Exchange Project in Vocational Colleges—Taking Guizhou Light Industry Technical College as an Example ()
1. Introduction
In March 2015, The National Development and Reform Commission and other departments jointly promulgated the Vision and Action for Promoting the Co-construction of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, which for the first time proposed that China should strengthen educational exchanges and cooperation with countries along the Silk Road (The National Development and Reform Commission et al., 2015). The short-term cultural exchange project of vocational colleges is a humanistic education exchange activity in response to the top-level design of the country. The year 2021 marks the 30th anniversary of the establishment of dialogue relations between China and ASEAN and the year of “sustainable development cooperation” between China and ASEAN. “Zhi & Xing Guizhou” Silk Road Youth Exchange Programme was officially launched in 2021 as a youth exchange brand project of China-ASEAN Education Cooperation Week. The successful launch and implementation of this program are of great significance to further enhance cooperation and exchanges with ASEAN countries in the field of education and humanities. The 2021 light industry cultural experience activity of Guizhou Light Industry Technical College in the Silk Road Youth Exchange Program of “Zhi & Xing Guizhou” relies on the “high-quality characteristic curriculum module + characteristic industry experience module” to establish contacts with participating universities, which has a strong practical value for the development of international exchange projects of vocational colleges in the post-epidemic period. Therefore, this study plans to be based on the perspective of cultural experience, and the light industry cultural experience activity carried out by Guizhou Light Industry Technical College are specific cases. Through data retrieval, participatory observation, and case analysis, we take the cultural products and learning results of the international youth, the handbook of the research study as research objects. We use rich graphic forms to summarize the experience practices of such short-term cultural exchanges in vocational colleges and provide recommendations for typical cases of short-term international research projects in specialization.
“Zhi & Xing Guizhou” Silk Road Youth Exchange Programme is under the background of deepening reform and opening up of Guizhou education, which has an overall role in enhancing the value and significance of the project. In the research related to education opening up in Guizhou (Li & Li, 2019), Professor and Doctoral Tutor, School of Ethnology and History, Guizhou Minzu University delivered a long article “Research on 40 Years of Educational Reform and Opening-Up in Guizhou” is the most representative and typical. It is a key project of Guizhou Education Department, published in Journal of Guizhou Minzu University (Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition). Their study summarized the achievements of reform and opening-up in Guizhou’s educational policy, basic education, higher education, ethnic education, vocational education and special education in the past 40 years. It is an indispensable reference for understanding the development of Guizhou’s educational reform and opening up in the past 40 years. There are plenty of valuable references for understanding the continuous opening of education in Guizhou such as Ding and Fan (2017)’s thinking on improving the level of opening up of primary and secondary education in Guizhou (Liu & Ren, 2017) discussion on the strategy of improving the level of opening up and cooperation of preschool education in Guizhou, Zhang, Yang, Zhou and Hu (2015)’s SWOT analysis on the integration of Guizhou education into ASEAN education circle. In addition, some comments and reports published by the media on the opening up of education in Guizhou also provide valuable information for understanding the opening up of education in Guizhou, such as the “Guizhou Pace” of Education Opening by Wei (2018), a journalist of Contemporary Guizhou, and the Opening Door to Education by Qiu (2018), a commentator of Contemporary Guizhou.
“Zhi & Xing Guizhou” Silk Road Youth Exchange Program is a brand project of CAECW in 2021. At present, the research on CAECW mainly focuses on the following aspects:
The first is the effect analysis of Education Cooperation Week results. Zhang, Hu and Luo (2015) analyzed the effect of CAECW on promoting “going out” of Guizhou’s education. They believed that the Education Cooperation Week opened up new ideas for Guizhou’s education opening to the outside world, opened up new channels for Guizhou’s education opening to the outside world, promoted the new development of education for foreign students in Guizhou, strengthened the support of the state for the opening up of Guizhou education, enhanced the international awareness of Guizhou college students, promoted the promotion of Chinese in ASEAN countries, and sped up the pace of “going out” of Guizhou education. Chen (2015) believed that CAECW is a new mode of education diplomacy, and summarized the successful experience of deepening and implementing inter-school exchanges and cooperation, training talents with realistic needs as the guide, and actively using media to build brand image. Zeng (2018) summarized the achievements of General Education Forum of Universities along the Belt and Road held in Tongren University in the 11th China-ASEAN Education Cooperation Week.
