Programmable Controller Course is an optional course for mechanism majors.
In view of the phenomenon that mechanism majors generally separate “machine” from “electricity”, this paper proposes to combine “Programmable Controller Course” with mechanism majors, and stimulate students’interest in learning “Programmable Controller Course” by reforming teaching links. As an industrial control device rising in the 1980s, programmable logic controller (PLC) is widely used in mechanical equipment and automation production line for its high reliability and flexibility. This requires the students majoring in mechanism to keep abreast of the pulse of the times and integrate the knowledge of “electricity” into the learning of “machine” course. However, in the process of teaching, the situation is just the opposite. The students majoring in mechanism in our college artificially separate “machine” and “electricity” and think they are students of mechanism. They only study electrical courses to get credit.
Then, how to stimulate the interest of mechanism majors in learning electrical courses, help them combine “electricity” with “machine” courses, so that the knowledge learned can be integrated and applied, these are the problems that teachers need to solve urgently. The author takes “Programmable Controller Course” as an example to stimulate students’interest in learning through the way of curriculum integration. Interest is the motivation to stimulate students’active learning.
How to make students realize that “Programmable Controller Course” is not an empty theoretical course, but the key to teaching reform is to apply the theoretical knowledge and solve practical production problems. The teaching of Programmable Controller Course is based on learning, aiming at the completion of equipment.
It combines the content of Programmable Controller Course with mechanical equipment, thermostatic element and transforms “invisible” into “visible”. That is to say, it combines theoretical teaching, practical teaching and mechanism courses to stimulate students’interest in learning.
For example, machine tools are the most familiar to mechanism students, so when teaching Basic Instructions of Programmable Controller, teachers can guide students to discuss how to control actions by instructions, and how to solve problems when students operate machine tools by improving programs. In this way, the learning of Programmable Controller Course is not an “isolated island”, but integrated into the learning of mechanism courses. Students also change from only operating machine tools to thinking about how to solve the problems in the process of operation through program control.
In the experiment teaching, the hydraulic oil circuit experiment platform is integrated to solve the problem that the sensors of the PLC experiment platform are simulated by switches. It can not only make up for the regret that the oil circuit control only adopts relay control in the hydraulic transmission course, but also effectively link up the two course experiments, so that the knowledge learnt by students is no longer a scattered point. In the project practice teaching, teachers should give full consideration to the courses that students have learned in the earlier stage. For example, the use of milling machines, punches, manipulators in metalworking practice can help students to familiarize themselves with the operation and control of these machines. Then the teachers can use these equipment as the object of project practice training and formulate practical tasks for specific projects, so that students can change from operators to designers who control the machines.
In the specific implementation process, teachers should teach students in accordance with their aptitude and vary from person to person, and implement hierarchical teaching, that is, grouping students according to their learning ability to determine the training objectives of different projects. In this way, it not only strengthens the students’ability of unity and cooperation, but also makes students at different levels get corresponding exercises. By reforming the teaching link of Programmable Controller Course, teachers can effectively improve the exclusion of mechanism students from “electricity” courses, deepen students’understanding of the practicability of programmable controllers, and effectively stimulate students’ interest in learning.