Exploration on the Teaching Method of Professional Fashion Performance Based on the Model of Capstone Courses

Brigham Young University, the pioneer of the capstone course emphasizes that “students are required to have five skills at the end of the capstone course”. Firstly, teamwork skills: understanding and using effective team processes; optimizing the use of team members; and assisting the team in making the correct decisions [24]. Students should accept and perform tasks effectively; teachers or tutors should provide direct and effective guidance. This link is mainly to inspect and improve the teamwork skills of students and the guidance skills of teachers. The second is presentation and communication skills: formulating effective and concise written reports and project plans, tracking actual progress, multiple exchanges and effective communication with team members, employers, teachers et al. The third is the ability to solve problems, that is, the process of problem analysis, the process of proposing solutions or strategies, the implementation of specific methods or strategies, and method verification. This process can examine students’ accumulation and the practical ability of relevant professional knowledge and skills. Figure 1 provides a detailed chart of the process.

Fig. 1.

This case illustrates the desired competencies of the model for the capstone course but does not describe its implementation. The two cases that follow illustrate how the capstone course can be implemented, namely the basic capstone course model and the capstone course model that requires full student participation.

40 sophomores majoring in fashion design at Soongui Women’s University in South Korea participated in a business capstone course geared at resolving the challenges of ordering from multiple manufacturers. Before the course, the school contacted the business and requested feedback on its demands in order to conduct a task analysis based on those needs. In the end, three companies specializing in women’s clothing products were chosen for cooperation, and the objective was to meet the needs of the partners based on the orders entrusted by the three brands. Company A acknowledged that recently popular and effective use of colors had become the highlight of the new season’s products, but it did not develop the clothing specifics adequately. Brand B desired to create design elements that were distinct from competitors, specifically in terms of color and positioning. The primary focus of Company C’s business is simple and comfortable home wear, necessitating the creation of vibrant and fashionable gorgeous style printing patterns. After the project task was released, students formed groups based on their own interest goals and style preferences through interviews with tutors. Students then developed course planning direction and time allocation and divided responsibilities among team members. Team members performed the investigation and discussion, and the client’s core requirements were reviewed and confirmed. The assigned company’s competitors, market status, and domestic and international trends were investigated. Following the presentation of the specific design concept, development and design was carried out in accordance with the applicable planning scheme. Participants altered and enhanced the original design. In the second meeting, company representatives, teachers, and students revised and enhanced the design. Later, they determined whether the client had accepted the proposed design and held an evaluation meeting.

The procedure of the course in Case 2 can be summarized into six stages, as shown in Figure 2. The first stage of the project is excavation. After identifying suitable partners, the school enters the second stage, which entails the project implementation, by searching for companies or brands to collaborate with. Included during this stage are theme selection, problem solving, and communication. The third stage is the course preparation stage, which involves time planning, course setting, group labor division, course grading, tasks, etc. The fourth stage is to analyze and discuss the problems or tasks of the project, as well as collect the corresponding data and perform other preparatory tasks. The fifth stage is the “problem-solving” stage, which entails putting the solution into practice. The final stage is the admittance of results. From project implementation to admittance inspection, there are four communication dimensions between students and students, students and teachers, students and businesses, and businesses and the school. It will improve students’ communication and teamwork skills, increase their learning enthusiasm, and facilitate their integration into teams and practice projects from the perspective of course design. However, in the design for the capstone course of Case 1, the times of communication are limited, and there are no multiple feedback processes. If feedback nodes can be added, students’ capacity for critical thinking and self-reflection can be enhanced.

Fig. 2.

Case 3 is the capstone course for juniors at Hansei University in Korea who major in textile fashion design. The course includes sustainable fashion education and problem-driven design arrangements for the capstone course. As teaching objectives, the university selected three units. After coordinating time allocation and corporate values, it picked and approached a trading company. This project addressed sales trends and fashion design strategies. A 15-week capstone course was conducted by 5 teams comprised of 29 students over the span of 15 weeks. The client introduced fall/winter 2014/15 products and sales trends, as well as design problems, identified the problems to be resolved and project themes, and then analyzed the solutions that should be sought. To this end, the students were encouraged to consider the cause and effect of problems as well as potential solutions; the study content and study topic were clarified, and a practice plan developed. Each group proposed a solution to the first problem, reported, discussed, and gave feedback.

