ABSTRACT

Currently, there are three undergraduate majors in College of Culture and Media of Sichuan University of Arts and Sciences, namely, cultural industry management, broadcasting and hosting, and radio and television director. Those three majors are all applied ones, which require the improvement of practical teaching in the process of major construction and student cultivation. Practical teaching system is under construction in College of Culture and Media, which mainly consists of course practice, project practice, industry practice, social practice and competition practice.

Keywords:

Sichuan University of Arts and Science, College of Culture and Media, Practical Teaching System

1. Introduction

Currently, there are three undergraduate majors in College of Culture and Media of Sichuan University of Arts and Sciences, namely, cultural industry management, broadcasting and hosting, and radio and television director. Those three majors are all applied ones, which require the improvement of practical teaching in the process of major construction and student cultivation. Nowadays, higher education in China includes full-time doctoral candidates, full-time master degree candidates (academic and professional master), part-time master degree candidates (academic and professional master), full-time bachelor’s degree in the second, full-time undergraduate (a four-year and five-year undergraduate through admission of college entrance examination and two-year undergraduate through admission of national examination for three-year college), full-time three-year college (vocational college) [1] . Education mentioned in this paper is a full-time undergraduate. Core courses of College education are of great value in cultivating students’ humanism, scientific thinking, worldview and spiritual inspiration.

2. Course Practice

Course Practice mainly includes the practical content of core courses of general education, which consists of academic activities, competition activities, social practice activities, innovation and entrepreneurship activities, association activities, and cultural and sports activities; Practical content in basic courses of general education; Practical content in basic professional courses; Practical content in core professional courses; Integrated practical courses; Interdisciplinary practical courses. The building methods of practical content of each category are as follows:

2.1. Core Courses of General Education Are of Great Value in Cultivating Students’ Humanity, Scientific Thinking, Ideological Vision and Spiritual Inspiration

The formation of these abilities and qualities requires not only the imparting of relevant knowledge, but also student’s involvement in practice, which needs teacher to introduce practice into the core courses of general education. For example, Introduction of Art for students major in cultural management, broadcasting and radio and TV editing in College of Culture and Media should include the content of appreciating, creating and imitating major-related paintings. In order to emphasize practical teaching, the syllabus of each core course of general education must consist of relevant practical content and teaching procedures.

2.2. Practice Courses of General Education Aim at Cultivating Students’ Practical Ability, Scientific Thinking Ability and Innovative Spirit, and Improving Students’ Ability of Raising, Analyzing and Solving Problems

The arrangement of those courses aims at cultivating students’ comprehensive practical ability, laying a solid foundation for the cultivation of their professional practical ability [2] . College of culture and media adopts the following methods to develop practice courses of general education: first, invite experts, scholars and famous entrepreneurs in related field to give lectures and reports, and encourage students to attend those activities by giving 2 credits if their attendances reach 30 times within four years. Relevant rules are stipulated; second, introduce innovation and entrepreneurship practice course into teaching system. In order to achieve this goal, experts in the field should be invited by university authority to give courses to cultivate students’ basic innovative ability, and College of Culture and Media should invite professionals of related field to give courses based on the real condition of one specific field in order to create a real environment for students to practice their abilities. The College of Culture and Media plans to have the following innovative and entrepreneurial practice courses: Culture, and media market research, how to look for the vacancy in culture and media market, how to develop culture and media products, how to sell culture, media products, the daily management of the start-up culture, media companies, etc. These courses are conducted in a relevant enterprise or related business field.

2.3. Practical Content in Basic Courses of General Education and Basic Professional Courses

Those courses provide general knowledge and skills for students from three aspects: subject, major, and profession. Those courses include general knowledge and skills of their majors, while general knowledge serves for obtaining basic skills, which calls for knowledge with corresponding practice, meanwhile, the basic skills of these courses can be developed into practice in order to let students master those skills by involving in real environment, in this way they can understand general knowledge of their majors in return. Take the basic course principles of management of cultural industries management for example, it highlights its practical part from the following steps, first, adopt case study in imparting the theory of management; second, create real situation in class to make student involved in the practice of decision-making, organizing, leading, and controlling management; third, set up a simulated company to enable students to experience the whole process of management personally [3] .

