小天文单位开展研究型教学的尝试

清华大学天体物理学科的历史短,师资队伍规模小,但是从事天体物理研究的学生很多.在满足开设面向全校的天文学普及课程和天体物理入门课程的需求的情况下,清华大学天体物理学科的主要任务是培养高级研究型人才.因此清华大学天体物理中心的基本策略是基本上不开设在北京地区其他主要天文单位已经开设的天体物理基础课程,鼓励学生在需要的情况下在其他单位选修课程.清华大学只开设和天体物理前沿研究关系密切的高级研究型课程,使学生在上课的同时进行天体物理前沿的研究.

EXPLORATORY PRACTICE FOR RESEARCH-ORIENTED TEACHING IN A SMALL ASTRONOMICAL INSTITUTION

Tsinghua University started the astrophysics program only about three years ago. However the number of students doing research in this program has increased tremendously in contrast to the small faculty body in the program. In addition to teaching the popular level astronomy course for all students in the university and the introductory astrophysics course for science and engineering students, the fundamental role of the astrophysics program in Tsinghua is to train advanced researchers. Consequently our strategy is not to teach basic astrophysics courses which are already taught in other main astronomical institutions in Beijing, but to encourage Tsinghua's students to take these courses in these institutions when needed. Therefore in Tsinghua we normally only teach advanced research-oriented courses closely related to the research frontiers of astrophysics so that students can carry out research work while taking these courses. In this paper our exploratory practice in these aspects is introduced.