Research on the Reform of Teaching Thinking in Higher Education

In view of the shortcomings in current teaching thinking in higher education, this paper explores the reform of teaching thinking from the following aspects: heuristic thinking, analogical thinking, expansion-contraction thinking, divergent thinking, multidimensional thinking, circlejumping thinking, associative thinking, convergent thinking, and systematic thinking.

Keywords: Higher Education; Education; Thinking

China has emerged as the world’s second-largest economy with a substantial total economic volume. However, in reality, China serves as the world’s processing plant and manufacturing workshop. How to transform from “Made in China” to “Created in China” has become an inevitable choice for China to ascend to the status of a global power. This transformation is not merely about industrial upgrading but requires comprehensive innovation driven by internal forces! Innovation is the source of a nation’s progress and the inexhaustible driving force for comprehensive social development. “Created in China” requires support from original invention patents and innovative scientific research achievements. Where do these come from? They require innovative talents and innovative education. Since innovative talents stem from innovative education, and innovative education originates from the transformation of thinking modes!

Ideas determine outcomes, and thinking ability training is the primary pathway for cultivating innovative talents. Einstein once said that raising a question is more important than answering it! The depth and quantity of questions raised are directly proportion al to thinking ability! And thinking ability is the power of thought! The different angles, levels, directions, paths, scopes, and methods of thinking determine the quality of thinking, which in turn determines the breadth, depth, height, thickness, intensity, speed, and effectiveness of thinking. All of these require strengthening thinking ability training and transforming different thinking modes.

Ideas determine outcomes, and thinking ability training is the primary pathway for cultivating innovative talents. Einstein once said that raising a question is more important than answering it! The depth and quantity of questions raised are directly proportion al to thinking ability! And thinking ability is the power of thought! The different angles, levels, directions, paths, scopes, and methods of thinking determine the quality of thinking, which in turn determines the breadth, depth, height, thickness, intensity, speed, and effectiveness of thinking. All of these require strengthening thinking ability training and transforming different thinking modes.

Han Yu once said, “A teacher is one who imparts wisdom, teaches professional knowledge, and resolves doubts.” In fact, as a teacher, one must not only impart wisdom and knowledge but, more importantly, cultivate various skills in students, promote their comprehensive, harmonious, and free growth in body, mind, and spirit, foster their mental models, broaden their horizons, and continuously enhance their ideological horizons and their ability to recognize and solve problems. Talent cultivation uses knowledge transmission as a medium to develop students’ various skills, which means training their various modes of thinking and perfecting their thinking structures.

Education is the foundation of a hundred-year plan! However, looking around and carefully examining our early childhood education, compulsory education, basic education, vocational education, higher education, graduate education, and social education, there are many shortcomings and much criticism. Therefore, the reform of teaching thinking is imminent and cannot be ignored.

What exactly is education? How should education be conducted? What should be taught to the new generation? What is the true purpose of education? What kind of thinking mode should be used to conduct education? Different thinking modes naturally lead to different educational philosophies, and the people cultivated will naturally be divided into different levels: some become lackeys, some become good-for-nothings, some become mediocrities, some become talents, some become prodigies, some become specialists, some become eccentrics, some become elites, some become giants, some become sages, some become influential figures, some become big shots, and some become leaders.

Having been engaged in teaching for over 30 years, I have a unique understanding of education. I believe that the essence of education is human education. It is education that respects human nature, desires, emotions, ethics, and rights. It is the education of the source of life pursuing truth, goodness, and beauty. It is the education for the most free, comprehensive, and harmonious development of the body, mind, and spirit as a harmonious whole. It is education of love, gratitude, character, and vision. It is the education of correct worldviews, outlooks on life, and values. It is education of responsibility, thinking ability, argumentation ability, democratic spirit, scientific spirit, team consciousness, and caring for life. It is the education of the unity of knowledge and action, broad-mindedness, and ownership. It is the education of comprehensive ability and the most comprehensive development of IQ, FQ, MQ, CQ, WQ, EQ, Creativity Quotient, AQ, SQ, and AQ (Adversity Quotient). To this end, surrounding the essence of education, there are corresponding educational and teaching thinking modes. We must break outdated teaching thinking, eliminate solidified traditional teaching thinking that cannot conform to the requirements of social development, break with tradition, overcome the rigid constraints of the old, bravely innovate, and be good at reforming traditional teaching thinking modes so that countless outstanding talents can emerge. So, what teaching thinking reforms need to be carried out?