Implementation procedure of the capstone course in Case 3 provided feedback on the initial solution to the rest of the team, teachers, and partner companies. The practical actions were disseminated, ideas generated, and plans were modified and implemented. The group proposed the second solution, and other team members, teachers, and partner businesses reviewed and provided feedback on it. The group then proposed the final solution, and the cooperative companies and teachers provided feedback after reviewing it. Attendance, class participation, the outcome of the capstone design project, as well as communication skills, oral presentation, and written reporting, were evaluated to determine the outcomes. The researchers summarized the course’s content and drew up the table below to illustrate the course’s general development process: Following the open coding of Case 2, the researchers summarized the fundamental mode and procedure of the course arrangement as depicted in Figure 3. The project was comprised of five major processes: teaching implementation, problem raising, problem analysis, problem resolution, and achievement acceptance. In Case 1, unlike in Case 2, when the questions are posed, the teacher will organize students to complete the pre-project discussion and motivation steps, which will assist them in extending their thinking and enhancing their understanding of the course’s values and themes. Second, in this instance, two group discussion activities were conducted, the subjects of which included other team members, teachers, and cooperative companies, which provided their respective feedback. Students modified the results based on this information, which allowed them to examine their abilities and ideas from an objective standpoint, thereby enhancing their problem-solving skills and practical knowledge. In addition, the school established a theme for the capstone course, namely sustainable fashion, which can enhance students’ social responsibility in the professional field and echo the views expressed in the preceding literature analysis section. The shortcoming is that it failed to evaluate the improvement of students’ skill sets.

Fig. 3.

To sum up, from the perspective of the iterative cycle, link connection and student participation, this study combines the methods proposed in Cases 1, 2, and 3, and proposes a basic framework for implementing the capstone course teaching model with fashion performance major education.

Since the fashion performance major mainly cultivates “three-dimensional” talents in the fashion field, there are many types of professional courses for fashion performance, which are relatively fragmented. At present, the courses offered by relevant universities in China around the major of “fashion performance” are roughly as follows:

“Fashion performance, Dance fundamentals, Performance practice, Cultural broker management, Fashion management and branding, Fashion performance choreography and directing practice, Camera performance, Fashion communication and public relations, etc.” - Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology

“Physical training, Music fundamentals, Dance fundamentals, Fashion show choreography, Performance art appreciation, Fashion photography, Clothing painting, Fashion design, Fabric material science, etc.” -Donghua University

“Fashion performance, Foundation of film and television performance, Performance creative thinking, Advertising creativity, Chinese and foreign fashion history, New media stage and display design, Journalism and communication, Fashion planning and directing, Fashion operation management, etc.” -Guangdong University of Technology

Universities should cultivate all-round talents with theoretical knowledge and practice of fashion performance, fashion design and marketing, so as to ensure that professionals can engage in related work in this professional field, such as designers, performance directors and training lecturers; Secondly, universities should cultivate specialized talents who meet the needs of society and have comprehensive artistic accomplishment. Thirdly, universities cultivate applied senior talents in the fields of fashion performance, fashion design, choreographing and directing models, and image design.

Therefore, the curriculum needs to be interdisciplinary, covering multiple dimensions such as theory, skills, and application, with courses on different disciplines. Due to the particularity of majors and the diversity of courses, a set of systematic thinking and planning is required to effectively integrate and connect fragmented knowledge.

Utilizing the capstone course to teach the fashion performance specialty will provide a more effective solution to the problem of knowledge integration. In the previously proposed operation mode, the surface capstone course focuses primarily on “asking questions, analyzing problems, and solving problems” and repeatedly emphasizes the communication-reflection-improvement-feedback process. It can be viewed as the Receive-Relate-Reflect-Refine-Reconstruct process, depicted in Figure 4.

Fig. 4.

Receive: the acceptance of projects, activities, and experiences, or the undertaking of problems in the capstone course’s setting. This experience may be promoted by the project’s initiator or designer, or it may be the result of the participants’ active acceptance and consideration of issues that arise during the learning or experience process [25][26][27][28].

Relate: during the analysis and resolution of problems or projects in the capstone course, students will connect experience with prior knowledge and combine experiential practice learning with course theory, compelling them to identify the organic relationship between knowledge and knowledge, skills and skills, and knowledge and skills. Unifying disparate subject knowledge is not only the goal of this step, but also the objective of the capstone course. This step is known as “focusing.”