The second is the study of sustainable development strategy of CAECW. Zhang, Yang and Zheng (2015) discussed the achievements, effects and sustainable development strategies of CAECW. Based on the description of the background and development status of the Education Cooperation Week, they summarized the achievements and effects of the CAECW, sorted out the difficulties and problems faced by it, and put forward some countermeasures and suggestions to promote its sustainable development, and looked forward to its future development. The third is the study of image visual communication strategy of CAECW. Jin and Luo (2020) studied on the media image of CAECW, and discussed the communication strategy of communication weeks in the context of the propagation model upgrade.
The “Zhi & Xing Guizhou” Silk Road Youth Exchange Programme is not limited to students, but also includes teachers, government officials, officials of international organizations, employees of enterprises and individuals. However, it is a university in the province that implements the project, so we can still regard it as a short-term higher education exchange research project. As for relative research on educational exchanges and specific projects, Xiong and Chen (2020) studied Japan’s “Inter-University Exchange Program”, a new initiative to promote the internationalization of higher education. Zhao (2020)’s discussed the development process and enlightenment of Japanese research travel. A series of articles on higher education exchanges and cooperation between China and Mongolia, Greece, Israel, India, Malaysia and other countries along the “Belt and Road” in the 4th issue of University Education Science in 2017 were delivered by Li and Ren (2017). Yang (2017) explored and summarized the practice of Sino-Japanese Advertising Education Exchange Project. All above provide valuable reference and reference for the related research of this topic.
Through extensive collection and careful combing of relevant research results at home and abroad, our research group has not found any results directly based on the research theme or object of Sustainable Development of the Silk Road Youth Exchange Programme in Guizhou. This is mainly due to the fact that the project started in 2021 and the specific activities are in the process of being carried out. There is a long time lag from the development of activity to becoming a research object and making the research results public, so there are no directly related research results. The topic of “Sustainable Development of the Silk Road Youth Exchange Programme in Guizhou” will be brought into the context of Guizhou’s in-depth educational reform and continuous opening up, and restored to the Youth Exchange Brand Project System of CAE CW for examination, with extensive reference to relevant fields and projects. Only by summing up the practical experience and lessons can we accurately grasp the problems and difficulties in the implementation of the project. It puts forward countermeasures and suggestions in line with the opening up and development of Guizhou’s education. Generally speaking, there are few studies that combine relevant theoretical knowledge with such projects for specific case study analysis and presentation, and there are few typical cases of characteristic short-term international research travel project products. There are no directly related research results, but the research in the above three fields provides important reference for this topic from the aspects of theoretical interpretation, research perspective, case study, model construction, and so on.
2. The Cultural Experience Theory
Based on Culture is the core of the cultural exchange in vocational colleges. The international youth experience diverse culture in the process. As a representative cultural exchange project in vocational colleges, the “Zhi & Xing Guizhou” Silk Road Youth Exchange Programme takes international youth as the main participants, takes the light industry cultural experience activities as the core content. The activities are carried out through a model of Theoretical explanation + Practical Training + Production Making. Therefore, this study selects cultural experience as the theoretical research perspective to analyze the theoretical knowledge and practice of the specific cultural experience of the project. The theory of cultural experience was first systematically expounded by Moran (2004) in his monograph Teaching Culture: Perspectives in Practice, which is widely used in the field of cultural education and teaching. Townsend et al. (2015) conducted two quantitative studies to evaluate cultural experience as a learning strategy for developing international managers. Garcia (2019) found that enhancing cultural experience is very important for Latinx students. In Hains and Hains (2021)’s study, cultural experiences are used to introduce students to cultural diversity in a required agricultural education course for undergraduates. Wang (2021) believes that it is very necessary to carry out cultural experience, conduct cultural teaching, and promote cultural communication.