The world today is an open world; society today changes with each passing day; the era today is one of constant change and innovation. The nature of the times determines the direction of talent cultivation and the direction of education. As early as 1984, Deng Xiaoping wrote in his inscription for Jingshan School: “Education must be oriented towards modernization, the world, and the future.” Yet, how many university education management cadres, educators, and university teachers truly teach and educate people according to these “Three Orientations”? Have they thought about the development trends of future society? Have they thought about the current state of the world’s economy, politics, culture, education, technology, ethics, and spirit? Have they thought about what modernization actually is? What kind of talents does modernization actually need? Have they thought about what kind of talents we should actually cultivate? Have they thought about what kind of thinking mode should be used to cultivate talents?

Having been engaged in junior high school compulsory education for over 8 years and higher education for nearly 20 years, I have deep experience regarding the shortcomings of Chinese education. I have many feelings about the widespread problems in the education system, educational philosophy, educational allocation, educational content, educational means, educational methods, educational principles, educational ideology, and educational thinking. In university classrooms, it is common to hear only the teacher’s voice, while the students’ voices are unheard. There is a lack of effective communication and feedback mechanisms between teachers and students, let alone fierce debate and discussion! The problem of teachers being autocratic and monopolizing the conversation is quite serious and widespread. In this “spoon-feeding” and “cramming” teaching mode, how can students’ various thinking abilities be trained? Instead of “a hundred schools of thought contending,” there is “dead silence”! The classroom is gloomy, lifeless, and devoid of any vitality! University students are in the prime of their lives and should be full of energy, yet they are destroyed by these teachers, becoming like withered flowers, with their bodies, minds, and spirits all damaged! The most basic principle of teaching is to combine the teacher’s leading role with the university student’s principal role. Teachers should fully mobilize the enthusiasm and initiative of university students. The teacher is the director, and the students are the actors. The teacher is the planner and guide of classroom teaching and the training of students’ thinking, while the students are the specific implementers and practitioners of classroom teaching. Teachers must do everything possible to stimulate students’ curiosity, sense of fun, and spirit of exploration, so that students enjoy the learning process and the great interest in exploring truth and researching science. Learning is better than being taught, and enjoying learning is better than merely learning. Therefore, students will learn happily, increase knowledge, broaden horizons, enlarge their vision, elevate their realm, cultivate their character, train their thinking, discover problems, condense thoughts, perfect their personalities, enrich their spirits, cherish life, love life, and remain optimistic and upward-looking. The improvement of these comprehensive qualities is inseparable from the transformation of teaching thinking modes. Exam-oriented education and spoon-feeding teaching seriously suppress the healthy growth of students! They are education that destroys human nature and talent! They are education that violates the laws of talent growth! They are education that deviates from the laws of education and teaching, and they must be abolished as soon as possible.

In specific teaching, I believe the following thinking modes should be possessed: heuristic thinking, analogical thinking, expansion- contraction thinking, divergent thinking, multidimensional thinking, circle-jumping thinking, associative thinking, convergent thinking, systematic thinking, practice thinking, breaking thinking, shell-breaking thinking, exploratory thinking, order thinking, institutional thinking, strategic thinking, layout thinking, game-setting thinking, game-breaking thinking, imaginative thinking, dream thinking, strategic thinking, innovative thinking, open thinking, cross-border thinking, cross-disciplinary thinking, win-win thinking, altruistic thinking, critical thinking, multi-directional thinking, reverse thinking, platform thinking, team thinking, integration thinking, sales pitching thinking, leveraging thinking, branding thinking, docking thinking, partnership thinking, goal thinking, flat thinking, internet thinking, logical thinking, financial thinking, heart quotient thinking (filial piety, love, kindness, sincerity, beauty, honesty, confidence, determination, stability, gratitude, responsibility, compassion, mercy, ambition, sunshine, loyalty, helpfulness, conscience, justice, ambition, aspiration), spiritual quotient thinking, moral quotient thinking, artistic quotient thinking, will quotient thinking, fusion thinking, legal thinking, bottom-line thinking, scientific thinking, return-to-truth thinking, seeking-difference thinking, seeking-change thinking, dialectical thinking, problem thinking, happy thinking, democratic thinking, core thinking, 80/20 thinking, root-and-branch thinking, simplicity thinking, imagery thinking, rational thinking, positive thinking, negative thinking, historical thinking, harmonious thinking, cooperative thinking, integration thinking, first-mover thinking, proactive thinking, wolf-pack thinking, prisoner thinking, leveraging thinking, tailor thinking, prodigal thinking, domino thinking, questioning thinking, lateral thinking, perspective-taking thinking, track-switching thinking, convergent thinking, addition thinking, subtraction thinking, multiplication thinking, division thinking, experiential thinking, heterogeneous thinking, transplantation thinking, detachment thinking, efficiency thinking, execution thinking, reasoning thinking, forward-looking thinking, decomposition thinking, 和田 method thinking, value-added thinking, three-dimensional thinking, limit thinking, Tai Chi thinking, symbiotic thinking, mutual generation thinking, U-shaped thinking, enterprising thinking, in-depth thinking, inspirational thinking, interactive thinking, dynamic thinking, management thinking, linear thinking, curved thinking, plane thinking, digital thinking, exploration thinking, positioning thinking, second-speed thinking, descriptive thinking, storytelling thinking, generalization thinking, induction thinking, deduction thinking, inference thinking, decision-making thinking, strategic thinking, theorem thinking, focus thinking, individuality thinking, harmony thinking, group thinking, unity thinking, Dao thinking, contradiction thinking, resolution thinking, crisis thinking, poverty relief thinking, world-saving thinking, gratitude thinking, etc. Due to space limitations, I will only discuss a few cases of teaching thinking reform combined with my teaching practice.

