The Faculty of Education and Physical Education of Yangtze University (Faculty of Teacher Education) grows out of the former Faculty of Education and Faculty of Physical Education. At the heart of the faculty are 140 faculty members, including 122 full-time teachers. Among them, there are nineteen professors and fifty-three associate professors who contribute significantly to teaching and research. Thirty of them are master’s supervisors, and two are doctoral supervisors. Two teachers have received Zeng Xianzi Education Fund Awards, and one teacher has won the candidature for the third level of Hubei Provincial New Century High-level Talents Project. In addition, two teachers have been awarded the provincial excellent teachers. Also, five teachers have been titled international judges and six are national judges. Nineteen teachers have the experience of being academic visitors to well-known international universities. The faculty accommodates scholars of various educational backgrounds and academic perspectives. The full-time teachers are from more than twenty universities and scientific research institutes, such as the Institute of Psychology of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing Normal University, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Central China Normal University, Beijing Sport University, Wuhan Sports University and so on.
The faculty of Education and Physical Education offers five undergraduate programs: Applied Psychology, Pedagogy, Preschool Education, Physical Education, and Social Physical Education Guidance and Management. The faculty provides Master’s Programs in Pedagogy (first-level discipline) and Physical Education (first-level discipline) as well as Professional Master's Programs in Physical Education and Education. One key provincial discipline of pedagogy (first-level discipline) and the university-level characteristic discipline group of "Modern Education and Jingchu Culture Studies" have also been established. The faculty contains the Department of Education, Department of Psychology, Department of Preschool Education, Department of Physical Education, Department of Social Sports, Department of University Physical Education, Department of University Sports Competition, Sports Center of Wuhan Campus, and Applied Psychology Experimental Teaching Center. The faculty is also the home to university-level research institutions such as the Psychological Education and Training Research Center for Reserve Forces, Teacher Education Research Center, Physical Education Research Center, and Jingchu Sports Culture Research Center.
In recent years, the full-time teachers in the faculty hosted ninety-four scientific research projects at the provincial and above level, including eight national social science fund projects, nine Humanities and Social Science Fund projects funded by the Ministry of Education, three national education scientific planning projects, three state general administration of sports projects, one state ethnic affairs project, one group central project, six projects supported by the Hubei Provincial Social Science Fund, one project supported by Ministry of Education on college Teaching Laboratory safety as well as eight Hubei Provincial Higher Education research projects. Fifty monographs have been produced and thirty-five textbooks have been edited. 491 academic papers have been published, including forty-two CSSCI papers, 112 core journal papers, and twenty foreign journal papers.
The faculty adheres to the central idea of moral cultivation, developing students through all-encompassing and multi-channel training. To be more specific, the talent training system is based on a talent training concept of “San ji, Si shi, yi chuang, er neng” (meaning Three Basics - basic theory, basic knowledge, and basic skills; Four Virtues for being a student and a citizen - being solid, being honest, being simple, and being realistic and pragmatic; One Creative mind; and Two abilities- practical ability and adaptive ability).
The faculty continues to serve local education reform and regional economic and social development. Extensive industry-university-research cooperative education has been carried out by signing cooperative education agreements with local education and sports departments, enterprises and scientific research institutions to establish talent training bases. The faculty assists the local government in formulating education development plans, cultivating outstanding graduates, and helping co-operating agencies set up various scholarships. Since 2014, the faculty has undertaken the training tasks of the “National Training Plan” from the Ministry of Education and the “Provincial Training Plan” of the Education Department of Hubei Province every year, and more than 3,000 teachers have been trained. Based on the disciplinary advantages, the faculty, together with the joint forces, has held fifteen training sessions for reserve officers. More than 1,000 key teachers who work in the mental health field in primary and secondary schools have been trained to achieve effective mental health education. The faculty has also carried out more than twenty well-being and counseling lectures for the students who are going to attend the College Entrance Examination and Middle School Entrance Examination. Many teachers participate in the physical training of local primary and secondary schools, and serve as referees for various sports events. The faculty also undertakes social service programs such as the national physical fitness test, national sports industry directory survey, and sports site survey.