Kolb (1984), a famous American experiential learning master, put forward the concept of “experiential learning theory” and constructed the model of “experiential learning cycle”. Later, Moran, an American scholar in the field of intercultural communication, applied the theory of experiential learning to culture teaching, put forward the “theory of cultural experience” and constructed the “experiential culture teaching” model, which includes four links: participation in cultural experience, description of cultural information, interpretation of cultural concepts and response to cultural self-knowledge. Under the mode of experiential culture teaching, learners interact with these four links respectively, so as to deepen their understanding and perception of the cultural content. Cultural experience is widely used in education and teaching. Specifically, Moran believes that culture is a complex mixture, and to help students learn and understand culture, cultural experience is the core and focus, as well as “an important way of cultural teaching”. According to Moran (2004), the cultural experience consists of the cultural content, the activities in which students engage this content, the outcomes that are intended or achieved, the learning context, and the nature of the relationship the teacher develops with students. Cultural experience is the integration of cognition, practice, understanding and perception. Only by consciously experiencing cultural knowledge, experiencing cultural life, experiencing cultural behavior and forming cultural judgment, can cultural experience be realized, which can be the real cultural experience. To this end, Moran proposed four elements of the cultural knowings framework. They understand the content named cultural information, understanding the method named cultural practice, understanding the reason named cultural concept, and self-awareness named cultural self-awareness. And it can be displayed clearly in Table 1. These four elements are closely related, influence each other and circulate each other, emphasizing the teaching methods, teaching process and teaching objectives.
A core main line of cultural experience theory is emphasizing the “experience growth” of students. Moran believes that cultural experiences have made cultural learning, behavioral practices and emotional regulation, etc., to understand exotic cultures. It can be analyzed that the cultural experience theory emphasizes that in “collision” with exotic cultural lifestyles, learners have consciously obtain
Adapted from Moran (2004).
relevant cultural knowledge and master cultural skills by describing, analyzing, explaining, reflecting activities. Through the containers and different cultures and the existence of foreign cultures, the comprehensive cognition and the correct cultural judgment and cultural view of foreign cultures are formed.
In explaining the theory of cultural experience, Moran enriches the connotation of the concept of culture and puts forward the theory of “five elements of culture”, namely, cultural products, cultural practices, cultural ideas, cultural communities and cultural individuals, and uses “cultural iceberg” to explain the relationship between the five elements. Moran believes that among the five elements, most of the cultural concepts are “at the end of the iceberg” or “below the sea level”, which belongs to invisibility. Cultural products, cultural practices, cultural communities and cultural individuals are all dominant. The five cultural elements are interrelated and interlinked.
The theory of cultural experience emphasizes “the collision with another way of life”. Learners should be conscious participants and active practitioners. Based on the above analysis of the theory of cultural experience, cultural exchange should adhere to the combination of classroom learning and extracurricular practice. The connotation of the cultural experience theory just coincides with the concept of “Zhi & Xing” which means the unity of knowledge and practice in “Zhi & Xing Guizhou” Silk Road Youth Exchange Programme. We find that the structure of cultural experience and the framework of cultural knowledge in Moran’s cultural experience theory are highly consistent with the research arrangement and design of the light industry cultural experience activity, which is carried by the model of theory explanation + training activity + product production by Guizhou Light Industry Vocational and Technical College. The theoretical explanation part solves the problems of cultural content of international young students; the practical training activities solve the problems of cultural activities; and the product production solves the problem of cultural achievements. Thus, a complete cultural experience process is formed. In the process of cultural experience, international youth acquire cultural information by understanding the content, carry out cultural practice by understanding the method, form cultural concepts by understanding the reasons, and form cultural self-awareness by self-awareness.
3. Methodology
In order to analyze the main results of the study more comprehensively and summarize the experience and practice, this study mainly adopts the methods of literature research, case study, participation observation and investigation.
3.1. Literature Research Method
Large relative books articles, journal magazines and dissertations are collected through consultation with CNKI, Surear E-Book, Guizhou Light Industry Technical College Library, etc. We have a preliminary understanding of current cultural experience theory and domestic and foreign education exchanges and cooperation research on China-ASEAN Education Cooperation Week and the education exchange projects between Chinese and foreign countries. On the basis of meticulous reading, we reviewed the research on the opening up of Guizhou education, results analysis of China-ASEAN Education Cooperation Week, Sustainable development strategies and related research on image visual communication strategies and education exchanges and specific projects, etc. At the same time , we analyze and summarize the theoretical framework and viewpoints of cultural experience, which can be provide theoretical support for the research of short-term cultural exchange projects in vocational colleges from the perspective of cultural experience theory.