Heuristic Thinking

In specific teaching practice, setting up doubts to trigger student thinking is crucial. To inspire students is to open the windows of their wisdom and excavate their brain mines. For example, in 1998, in my first class of “Philosophy of Life” for the Class of 1997 Computer Science majors at the Shaanxi Vocational Education Center, I raised the following questions for students to discuss and then answer: 1.How do you define “human”? 2.Where do you come from, and where are you going? 3.Why are you alive? 4.What is the meaning of your life? 5.How do you plan to live? 6.Who is the star figure in your heart? Why? 7.What is a worldview? What is an outlook on life? What is a value system? 8.What is the difference between an outlook on life and a value system? 9.As university students in the nineties, what kind of worldview, outlook on life, and values should you possess?

The students discussed actively and enthusiastically, earnestly exploring the value of life, achieving very good heuristic teaching results, and their thinking was effectively trained.

Analogical Thinking

Analogical thinking, in specific teaching practice, is conducive to students opening their minds, broadening their horizons, and connecting relevant knowledge points into chains. It is also beneficial for training university students’ analogical thinking. For example, in 1998, while teaching the specialized course “History of the People’s Republic of China” to undergraduate students of the Class of 1996 Ideological and Political Education major at Shaanxi Normal University, I raised the following questions for students to discuss: 1.Compare and analyse the historical background and significance of “Resolution on Certain Historical Issues of the Party” and “Resolution on Certain Historical Issues of the Party Since the Founding of the People’s Republic of China”; 2.Compare and analyse the historical significance of the Zunyi Conference and the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee;3.Compare and analyse the historical background and reasons for the emergence of Wang Ming’s “Left” Adventurism and Right Opportunism;4.Compare and analyse the similarities and differences in the main contents of the Third Plenary Session of the 11th, 12th, and 14th Central Committees of the Party; 5.Compare and analyse the differences between the “Land Reform” of 1952 and the “Land Reform” of 1978? 6.Compare and analyse the differences between the modernization goals proposed by Zhou Enlai in 1964 and those proposed at the Party’s 13th National Congress in 1987? Why are there these differences? 7.Compare and analyse the connections and differences between Mao Zedong’s “Oppose Book Worship” (May 1930) and Deng Xiaoping’s “Emancipate the Mind, Seek Truth from Facts, and Unite as One in Looking to the Future” (December 1978)? What were their respective influences in driving different historical processes, and what profound historical and political influences did they respectively produce?

Expansion-Contraction Thinking

Expansion-contraction thinking is extremely important in specific teaching practice. For example, in 1999, while teaching the course “Introduction to Mao Zedong Thought” to undergraduates at Chongqing University, I trained students in expansion-contraction thinking. I asked students to summarize and analyse: What were the subjective and objective conditions for the emergence of Mao Zedong Thought? What constitutes the content system of Mao Zedong Thought? What constitutes the theoretical system of the New Democratic Revolution?

