topic in the teaching of AAM postgraduate courses.

Case teaching method, as an exploratory teaching mode based on practical experience, is suitable for courses with strong practicality[2]. This method emphasizes solving practical problems in a simulated situation, allowing learners to actively acquire broader knowledge and regular rules from typical (disease) cases. Such teaching mode and personnel training method have greatly changed the traditional teaching practice of taking books as the center and changed the practice of moving from concept to concept, making students become the real main body in teaching activities, and promoting independent, cooperative, research and exploratory learning. It has become an important way to cultivate high-level applied personnel in the whole world. Case (disease case) teaching has been widely used in management, engineering, law and medicine. However, it still remains at the starting stage in the AAM postgraduate education, and the construction of the master case database of AAM is an important foundation for its healthy development.

2 Current situations and problems of the construction of case database for Aquatic Animal Pathogen Biology

Aquatic Animal Pathogen Biology is a basic course for AAM postgraduate students in Guangdong Ocean University. This course mainly studies the morphology, structure, metabolic activity, heredity and variation, pathogenic mechanism, anti-infection immunity, laboratory diagnosis and specific prevention of pathogenic organisms related to aquatic animal diseases[3]. As an application instructional course for AAM, Aquatic Animal Pathogen Biology needs to be guided by a large number of examples and cases, but the current case database construction faces many urgent problems.

In the first place, the founding time of AAM master degree postgraduate students is not only, and the training mechanism is not perfect. Due to the influence of traditional academic postgraduate teaching ideas, many universities pay more attention to academic papers while pay little attention to practical level. The training method of case teaching has not yet attracted the attention of educators in various colleges and universities, and the construction of the case database of Aquatic Animal Pathogen Biology is seriously lagging behind. In the second place, the teaching cases of Aquatic Animal Pathogen Biology are mainly extracted from typical examples in production practice, or typical cases in clinical practice, or examples collected and adapted from newspapers and magazines. On the one hand, teachers have insufficient experience in case teaching and handling is improper, such as the background and problems are too complex, and the knowledge involved in the case is too broad. On the other hand, due to insufficient knowledge reserves and lack of clinical experience of students, teachers cannot effectively control the cases. Consequently, it is difficult to achieve the expected teaching effect. Therefore, how to build a rich and practical case resource database has become an urgent issue to be solved in the case teaching of the course Aquatic Animal Pathogen Biology, and it is an indispensable and important part of promoting the construction of AAM case database.

3 Significance and functions of construction of case database of the course Aquatic Animal Pathogen Biology

3.1 Accelerating education and teaching reformThe construction of the case database highlights the guiding role of the course teaching resource database in teaching, training and production guidance. It is a professional teaching material database integrating teaching, training, improvement and production guidance. AAM is a discipline with strong practicality. It is necessary to combine the characteristics of the discipline itself, fully explore the teaching resources, and develop a special teaching resource database suitable for Aquatic Animal Pathogen Biology according to the normative requirements for the construction of the course resource database, which will play an important role in promoting teachers to update educational concepts, innovate educational ideas, enrich teaching content, and accelerate the teaching reform.

3.2 Realizing extensive sharing of teaching resourcesVigorously promoting the joint construction, sharing and application of high-quality resources is an important part of educational informatization. The case database of Aquatic Animal Pathogen Biology can not only be used in the teaching practice of aquaculture, marine biology and other disciplines in Guangdong Ocean University, but also provide scientific reference for the construction of other course resource databases. In addition, the content of the case database can be shared through the network, and it will also provide services for the national AAM students and the on-the-job personnel in related industries to improve and update their skills, graduates to receive continuing education on-the-job, and individual diversified learning.

3.3 Improving the teaching level of teachersIn the process of constructing the case database of Aquatic Animal Pathogen Biology, the teachers of the course team need to learn the development concept of the course resource database, integrate them, and make clear their ideas. Besides, teachers need to read a lot of materials and go deep to many enterprises to collect relevant resources. In this process, they will absorb a lot of knowledge invisibly, which will improve their professional level and enrich their knowledge. Such combination of theory and practice improves the teaching level of teachers and promotes the construction of professional teaching staff.

4 Strategies for construction of case database

4.1 Construction purposeThe purpose of constructing the case database for the course Aquatic Animal Pathogen Biology is to fully find out the characteristics of professional education of AAM postgraduate students, take cultivating applied personnel that meet the requirements of the times as the goal, and strengthening the reform of the education model in colleges and universities, and improving the quantity and quality of personnel training as the guiding ideology in accordance with modern postgraduate teaching needs.

4.2 Main tasksMain tasks include (i) feasibility analysis and positioning research of case database; (ii) analysis and research on composition, content and structure of case database; (iii) organic integration research of case database and postgraduate training program.

4.3 Implementation planThrough the survey, we fully understood the characteristics of professional education of AAM postgraduate students. We took cultivating applied personnel that meet the requirements of the times as the goal, the course Aquatic Animal Pathogen Biology as the main line. We studied and built content, planning, and design scheme of a case database with local characteristics, established a new teaching and education model and method closely integrated with modern information technology, to strengthen the reform of college education model, and improve the quality of personnel training.

4.4 Implementation scheme

4.4.1Positioning analysis of the teaching objectives and case database of Aquatic Animal Pathogen Biology. According to the teaching objectives of Aquatic Animal Pathogen Biology, combined with the needs of local industries and talents, our team studied and determined the teaching mode and the positioning of the case database.

4.4.2Collection, arrangement and analysis of local characteristic teaching resources. We fully investigated the teaching resources related to the course Aquatic Animal Pathogen Biology, and provided material basis for the design and planning of the construction of the characteristic case database through collection, sorting and classification.

4.4.3Design, planning and content analysis of the construction of characteristic case database. In accordance with the syllabus of Aquatic Animal Pathogen Biology, combined with local teaching resources, we analyzed how to effectively integrate teaching materials and local teaching resources.

4.4.4Research on sharing and management mechanism of case database. We prepared the script of the case database, studied the operation, management and sharing mechanism of the case database, and expanded the utilization efficiency of the case database.

5 Conclusions

Postgraduate students of AAM are an important source of advanced aquaculture talents. Cultivating postgraduate students with independent thinking ability, scientific decision-making ability and clinical practice ability conforms to training orientation of "high-level, application-oriented” aquatic veterinarian talents for the master’s degree of AAM in China. Case teaching is undoubtedly an effective way to accomplish this goal. However, at present, the construction of the domestic Aquatic Animal Pathogen Biology case database is still not mature, and there are no samples for reference. In this paper, we preliminarily constructed the case database of Aquatic Animal Pathogen Biology. It is expected to provide new ideas for the construction of the case database, but there are still shortcomings. It is hoped that in the future, through cooperation with other universities and companies, the quality of the case database of Aquatic Animal Pathogen Biology can be continuously improved.