3.2. Method of Case Study
“Zhi & Xing Guizhou” Silk Road Youth Exchange Program is a youth exchange brand project of China-ASEAN Education Cooperation Week, in which the light industry cultural experience activities carried out by Guizhou Light Industry and Technical College are representative activities of short-term cultural exchanges in vocational colleges. This study selects the light industry cultural experience activities carried out by Guizhou Light Industry Technical College as a case, specifically analyzes the specific practices of short-term cultural exchange projects in vocational colleges from the perspective of cultural experience theory, and explores the achievements, problems and sustainable development countermeasures of Guizhou’s education opening to the outside world and China-ASEAN Education Cooperation Week.
3.3. Method of Participatory Observation
The moderator and some members of the research group are the executors and participants of the “Zhi & Xing Guizhou” Silk Road Youth Exchange Programme. We can go deep into the cultural experience and exchange activities, and obtain information and data. After we carefully observe and record the whole process of learning, and then analyze the theoretical course explanation, cultural practice guidance and cultural product production, the performance of international young students in the whole process of learning, communication, exploration, research and cultural experience. The content of this observation is mainly the content of three sections. They are Guizhou sauce and wine culture experience module, Guizhou batik craft experience module, and Guizhou tea culture experience module.
3.4. Survey Method
This study uses the survey method comprehensively including research visits, depth interviews, and questionnaires to obtain the first-hand research basic materials and data of “Knowledge Guizhou” Silk Road Youth Exchange Program. According to the research framework and observation record, we need in-depth interviews to the international youth participating in the Light Industry Cultural Experience Activity one by one to learn more about teaching effects and student feelings. Eight international youth and three team teachers in 8 countries are interviewed, and each person about 20 minutes is needed for each person. In order to increase the richness and reliability of data, this study also designs questionnaires for this 17 international youth to design question and related appeals to have a more considerate understanding of this event. The data is organized and analyzed to summarize the main results, analyze the experience of this event, provide recommendations for the typical cases of specializing short-term international culture research projects.
4. Research Findings and Discussion
4.1. Description of the Case
Through research and survey, “Zhi & Xing Guizhou” Silk Road Youth Exchange Programme was officially launched in 2021, funded by Guizhou Provincial Department of Education, implemented by Guizhou project universities. This project is is a youth exchange brand project of China-ASEAN Education Cooperation Week (CAECW). 17 universities or colleges are selected to implement the program in 2021. Every year, there will be at least 100 international youth from the countries along “the Belt and Road” to Guizhou to participate short-term exchange research. And they understand Guizhou, enhance friendship, and reach the unity of “Zhi” and “Xing” though the program. On October 18-24, 2021, the Guizhou Light Industry Technical College launched “Zhi & Xing Guizhou” Light Industry Cultural Experience Activity, led by the International College of Guizhou Light Industry Technical College, and the whole school links this event.
Through the participatory observation, this activity based on Guizhou specialty industries and the advancement of the school, has a careful design for the short-term cultural exchange research activity with the framework of light industry culture research experience. The activity content is divided into three major modules, and they all are in the style of theoretical explanation + training activities + product production. The first part is Guizhou Jiang-flavour Spirits Culture Experience Module. This module is based on Guizhou Jiang-flavour Spirits Culture, and the teaching conditions such as the college wine culture exhibition and training workshop to guide the activity participators to enter the wine culture hall and know more about Guizhou Jiang-flavour Spirits culture. The second part is Guizhou batik experience module (shown in Figure 1). In this part, the participators are led to understand the design concept of wax dyeing products and ethnic cultural elements. They personally experience the process of making batik products to provide thoughts and reference for the design and development of tourism products, which is a process of spreading Guizhou colorful ethnic culture. The third one is Guizhou Tea Culture Experience Module (shown in Figure 2). This module leads them to learn about the impact on the cultures of the world of from Chinese tea culture such as Guizhou Wusa roast tea and the brewing skills of Song Dynasty in the background of Belt and Road.