For example, I guided students to analyse that the objective conditions for the emergence of Mao Zedong Thought could be summarized from aspects such as era conditions, class conditions, social conditions, historical conditions, practical conditions, theoretical conditions, ideological conditions, cultural conditions, and international conditions. Regarding the theoretical system of the New Democratic Revolution, it could be analysed from the following veins: What was the roadmap (general line) of the revolution? How was the revolution conducted (specific revolutionary path)? What were the experiences for revolutionary success (Three Magic Weapons)? What was the blueprint for the new society after revolutionary success (economic, political, and cultural programs)?

In 1999, while teaching the course “Introduction to Deng Xiaoping Theory” to undergraduates at Chongqing University, I similarly trained students’ expansion-contraction thinking. Focusing on how to sort out the framework of the theoretical system of socialism with Chinese characteristics, I specifically raised the following questions for students to discuss and answer: What is the theoretical essence of socialism with Chinese characteristics? Why? What constitutes the economic theory of socialism with Chinese characteristics? What constitutes the political theory? What constitutes the cultural theory? When discussing the composition of the economic theory system, I specifically raised the following questions: What are the economic development strategies? What theories exist regarding economic system reform? What theories exist regarding opening up to the outside world? When discussing economic system reform theory, I raised the following questions: What theories exist regarding the planned economy system? What are the differences between the planned economy system and the market economy system? Why implement a market economy? What is the formation and development process of the market economy? How to view the advantages of the market economy and market failure? How should the government conduct macro-control? What has been the process of SOE reform? Where are the difficulties? What problems exist in rural reform? How was the financial system reformed? How is the interest rate marketization reform being promoted? How is the exchange rate marketization reform being promoted?

Divergent Thinking

The application of divergent thinking in specific teaching can further open students’ minds. For example, in 2004, while teaching the course “Academic Thoughts of Nobel Laureate Economists” (which I independently developed) to undergraduates at Chongqing University, when discussing the outstanding public choice economist Buchanan who won the Nobel Prize in 1986, I inspired students to discuss and answer the following questions: 1. Why does a free-market economy fail? How to solve the problem of market failure? 2. Buchanan’s Public Choice Theory actually proposes that rent-seeking behaviour similarly leads to government failure. Why? How to solve government failure? 3. Regarding China’s increasingly severe environmental pollution, is it market failure or government failure? 4. Mancur Olson, a main representative of the Public Choice School who did not win the Nobel Prize, proposed in “The Logic of Collective Action” that the “free-rider behaviour” universally existing in public life seriously affects economic efficiency. Please connect with reality and discuss why the economic phenomenon of “one monk fetches water to eat, two monks carry water to eat, three monks have no water to eat” occurs?

Multidimensional Thinking

Guiding university students to think about problems from multiple dimensions, angles, and levels is crucial for training their multidimensional thinking. For example, in 2005, while teaching the course “Contemporary Western Economic Thoughts” (which I independently developed) to undergraduates at Chongqing University, when discussing Keynes’ national income determination model, I raised the following questions for students to think about, discuss, and answer:

1. Influenced by Keynes’ effective demand theory, the post-war Western world generally experienced a boom. For this reason, Keynes was known as the father of post-war prosperity. Yet, guided by Keynesian economic theory, why did the Western world subsequently experience the deterioration of the simple Phillips curve into an aggravated Phillips curve? How to view Keynesian economics from multiple dimensions? Since the reform and opening up, has China faced the problem of a Keynesian economics trap?
2. Connecting with China’s actual economy, discuss why there is a problem where the employment situation for university graduates has gone from serious to severe to harsh, while on the other hand, there is a labour shortage in the southeastern coastal areas? What are the reasons for the distortion of the labour employment structure? Please use multidimensional and multi-perspective analysis to analyse this economic phenomenon?
3. The era of China’s demographic dividend from reform and opening up has ended, and the aging era is arriving. Regarding the changes in China’s population structure, what economic problems will it lead to? What changes will the emergence of the Lewis Turning Point bring?
4. Connecting with China’s actual economic problems, use the Laffer Curve and Mirrlees’ optimal tax structure theory to analyse how China’s tax structure can be optimized? Use the Feldstein Curve to analyse the relationship between the Chinese government’s fiscal deficit, inflation, and capital formation rate?
5. Using Baumol’s Square Root Law, Whalen’s Cubic Root Law, and Tobin’s Portfolio Model, connecting with the reality of China’s capital market, how can we analyse China’s financial phenomena and financial problems? How to solve these financial problems?

