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The public notice of the Announcement on the Third Batch of National First-class Undergraduate Courses released by the Department of Higher Education of the Ministry of Education of the People’ s Republic of China ended on August 29. The course, Drawing from Life, hosted by Associate Professor Cheng Dongling from the School of Architecture of Guangzhou City University of Technology (GCUT) was selected as one of the national first-class courses on social practice, marking that GCUT has made a breakthrough in the construction of national first-class courses. Moreover, it mirrors that GCUT stays consistent with talent cultivation as its core while deepening its educational and teaching reforms.

The announcement

Associate Professor Cheng Dongling, who is in charge of the course, Drawing from Life, has delved into aesthetic education for over 20 years. She is the host of the second batch of workshops on aesthetic education guided by outstanding teachers in Guangdong province and the first batch of workshops on “boosting rural revitalization through advancing aesthetic education in villages”. She also won the first prize in the Basic Teaching Skills of Aesthetic Education of Guangdong Province. Her team (including faculty members Zhang Liang, Gong Chen, Luo Xiangling and Duo Duo) plays an active part in carrying forward the spirits of the construction of first-class courses issued by the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China to improve the mechanisms of aesthetic education, deepen the reform on aesthetic education and explore social practices through approaches such as “integration of interdisciplinary majors”, “supporting by outstanding teachers”, “implementation of multi-level aesthetic education” and “various ways of aesthetic education” with aesthetic education of architecture as the basis combining the core concepts of workshops on aesthetic education guided by outstanding teachers in Guangdong province that “aesthetic education on architecture drawwing on Lingnan culture while educational innovation empowers rural revitalization”. During the period of the course construction, Cheng Dongling hosted 3 provincial-level teaching reform projects and 3 university-level ones; and established 4 teaching bases on social practices for college students in Luochang Village, Langtou Village, Youling Village and Liannan Vocational and Technical College, that in Luochang Village among which is rated as a provincial one. Furthermore,  she published a provincial-level excellent teaching material Light Colors of Lines based on the course.

Focusing on the features of architecture, the course Drawing from Life guides students to concentrate on traditional villages in Lingnan area. With “aesthetic education drawing on Lingnan culture, and making its achievements boost rural revitalization” as its focus, it has made achievements in “drawing from life, cultural and creative products, survey on local conditions and customs, and building surveying and protection”. It aims to foster students’ sense of social responsibilities and professional skills, while helping to advance rural revitalization.

Workshops on aesthetic education guided by outstanding teachers was presented with plaque by the Guangdong Provincial Department of Education

Works of the course Drawing from Life were shown in Youling village

GCUT has adopted various measures to promote the construction of first-class courses in recent years, including building a four-level system of course construction featuring “qualified course--university-level quality course--provincial-level course--national-level course”. It has established around 260 university-level courses and 26 provincial-level undergraduate courses, which has laid solid foundation for pursuing national-level courses. Moreover, it plays an active part in harnessing artificial intelligence to improve teaching and accelerate the development of smart education. Higher-order thinking, creativity and challenge of courses have been improved since 152 courses initiated the reform of artificial intelligence empowering courses so far. GCUT also provides funds for faculty who participate in the course construction and recognize it as their workload. Achievement in the course construction is related to the professional title evaluation for faculty, so as to clarify its significance in their evaluation, encouraging its faculty to carry out teaching reforms.

GCUT will keep deepening the construction of smart courses in the future to optimize the mechanism of talent cultivation, strengthen the effects of technologies empowering teaching and improve incentive policies, thus advancing more quality courses to embrace better development. In this way, it can cultivate more high-quality application-oriented talents to serve national strategies and regional development.