Through the participatory observation, this activity based on Guizhou specialty industries and the advancement of the school, has a careful design for the short-term cultural exchange research activity with the framework of light industry culture research experience. Through contact and recruit, there are 17 international youth and 5 team teachers participating in the activity from Jiangsu Food and Drug Vocational and Technical College, Zibo Vocational College, and Guizhou Minzu University and different countries including Bangladesh, Indonesia, Laos, Yemen, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, etc. And they personally feel the traditional Chinese cultural charm of Guizhou Jiang-flavour Spirits culture, batik crafts, and tea culture. They can experience the spirit of the Guizhou craftsman and perceive the humanistic ecology of unity of “Zhi & Xing” in Guizhou to enhance each other’s friendship.
4.2. Major Effects
“Zhi & Xing Guizhou” Light Industry Culture Research Experience has opened 40 lessons related to the three major modules related to Guizhou specialty industries in 8 countries, and organized 2 doctors and 2 folk national skills inheritance. There is one teacher who is the competition champion of national vocational skill and two college backbone teachers. It mainly has the following results:
First, the activity made the department more international. The project selected the art design system, the light industry, and the batik of the Humanities Department (shown in Figure 1), Tea culture characteristics curriculum (Figure 2) and microbial fermentation (Figure 3). In the new era, through the short-term domestic and international student flow, the international project draws the international association development between the Departments of colleges, using the development of the departments to promote the overall international operation of the college, and enhance the international cultural soft power of the college.
Second, the activities have promoted the internationalization of personnel training. This project is a project with thinking and design triggered by the major of research experience. It makes the talent training programs and standards of the characteristic disciplines of the three key departments of the university into Chinese and English, so as to promote the completion of the task of improving the internationalization level of the “Double High Plan” of the university by the form of the Handbook for Research Study Experience of Light Industry Culture in Guizhou in Chinese and English (Figure 4). It explored a new way to carry out international short-term projects from the project-based teaching design and personnel training mode of research travel itself.
Thirdly, the spread of activities has promoted the internationalization of education. The project has been approved by 17 colleges and universities this year. Each college chooses its own regional discipline characteristics and regional culture advantages to design the project. Guizhou Light Industry Technical College chose the professional cultural knowledge of batik, fermentation and tea culture. As shown in Figure 5, the batik cultural practice conducted by international young students after the batik course has recently been displayed (Figure 6). This kind of cultural project activities guide the students to acquire cultural information, carry out cultural practice, form cultural concepts and cultural awareness through the way of “theoretical explanation + practical training activities + product production”, and then become the promoters and disseminators of Guizhou culture, Chinese culture and local culture, as well as the builders of cultural bridges between China and foreign countries.
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Figure 4. The cover and contents of the Handbook for Research Study Experience.
Fourth, the activities have promoted the internationalization of Guizhou’s cultural dissemination. From the point of view of communication means, the project has adopted the combination of online and offline to disseminate and publicize culture from the start to the implementation. Guizhou Light Industry Technical college has set up a student press corps to publicize and disseminate culture through Wechat Public Account, Tik Tok Platform and College Portal, which has expanded the scope of cultural dissemination in Guizhou. From the specific situation of the implementation of the activity, every student who participates in the activity is an explorer and disseminator of Chinese culture. In addition to receiving the course explanation, the participators not only require each student to choose an aspect of interest, but also tell about Chinese culture and introduce colorful Guizhou to their compatriots in their own country. Moreover, the trainees are required to conduct group research study, report the research and learning results, and present them in their own stylized way. As shown in Figure 7, the trainees are presenting the results in the closing ceremony.
4.3. Experience Practice
Guizhou Light Industry Technical College undertakes the China-ASEAN Education Cooperation Week, which is the first time to implement the internationalization of education project, and is of great significance in the process of internationalization development of the college. The main experiences are as follows:
First, international projects need to focus on all departments and functional departments of the college. The College has set up project leadership group, teaching group, student volunteer service group, reception group, logistics and security group, propaganda group and student special press corps. Among them, the teaching group is responsible for the arrangement of teaching activities and daily teaching management. The student service group is mainly responsible for the education of laws and regulations, daily assistance and so on. The reception team is responsible for transportation, meals, finance, coordination and communication. The logistics and security team is responsible for accommodation, security, network support, etc. The publicity team is responsible for the news publicity and media coverage of the event.