Circle-Jumping Thinking

Regarding circle-jumping thinking, the Northern Song Dynasty literary giant Su Dongpo’s poem: “Viewed sideways, it becomes a range; viewed from the side, it becomes a peak. Different from afar and near, high and low. One does not know the true face of Lushan, only because one is in this mountain,” tells us that to see the essence and truth of things, one must jump out of one’s own professional or industrial circle. Only then can one view problems relatively comprehensively and concretely. Otherwise, the view will be biased and fragmented!

For example, in 2006, while teaching the course “History of Western Economic Thought” (which I independently developed) to undergraduates at Chongqing University, I applied circle-jumping thinking in specific teaching, guiding students to think about and discuss problems:

1. What were the seven revolutions that occurred in the history of Western economic thought? Why did these seven revolutions occur? Jumping out of the problem of economics, analyse the social and historical conditions for the occurrence of the seven economic thought revolutions from the multiple perspectives of politics, society, culture, and thought?
2. Is the origin of Hayek’s economic liberalist thought merely from Adam Smith’s classical economics to Marshall’s neoclassical economics? If classical economics originated from Quesnay’s Physiocratic School, and Quesnay’s ideological origin came from where? To answer this question, one must jump out of the circle of Western economics and analyse it from the perspective of Chinese cultural history, analysing the ideological enlightenment Quesnay received from the Huang-Lao school’s thought of inaction.

Associative Thinking

Associative thinking can train students’ ability to infer other cases from one instance. In specific teaching, one must be good at inspiring students, allowing them too constantly associate.

For example, in 2010, while teaching the course “Introduction to Finance” (which I independently developed) to undergraduates at Chongqing University, in the specific teaching process, I used associative thinking to raise the following questions for students to think about, discuss, and answer:

1. What are the causes of inflation in China in recent years? Why are there these causes?
2. Analyse what economic problems Wen Jiabao’s 4 trillion stimulus plan in 2008 might bring?
3. How to view the financial phenomenon of the RMB depreciating internally while appreciating externally? Why does this phenomenon occur? How to solve this phenomenon?

Convergent Thinking

Thinking about problems must focus light! It must have a width of 1 kilometer and a depth of 1000

...kilometers. Focus, focus, and focus again!

For example, on October 30, 2017, while teaching the course “Introduction to Mao Zedong Thought and the Theoretical System of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” to undergraduates at Chongqing University, leading students to study and research the 19th Party Congress Report, we must repeatedly converge. Every sentence of the report must be deeply analysed and understood; we must read through the many contents behind the words of the report.

For example, regarding the “New Era” in the new term “Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era,” where is it “new”? Why is it called a New Era? What are the signs of entering a New Era? For example, where is the “newness”? We can continue to excavate, because it involves a new economy, new politics, new culture, and new thought. We can continue to explore in depth: What constitutes the new economy? New economic development concepts, new economic development strategies, new stages of development, new economic contradictions, new economic models, new economic structural adjustments, new economic development ideas, and new economic policies, etc. We can then continue to explore further: The new development concepts are innovation, coordination, green development, openness, and sharing. Regarding innovation, we can further explore: How can we advance from being a manufacturing giant to a manufacturing power? Why must we transform from “Made in China” to “Created in China”? What are the factors hindering China’s innovation? For instance, one factor is the existence of problems in intellectual property protection, with many pirated and knock-off versions. As for the reasons why Britain became the empire on which the sun never sets, besides better intellectual property protection and the analysis in Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, what other factors are there? Therefore, just from the single term “New Era” in the “19th Party Congress,” we can expand and analyse a great deal of content.

Systematic Thinking

Science can be divided into three fields: natural sciences, social sciences, and systems science. However, China is relatively weak in professional settings and research studies in the field of systems science; in some aspects, it is still a blank space or a blind spot. For example, systematic teaching thinking is likely lacking in the majority of university teachers. Researching professional issues from the perspective of systems science is even more scarce.

For example, in teaching Macroeconomics, students should be guided to discuss: How do changes in macroeconomic policies issued by our government affect the economic audience? And how does US dollar policy affect China’s macroeconomic policy? And what factors influence changes in US dollar policy?

Another example is in the teaching of the course Financial Risk Management, where risks and their causes can also be incorporated into a system to learn and discuss various risk issues. Credit risk, market risk, liquidity risk, operational risk, legal risk, and policy risk can each be treated as a separate system for individual exploration. Within market risk, interest rate risk, exchange rate risk, and stock price risk can each be treated as a separate system for learning and exploration.

