Integrating Oral History into University Curriculum Teaching: Constructing a New Educational Paradigm of “Community Memory Practice”

Abstract

Currently, higher education is actively advancing the construction of “New Liberal Arts” and emphasizing the concept of “practice-oriented education”. Against this background, how to organically integrate academic training, social care, and the cultivation of students’ comprehensive abilities in traditional history teaching have become a practical challenge. This study focuses on the reform of university oral history courses and proposes a “community memory practice” teaching model. This model deeply integrates the collection, interpretation, and inheritance of local historical memory into teaching, promoting the transformation of teaching from “knowledge transmission” to “literacy development” and “community participation”. Taking Zhaoqing, a national historical and cultural city, as the practice field, we guide students to conduct in-depth exploration of local history from dimensions such as spatial changes, the polysemy of events, and the living inheritance of intangible cultural heritage through oral history interviews and field investigations. Practice shows that this model not only helps cultivate students’ historical empathy, critical thinking, and field research capabilities but also promotes the transformation of academic achievements into public cultural products, achieving a win-win situation for education, practice, and services. This study aims to provide an operable and promotable teaching plan for the reform of oral history and related humanities courses in universities.