Reflect: in the “communication-reflection-improvement-feedback- process and adjustment, students can reflect and understand somewhat, reflect on their shortcomings, realize their interests and learning ability, explore their strengths, and encourage teaching, which are the characteristics of experiential education.

Refine: in the process of the capstone course, it is necessary to integrate knowledge, skills, theory, and practice, as well as to engage in self-reflection. This refinement process can stimulate further thought, prompt students to draw inferences from a single example, and actively enhance the applicability and interconnectedness of the knowledge.

Reconstruct: based on students’ accomplishments, experience, knowledge, and abilities are integrated into their comprehensive qualities to further improve and consolidate the knowledge system learned in school, and students then master the ability to think independently, work in a team, communicate, and solve problems, so that improvement and progress can be made in a more realistic social context [29]. These five steps can be learned and constructed repeatedly, linking knowledge and ability together. They possess the attributes of inter-disciplinary learning and are able to effectively integrate and apply fragmented knowledge or skills.

The researchers integrated the advantages of the three cases, added the theoretical foundation of the previous literature review, and summarized the mode of operation for integrating the capstone course in the fashion performance specialty. As depicted in Figure 5, the process of the entire mode consists of “teaching implementation,” “project undertaking or problem raising,” “problem analysis, design scheme or solution proposal,” “problem solving, including improvement of the design, strategy, scheme, or product,” which “result in acceptance and evaluation.”

Fig. 5.

The key to the model construction of the capstone course for costume performance is to highlight the attributes of the capstone course: focusing on “problem-solving ability”, “communication ability”, “interdisciplinary thinking” and “process experience”. Based on the above analysis, students’ activities are the main body of the whole model with a core of cultivating students’ communication ability, unity and cooperation ability, innovation ability, learning ability and knowledge integration ability. Students mainly act as “inquirers”, “designers” and “practitioners”.

The specific course design revolves around “problem-proposing, analyzing and solving”. The first step is teaching design, which determines the teaching theme and teaching objectives, the direction of the project to be investigated and the application ability of students’ professional knowledge. Step two, is take on the challenge, where the partner puts forward specific task requirements, clarifies the main problems, proposes evaluation criteria, and plans the specific tasks for the team members. The third step is to analyze and explain. Students should collect information as much as possible, such as market research, stakeholder research, resource integration, data analysis, group discussions, discussions with teachers, discussions with project entrusting parties, etc. They should also analyze the main stakeholders and various influencing factors involved in the project, integrate the knowledge learned, and formulate planning methods or strategies. The fourth step is implementation and improvement. Through further research on challenges and problems, students form a group as a unit to carry out a series of implementation activities to acquire the knowledge and methods needed to complete the task, that is, entering the investigation cycle, acquiring interdisciplinary knowledge, and improving communication skills and problem-solving skills through repeated communication and practice.

This link repeatedly focuses on the “communication-reflection-feedback” process, which is the accumulation and superposition process of knowledge and experience [30]. Meanwhile, the students’ response to problems should be focused on, namely whether they are able to deal with them adequately, their positive values reinforced, and their sense of professional ethics and social responsibility enhanced. This method facilitates the mobilization of a sense of social responsibility and the mission of “educating new people, revitalizing culture, and developing image”. Teachers and project entrusting parties should objectively evaluate students’ achievements, and put forward suggestions and feedback for improvement. In this link, students can self-summarize and again.

The final stage is acceptance and evaluation of the achievement. The final results can be presented verbally, through academic lectures, in writing, on video, in an exhibition, etc. Teachers and project clients should evaluate and provide feedback on students’ accomplishments; at this stage, students can summarise and reflect once more. Later, teachers or school administrators conduct surveys of students, and they are required to select measurement and evaluation methods that correspond with teaching objectives so that students can evaluate the course. The primary focus is on the evaluation and satisfaction with the capstone course, as well as whether knowledge has been attained, which aspects of ability have been enhanced, and the course’s shortcomings. This link can assist the school in continuously adjusting, enhancing, and refining the capstone course, thereby enhancing its ability to provide students with knowledge-based services.