2.4. Integrated Application Course Enables Students to Apply Professional Knowledge and Skills Learned to Practice, So As to Master Those Knowledge and Skills, and Prepare for Future Career

Based on the real situation of College of Culture and Media, we plan to offer general comprehensive application courses and specific course. The general comprehensive application courses include development of media and cultural products, creation and marketing of film and television advertisements, planning, production and marketing of shows, planning and operation of wedding activities, planning and production of publicity films of enterprises and institutions, etc. Take the comprehensive practice courses of culture industry management department as example, “there are the planning and building of water park of Dazhou, the development and marketing of Ba Culture products of Dazhou, the development and marketing of campus culture product, and the planning and building of public space culture of enterprises and public institutions― based on the planning of teaching area culture of College of Culture and Media” (Figure 1). The construction of comprehensive practice courses can be carried out by different teaching teams. Every teacher can should the responsibility of building one course based on her own speciality and the arrangement of their College. Meanwhile, each teacher can form his own teaching team and submit this course’s practical achievement. In the next five years, College of Culture and Media plans to build 10 comprehensive application courses.

2.5. Interdisciplinary Practical Courses Aim at Cultivating Students’ Inter-Disciplinary Talents

In order to achieve this goal, College of Culture and Media plans to integrate its three majors to develop interdisciplinary practice course from the perspective of media industry chain, such as “planning and operation of TV program, planning and marketing of student major in culture management, broadcasting and interview of student major in broadcast, and video and production of student major in broadcasting and hosting” (Figure 2). Meanwhile, different colleges of Sichuan University of Arts and Science can cooperate to develop interdisciplinary courses, for example, College of Culture and Media intends to cooperate with College of Arts and College of Computer to design course design, development, production and marketing of culture products, cooperate with College of Chemical Engineering to design course brand building of produce of Dazhou, cooperate with College of Music and Performance to design course development and marketing of Ba culture program.

3. Project Practice

If the course practice is still far behind the real one, then the project practice is closer to real one, that is to say, the project practice is not class teaching, but the real life experience [4] . The teaching resources of project practice mainly come from the following aspects:

3.1. Teachers’ Project

These projects include teachers’ academic or applied researches. College of Media and Culture plans to introduce teachers’ projects into practical teaching, that is to say, each student must choose at least one project practice to participate within four years university study and get credit. Teacher with project can offer optional course to all student in university or use other ways to encourage students to participate in their project.

3.2. College Studio Project

In College of Culture and Media, there are “reading salon hosted by Mr. Liu Shu and thinking salon by Ms. Hu Zhengli” (Figure 3), which are all run by students, and the operation of both salons are carried out as part of teaching activities. College of Media and Culture plans to open 10 or so studios in the next five years, which will be run in market-oriented manner. Those 10 studio are mandarin training studio, celebration planning studio, culture space building studio, AD planning and production studio, network programme production studio, culture media, new media marketing studio and culture and media consulting studio, etc.

3.3. Introduction of Outside Project

Outside projects include projects from teacher hired from other universities, projects from practice bases, projects from company founded by College of Culture and Media, innovation and entrepreneurship projects at all levels, and student academic research projects and so on. In addition to the guidance of hired teachers, College of Culture and Media will assign one teacher for each outside-introduced project. Students can choose any project they want and obtain corresponding credits. College stipulates regulation “management method of project practice of the College of Culture and Media” for those projects. It intends to establish companies operated in market-oriented manner [5] . Those projects of those companies will be open to teachers and student. Whoever interested in those projects can form a team to compete with other teams, and each team is in the charge of one teacher. College spares no efforts to encourage students to participate in innovation and entrepreneurship activities at all levels, and strives to apply for 20 provincial innovation and entrepreneurship projects and 10 national ones in the next five years.

3.4. Virtual Project

Virtual project is a simulated project created according to syllabus. Currently, there are two virtual practice projects in College of Culture and Media, namely, simulated culture company and simulated studio. In the next five years, it plans to develop two more virtual projects, namely, exhibition company aiming at developing two offline and online exhibition platforms to deal with business of culture and media products; brokerage company engaged in human resources intermediary services and promotion of human resources of culture media industry.

4. Industry Practice

Industry practice refers to the practice activities experienced by students who enter the corresponding industries to engage in specific work. Industry practice teaching mainly includes the following aspects:

4.1. Case Study

There are case studies from relevant industries in teaching process, such as case study of culture industry, analysis of domestic famous TV program, analysis of domestic famous television program and so on. College of Culture and Media plans to introduce case study into class teaching, meanwhile, invite experts in relevant industries to give one lecture or a series of lectures of certain majors.

