Learning from the Field

Across China, university staff, researchers, students, and farmers are joining forces to bring to the fore action and field-based learning as a way to promote rural development studies. Learning from the Field: Innovating China's Higher Education System presents first-hand experience and lessons from an innovative, participatory curriculum development initiative in China. It includes the content of two novel courses, 'Community Based Natural Resource Management' and 'Participatory Rural Development'. The first versions of these courses were delivered at the College of Humanities and Development of the China Agricultural University in Beijing in the spring of 2005 and at the Jilin Agricultural University in Changchun in the spring of 2006. The book showcases the manner in which innovative ideas about curriculum reform are born, put into practice, and further refined through a joint experiential learning-by-doing approach. The book highlights participants' motivations and perspectives, the nature of their participation, the challenges encountered, and the results obtained. The book draws on the personal experiences of the authors and the findings of the action research that guided the process. This book will be of interest to teachers of rural development, facilitators and researchers, as well as to scholars, practitioners, and managers active in higher education, curriculum development, international development, learning studies, and Chinese or Asian studies.