During the design stage of the capstone course, teachers, schools, or relevant departments should formulate curriculum plans, including course duration, time arrangement, and course nodes. Second, the theme and direction of the capstone course are determined by analyzing and summarizing a topic, phenomenon, or tendency relevant to society and the profession field, such as hot topics about fashion feelings, social hot spots, and humanistic care. This process can also be acknowledged as the implantation of values.

The project client can be a company, a brand, an individual, a platform, etc., when undertaking a project. If students have the right connection, they can also make independent choices. When choosing a client for a project, it is essential to pay close attention to the communication of specific details. The assignment topic should align with the professional scope of the students and the values of the subject. After contacting the project’s entrusting party, subject division and group division are carried out depending on the needs of the entrusting party or course arrangement, including the assignment of tasks to group members.

Courses can span in duration from two to four months and be conducted in teams. The following types of projects can be grafted:

Hold a fashion show. In the fashion industry,a fashion show is the most predominant and direct practice of presentation. For students majoring in fashion performance, a fashion show is a form of practical activity to which they are most exposed, involving various aspects: theme, keynote choice, costume collocation/design/presentation, makeup and modeling design, stage design, stage management, model presentation, lighting, music, sound, duration, model, costume planning and arrangement, field control, publicity, etc. The organizers of fashion performances must possess not only concepts and creativity, but also design, coordination, communication, practical, and management skills in order to ensure that the ideas can be realized. Courses related to it include Fashion show, Dance and Body Principles, Etiquette, Makeup and Modeling, Lens Display, Photography, Media and Public Relations, Stage Design, Broker Management, Stage Director, Fashion Design, Fashion Color, Fashion Painting, Fashion Pattern, Three-Dimensional Cutting, etc. The theme of the fashion show may be determined by the students or by the client’s requests. For instance, the theme may be based on a particular aspect of traditional Chinese culture, and students are encouraged to design, produce, or create a collection of clothing in accordance with the theme. Students may also organize their own fashion performances. From the initial planning, design, and implementation to the final stage presentation, they are required to complete the project as a team rather than as “T stage models,” hence they must engage in independent learning, creation, and production, hold a fashion show and invite related teachers or seasoned professionals for the acceptance, evaluation, and feedback of the final product.

Although the projects described in the preceding links are differentiated, they all revolve around “asking questions, analyzing problems, and solving problems”. Students should collect as much information as possible during the problem analysis phase, including market research, stakeholder research, resource integration, data analysis, group discussion, discussions with teachers, and project clients. This mode establishes multiple communication and feedback links during the problem analysis and resolution process. If the teacher or project client does not approve of the proposal, there will be repeated communication, feedback, and revisions until it is accepted. This link repeatedly focuses on the “communication-reflection-feedback” process, which is the accumulation and superposition process of knowledge and experience. Meanwhile, the students’ response to problems should be concentrated on, namely whether they are able to deal with them adequately, the students’ positive values reinforced, and their sense of professional ethics and social responsibility enhanced. This method facilitates the mobilization of a sense of social responsibility and the mission of “educating new people, revitalizing culture, and developing image”.

The final stage is acceptance and evaluation of the achievement. The final results can be presented verbally, through academic lectures, in writing, on video, in an exhibition, etc. Teachers and project clients should evaluate and provide feedback on students’ accomplishments; at this stage, students can summarize and reflect once more. Later, teachers or school administrators conduct surveys of students, and they are required to select measurement and evaluation methods that correspond with teaching objectives so that students can evaluate the course. The primary focus is on the evaluation and satisfaction with the capstone course, as well as whether knowledge has been attained, which aspects of ability have been enhanced, and the course’s shortcomings. This link can assist the school in continuously adjusting, enhancing, and refining the capstone course, thereby enhancing its ability to provide students with knowledge-based services.

In addition to students, teachers, schools or relevant departments, project partners, and consultants are also involved in the course implementation process. They have their own tasks and responsibilities, but there are also corresponding achievements. The specific work arrangement and achievements of each role are shown in Table 1.

The course always focuses on improving students’ overarching quality, cultivating their teamwork ability, expression and communication skill, problem-solving skill (thinking ability, professional knowledge and skill reserve, knowledge and application skill), etc. Helping students develop correct values, professional ethics, and social responsibility is the core teaching goal of the capstone course in the fashion performance specialty teaching curriculum.