4.2. Industry Observation

Currently, three undergraduate majors of College of Culture and Media are new ones, and the development of the corresponding industries change dramatically over times, which requires students and teachers to keep pace of the fastest trends. Therefore, it is necessary for them to have industry observation, which is the important part of practice teaching. College of Culture and Media should arrange each industry observation carefully. Industry observation should carried out with specific goals, guidance from professional team. Moreover, each group need to undertake different tasks, and display their achievements. In the next five years, College of Media plans to set up more investigation tours to certain target industry, and try to establish a long-term cooperation relationship with those industries. Department of culture management plans to have investigation “tour of Xi’an Qu Jiang cultural industrial park, ancient streets and ancient towns of Chengdu, Chengdu West sugar and wine exhibition and Shenzhen Dafen oil painting village. Broadcasting and radio department plans to have investigation tour of Hunan TV Station, Sichuan TV Station, and Chongqing TV Station”. Figure 4 is the group photo of students from College of Culture and Media after their Industry Observation of Xi’an City, Shaanxi Province.

4.3. Industry Internship

Industry internship refers to the process during which students work in specific positions of one company. The purpose is to let student put theory into practice in order to master the knowledge better. Industry internship mainly involves the construction of internship basement and the management of internship. Currently, the internship basements of College of Media and Culture are limited to TV stations in Dazhou and nearby cities. In the future, College of Culture and Media plans to establish relationship with Xi’an Qujiang Culture Park, Chengdu Wenlu group, Hengdian film and television group, Chengdu exhibition center, Hunan TV Station, Dazhou TV and Sichuan TV Station. During internship, College of Culture and Media will design the practice manual explaining arrangement of internship in detail.

5. Social Practice

Social practice is a kind of organized practical activity that aims at helping students know the society better by participating in social activities. College of Culture and Media plans to normalize voluntary summer social practice activities, and develop special social practice in teaching process. Department of culture management plans to have the activity of “protection and development of non cultural heritage of your hometown” and “survey of culture product market of hometown”. Department of hosting management means to have the activity of “plan one event for the community” and “host one celebration event for friends and family”; Department of broadcast and editing plans to launch the activity of “video the life of a common person of your hometown” and “plan one program for TV station of your hometown” and so on.

One or two teachers will be assigned to be responsible for the social practice teaching. Each student needs to choose a tutor who will be involved in the whole process to guide students to present the achievements of their social practice activities. Finally, College of Culture and Media will hold an exhibition to display all achievement of social practice.

6. Competitive Activities

Competitive activities refer to those activities aiming to achieve the goal of practice teaching. Every student is encouraged to take part in any activity they like. College of Culture and Media adopts “the trinity” models, and this model should have rules before completion, innovation as the key element during competition, and reflection after completion. Those elements work together to make competitive activities a full circle in order to make contribution to students’ practical ability. Nowadays, students in College of Culture and Media are less involved in the professional competitions outside, mainly focusing on photography competition, host competition of Dazhou TV, the marketing competition and university art festival. Generally speaking, until now there are few practical competitions for our students. In the next five years, College of Culture and Media plans to improve students’ practical ability through professional competitions. First, it will sort out the relevant influential competition and understand these events in detail. Next, it will spare no effort to help student participate in those competitions. Finally, build some famous competitions on campus to attract student from other colleges to get involved.

7. Conclusion

The above mentioned all belong to the practical teaching system of College of Culture and Media. They are complementary to each other, which requires systematic construction and management.

Acknowledgements

Xiaoxin Jia expresses her appreciation to Mr. Wang Chengduan, Party Secretary of Sichuan University of Arts and Science, for the enlightenment from his academic report “deepen the comprehensive reform of education in higher education and strive to improve the quality of University Student”.

Fund

This paper is sponsored by Dazhou Social Science Research Center, named The Path and mode of the Integrated Development of Tourism Industry and Creative Industry of Dazhou.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper.

Cite this paper

Jia, X.X. (2018) An Analysis of Practical Teaching System of College of Culture and Media: A Case Study of Sichuan University of Arts and Science. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 6, 298-306. https://doi.org/10.4236/jss.2018.69020

References