Breaking Thinking

Mao Zedong pointed out at the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee of the Party in 1949: “We are not only good at breaking an old world, but we must also be good at building a new world.” Mao Zedong was not bound by old customs, old habits, old forces, old orders, old frameworks, old dogmas, or old thoughts. He was good at breaking the shackles of old habitual forces, breaking dogmatism, opposing book worship, overcoming rigid conservatism, criticizing empiricism and subjectivism, abstaining from various forms of formalism, constantly renewing thinking modes, eliminating the old and bringing forth the new, and leading the Chinese people to continuously achieve new victories in revolution and construction.

The story of Sima Guang breaking a water vat to save a drowning child when he was seven years old is an example of breaking thinking. Breaking thinking is also “changing brain” thinking; it is changing previous ways of thinking, breaking all outdated conventions and bad habits. In other words, it is emancipating the mind; it is also Mao Zedong’s thinking of seeking truth from facts. It means breaking the shackles of habitual forces and subjective prejudices, studying new situations, and solving new problems. It allows ideological concepts to break through the imprisonment and binding of old habitual forces, combining the thinking consciousness of the subjective world with the changed objective reality, overcoming those “habitual thoughts” and “subjective prejudices” that do not conform to reality, and creatively transforming the objective world with a developmental and changing viewpoint.

So, what old thinking modes need to be broken? Break old concepts, break old knowledge frameworks, break old habits, and break old systems.

In 2000, when I taught the meaning of the term “Emancipating the Mind” in Chapter 2 of Introduction to Deng Xiaoping Theory (the Party’s ideological line) to undergraduates at Chongqing University, I had to combine history to explain breaking thinking.

During the period of the democratic revolution, Mao Zedong constantly broke traditional thinking modes and had the courage to carry out struggles within and outside the Party.

He broke the ideological ban of Chen Duxiu’s “Theory of Two- Stage Revolution” and Right-capitulationism for the first time, maintaining the independence of the Communist Party and the revolutionary leadership of the proletariat; he broke the ideological fetters of Wang Ming’s Left-opportunism, which held that the proletarian revolution must rely on urban armed uprisings to achieve victory, for the first time, opening the first Jinggangshan rural revolutionary base, allowing the sparks of revolution to grow into a prairie fire; he broke the military myth of avoiding becoming the second Shi Dakai amidst the dangerous situation of the Wujiang natural barrier and Chiang Kai-shek’s encirclement and suppression through the Four Crossings of the Chishui River.

To sum up, thinking about problems is more important than solving problems! The depth of learning is directly determined by thinking ability! The driving force of thinking ability comes from the power of thought! In an era of change, to cultivate innovative talents and enable outstanding talents to grow more scientifically, freely, comprehensively, and harmoniously, we must reform traditional teaching thinking, break the bad habit of teachers performing monologues and lecturing from start to finish, have the courage to reform teaching thinking, comprehensively train university students’ various thinking abilities, so as to comprehensively improve teaching quality and enhance the various qualities of university students.

Yunqing Zhang, male, Han ethnicity, native of Shangcai County, Henan Province, holds a Master’s degree, and is an Associate Professor at the School of Marxism, Chongqing University. He has presided over nearly 20 ministerial/provincial-level projects and horizontal projects, and has published more than 20 papers. He has independently developed and taught the following courses for fulltime undergraduates at Chongqing University: Academic Thoughts of Nobel Laureate Economists, Contemporary Western Economic Thoughts, History of Western Economic Thought, Introduction to Finance, Marxist Political Economy, and Introduction to Mao Zedong Thought and the Theoretical System of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. Courses taught for adult education and self-taught examination students include: Public Relations and Marketing.

Main areas of learning and research are as follows:

1.Learning and research on Miao culture; 2.Learning and research on the expansion and variation of the Luoshu Square; 3.Learning and research on ancient Chinese military thought; 4.Learning and research on Chinese and Western history and culture; 5.Learning and research on Daoism, Confucianism, and the I Ching; 6.Learning and research on the theory of Sinicized Marxism; 7.Learning and research on the history of Western economics and finance; 8.Learning and research on frontier theories of contemporary Western economics and finance; 9.Learning and research on various arts of calculation such as Qimen Dunjia, Ziwei Doushu, Da Liuren, and Taiyi Shenshu.