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Figure 7. The closing ceremony of the programme.
Second, international projects need the support of the government and cooperation of colleges and universities, and form a certain normal international interaction with local communities. The 2021 China-ASEAN Education Cooperation Week hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Education and the Guizhou Provincial People’s Government was held in Guiyang, from September 23 to 29. With the theme of “the Education Vision of the Education and One-Building Sustainable Development Cooperation” this year, it designed 24 supporting project activities surrounded with the two line of “overcome difficulties together” and “constantly online educational exchanges”. Among them, “Zhi & Xing Guizhou” Silk Road Youth Exchange Program as a teen exchange brand project has been strongly supported by the relevant government departments, and at the same time, Guizhou Light Industry Technical College and Jiangsu Food Pharmaceutical Professional Technology College, Zibo Vocational College, the three schools of Guizhou University for Nationalities form a close linkage and cooperative relationship with a certain regular international interaction relationship with several colleges.
Third, the implement of the relevant activities has broaden the internationalization of teachers and students in the school, and launched a talent reserve for the declaration of the project. Guizhou Light Industry Technical College organized teachers and students to actively organize and participate in this activity. In addition to the experts and teachers of the teaching group, the college also organized other relevant professional teachers to participate in the auxiliary organization and guidance. In addition, the college also organized the volunteer team to carefully arrange daily activities such as the students’ food, learning, living, and travel. Students were assigned to do a good job in organizing and serving cultural exchanges and learning, and organizing student reporter groups conduct real-time publicity of this event through interviews and participatory reports. These activities have effectively improved the frequency of teachers and students to carry out cultural exchanges in the international youth, broaden the international vision of teachers and students in school.
Fourth, all of the project institutions built platforms, conducted project sustainable experience exchange and discussion, and were committed to forming short-term exchange of solid-state projects in this project. In 2021, there were 17 institutions selected to organize the “Zhi & Xing Guizhou” Silk Road Youth Exchange Program. Our college organized light industrial cultural experience. And Tongren Preschool Education College carried out the Singing Guizhou melody activity. We exchanged the project sustainable experience exchange and discussed with Tongren Preschool Education College, providing ideas for typical cases of short-term international research experience projects. For our college, the development of such cultural exchanges has improved the level of international exchanges in the college and spreads Chinese culture. At the same time, this program can also trigger more international exchange ideas. For example, each college sets project cultural exchanges center, and dispatched teachers to the other colleges and universities to conduct cultural project exchanges and cultural teaching. These initiatives can provide practical foundations for short-term cultural exchanges in vocational colleges.
5. Conclusion
The smooth development of “Zhi & Xing Guizhou” Silk Road Youth Exchange Program opened a new chapter in international exchange cooperation in vocational colleges in the new development period. Through the 2021 Guizhou Light Industry Culture Experience Activity, a successful teaching case of international research management and service was formed, and a set of special research handbooks for international humanities exchange was prepared to provide reference for future international short-term research for education in Guizhou. At the same time, we established an alumni database of international talents for university training, arranged special teachers for the program to keep in touch with the students, did a good job of collecting information and contacting information of the visitors to broaden the international two-way flow channels of teachers and students, strengthen the international communication ability of the region, tell the story of light industry and enhance the international influence of the university with high-quality follow-up and services. The short-term cultural exchange program in higher education institutions is dedicated to letting the participants become conscious cultural learners, active cultural experiencers and rational cultural comparators in cross-cultural exchange through research-based learning, and to be good messengers of national cultural inheritance and dissemination in foreign affairs work of Chinese and foreign cultural exchange education. The successful launch and implementation of the program have laid the foundation and accumulated successful experience for promoting international youth to know China and Guizhou more deeply, expanding the international “circle of friends” of Guizhou education and helping the brand construction of “Study in Guizhou”.
Support
This research was supported by the Project of National and Regional Research of Humanity and Social Science in Colleges and Universities of Guizhou Provincial Education Department “Research on Sustainable Development Countermeasures of ‘Zhi & Xing Guizhou’ Silk Road Youth Exchange Programme” (Project No. 2022GByb002).