(Reported by Shen Yanhua) At 2:00 pm on December 28, the fifth special training of the professional capacity enhancement program for teachers of the School of Arts and Communication was held in the Academic Auditorium 1104 of the School of Arts and Communication. The theme of this training was "New Liberal Arts Construction - Continuous Renewal of Teaching and Research Ability", with Professor Xin Xiangyang, a distinguished long-term professor of Tongji University and former dean of the School of Design of Jiangnan University, as the main speaker. Professor Gui Yuhui, Dean of this School, presided over the training and all faculty members and some students attended.
Starting from the current situation of design thinking and design education, Prof. Xin Xiangyang discussed from various levels of design-doing-making, and analyzed in depth the leap from design that cannot be implemented to design at the strategic level, as well as the commonalities and characteristics of horizontal and vertical design in many fields such as automobiles, home appliances and furniture in various periods, with special reference to the concept of service design.
Later, with the actual reform case of building the Design Major of Jiangnan University in to a Class-A discipline in a relatively short time, he vividly elaborated the doubt that the students trained by the big design concept would not become the jack of all trades. The principles followed in design, such as green principle, safety principle, and fairness principle, were also vividly explained with practical cases.
Finally, Prof. Xin cited the opening of the IB-MYP design course in international high schools as an example, which triggered deep thoughts among university design educators, so the importance of design thinking and design education was self-evident.
In the interactive session, many teachers and students seized the rare opportunity to ask Prof. Xin Xiangyang questions, such as the development bottleneck of design in the context of the new liberal arts construction in engineering colleges, and the employment of students, etc. Prof. Xin Xiangyang gave full answers.
The students and teachers present said that they benefited a lot from the training.
