基于学术共同体的《风景园林学前沿》教学模式

A Teaching Model for Frontiers of Landscape Architecture Based on Academic Community

关键词:  风景园林  研究前沿  学术共同体  教学模式  教学设计

Key words:  landscape architecture  research front  academic community  teaching model  instructional design

摘要:

为提升风景园林博士研究生教育的前沿性与创新性，探索如何以学术共同体为核心，促进学生对研究前沿的理解与认知。以华南理工大学《风景园林学前沿》博士课程为对象，通过分析课程的教学组织结构与学生作业内容，梳理学生如何分析真实学术组织在研究前沿形成中的机制与模式。研究显示，课程通过引导学生围绕具体学术共同体进行观察与分析，帮助其逐步理解研究前沿的意义，提升学生在学术情境中辨识前沿、理解议题、形成判断的能力。结果表明，以研究前沿为内容核心、以学术共同体为方法路径的博士课程模式，有助于构建风景园林博士研究生对学科发展的认知，增强其对风景园林学科的认同感，该教学模式为风景园林博士教育的高质量发展提供理论依据与教学经验。

Abstract:

At present, the discipline of landscape architecture has not yet formed a mature theoretical and methodological system, and it still lacks a solid disciplinary structure and unified academic consensus. Strengthening the discipline's autonomy and self-evidence has therefore become an urgent task for the field. Academic communities play a key role in achieving disciplinary autonomy and self-evidence. From the perspective of talent cultivation, how to enhance young scholars' ability to enter and integrate into academic communities has become an essential issue. Doctoral education, in particular, should actively guide students into authentic academic communities, cultivating their abilities to understand research frontiers, engage in critical discussions, and generate new knowledge. This study takes the doctoral course Frontiers of Landscape Architecture at South China University of Technology as its research object and proposes a teaching model grounded in the concept of the "academic community". The course adopts "research frontiers" as its core content and "academic community" as its methodological approach, aiming to help doctoral students acquire the skills needed to trace scholarly dynamics, evaluate academic outcomes, and generate new knowledge within authentic academic settings. By systematically reviewing the course's organizational structure, assignment design, and evaluation mechanisms, this study analyzes its functions and effectiveness in doctoral education. The theoretical foundation of the course consists of two interrelated components: "research frontiers" and "academic communities". As the core of the course, research frontiers are dynamic domains of knowledge constructed through clusters of highly cited papers and their citation networks, representing the most active and influential directions of disciplinary development. These frontiers - such as "hot" and "emerging" fronts - reflect the combined effects of societal needs and the internal evolution of disciplinary theories. Academic communities, in turn, are the driving force behind academic research and the advancement of disciplinary frontiers. They are composed of scholars who share common beliefs and goals, unified terminologies, shared value norms, and collaborative mechanisms. Within such communities, research frontiers are identified, validated, and disseminated, providing solid theoretical support for the course design. In terms of instructional design, the course integrates thematic lectures, student presentations, peer-review sessions, and academic seminars to simulate authentic academic processes and strengthen students' research awareness and scholarly judgment. Students are required to conduct case studies of specific academic communities - such as academic societies, professional committees, or research teams - to understand how research topics are identified, organized, and communicated within institutional frameworks. An analysis of student projects focusing on the Cultural Landscape Professional Committee of the Chinese Society of Landscape Architecture reveals that the vertical research lineage and horizontal collaborative network represented by Professor Han Feng and her team vividly demonstrate the essential role of academic communities in sustaining and advancing research frontiers. The study further identifies four primary functions through which academic communities foster the formation of research frontiers: 1) value consensus provides intellectual direction; 2) organizational structure ensures institutional stability and continuity; 3) collaborative mechanisms facilitate topic generation and deepening; and 4) academic exchange activities promote the dissemination and recognition of research outcomes. The findings indicate that the course effectively helps doctoral students develop fundamental academic research abilities and enhances their understanding of disciplinary development trends. Notably, the implementation of the course positively contributes to the construction of disciplinary autonomy and self-evidence in landscape architecture. On the one hand, the processes of research and discussion enable students to gain a clearer understanding of the unique theoretical frameworks, research paradigms, and practical boundaries of the discipline, thereby reinforcing the autonomy of landscape architecture as an independent field. On the other hand, academic discussions and evaluations promote the cultivation of disciplinary self-evidence, allowing students to understand and internalize consensual knowledge and evaluative standards within the discipline. Nevertheless, the study also notes that improvements are needed in course duration, research depth, and evaluation mechanisms to achieve more systematic training outcomes. Overall, the innovation of this study lies in incorporating academic community theory into doctoral course design. Through case-based learning and peer-review mechanisms, it explores a feasible pedagogical approach to cultivating frontier-oriented doctoral education in landscape architecture. This approach helps doctoral students develop an integrated understanding of disciplinary development, enhances their sense of identification with the discipline, and provides theoretical guidance and practical experience for the high-quality development of doctoral education in landscape architecture.