Research on University History Course Design and Cultural Heritage under the Empowerment of AI Technology: Teaching Innovation Practice Using the History of Silk Road Cross-Cultural Exchange as a Starting Point
Research on University History Course Design and Cultural Heritage under the Empowerment of AI Technology: Teaching Innovation Practice Using the History of Silk Road Cross-Cultural Exchange as a Starting Point Haimei Hu 1*, a；Yu Fang2,b 1. Tongling University, tongling, Anhui,244061,China; 2. Anhui Mobile Tongling Branch,tongling,Anhui, 244000, China aEmail: 13965218693@163.com bEmail: 13965208530@139.com Abstract：With the rapid iteration and widespread penetration of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, the traditional teaching mode of college history courses is facing profound transformation and innovative upgrading. As a core carrier of ancient Eurasian cross-cultural communication, the Silk Road boasts rich historical connotations, diverse cultural elements and distinctive cross-border communication characteristics, which makes it an ideal entry point for the innovative reform of college history teaching and the inheritance of traditional culture. Traditional college history curriculum teaching has long been constrained by rigid curriculum design, single teaching methods, fragmented cultural interpretation and limited interactive scenarios, resulting in students’ superficial understanding of cross-cultural historical connotations and weak cultural inheritance awareness. This study takes the cross-cultural exchange history of the Silk Road as the research carrier, explores the innovative path of college history curriculum design empowered by AI technology, constructs a systematic, interactive and intelligent curriculum teaching system, and verifies the practical value of the teaching innovation model through teaching practice experiments. The research aims to break the bottlenecks of traditional history teaching, realize the deep integration of AI technology and history curriculum teaching, enhance college students’ cross-cultural historical cognition and cultural identity, and promote the creative inheritance and innovative development of Silk Road cross-cultural heritage and traditional Chinese excellent culture. This paper adopts literature research, experimental teaching, comparative analysis and case study methods, sorts out the current situation and dilemmas of college history curriculum teaching, constructs an AI-empowered curriculum design framework, formulates targeted teaching implementation strategies, and summarizes the practical effects and optimization directions of the new teaching model. The research results show that the integration of AI technology can effectively optimize the curriculum structure, enrich teaching resources, expand teaching scenarios and improve teaching efficiency, which provides a new theoretical reference and practical path for the reform of college history teaching and the inheritance of regional cross-cultural heritage. Keywords: Artificial Intelligence Empowerment; College History Curriculum; Curriculum Design; Cultural Inheritance; Silk Road; Cross-Cultural Exchange History; Teaching Innovation 1. Introduction 1.1 Background of The Times: Intelligent Technology Reshapes History Education Ecology In the era of digital economy and intelligent education, artificial intelligence, big data, virtual reality and other emerging technologies have comprehensively penetrated into all links of higher education teaching, fundamentally changed the traditional teaching logic, resource presentation form and knowledge transmission mode, and promoted the transformation of higher education from traditional knowledge indoctrination to intelligent personalized cultivation[1]. The Ministry of Education of various countries has successively issued policies to promote the deep integration of intelligent technology and discipline teaching, emphasizing the need to use digital technology to activate traditional discipline resources, innovate talent training modes, and enhance the modernization level of higher education teaching[2]. As an important basic discipline of humanities and social sciences, history undertaking the important mission of inheriting historical context, spreading cultural genes and cultivating cross-cultural literacy, bears irreplaceable educational value in college talent training. However, traditional college history teaching has obvious lag in the context of intelligent education. Most history courses still adopt the teacher-centered indoctrination teaching mode, with single curriculum content presentation, solidified teaching links, and lack of in-depth exploration of cross-cultural connotations and interactive experience design. Especially in the teaching of cross-cultural exchange history represented by the Silk Road, due to the characteristics of long time span, wide spatial coverage, diverse cultural types and complex exchange mechanisms, traditional teaching is difficult to present the dynamic evolution process of cross-cultural communication, resulting in students’ difficulty in forming a systematic and three-dimensional historical cognition. The application of AI technology provides a new breakthrough for solving the above problems[3]. Intelligent analysis, virtual restoration, personalized push and data visualization functions of AI can activate fragmented historical resources, restore real historical scenes, and realize accurate teaching matching, which injects new vitality into the innovative development of college history teaching and cultural inheritance. 1.2 Research Significance: Theoretical Innovation and Practical Value Coexist In terms of theoretical significance, this study takes the cross-cultural exchange history of the Silk Road as the specific research object, constructs a theoretical system of AI technology empowering college history curriculum design and cultural inheritance, makes up for the deficiencies of existing research in the combination of intelligent technology and cross-cultural history teaching, and enriches the theoretical research results of intelligent humanities education and historical cultural inheritance. At the same time, it clarifies the internal logic and action mechanism of AI technology acting on history curriculum optimization, teaching mode innovation and cultural inheritance dissemination, and provides a new theoretical perspective for the interdisciplinary integration of artificial intelligence and history education[4-6]. In terms of practical significance, this research designs a set of operable and replicable intelligent teaching schemes for Silk Road cross-cultural exchange history courses, which can effectively solve the pain points of traditional history teaching such as boring content, single form and shallow cultural interpretation. Through intelligent teaching practice, it can help college students systematically sort out the context of Silk Road cross-cultural communication, deeply understand the integration and innovation of diverse cultures in the process of ancient cross-border communication, enhance cultural self-confidence and cross-cultural communication ability, and realize the effective inheritance of Silk Road cultural heritage[7]. In addition, the innovative teaching model constructed in this study can be extended to the teaching of other cross-cultural history courses in colleges and universities, providing practical reference for the digital transformation and innovative development of college history education. 1.3 Research Framework: Logical Hierarchy and Technical Route Unify This study follows the research logic of “problem analysis – model construction – practice verification – summary optimization”. Firstly, it sorts out the current research status and practical dilemmas of college history curriculum design and cultural inheritance under the background of intelligent education, and clarifies the necessity and feasibility of AI technology