Research On Practical Education

Currently, China has made enormous achievements in basic education. However, basic education of China is still facing many huge crises and challenges. We need to re-explore the relationship between practice and development of students through pedagogical stance.Looking through existed literatures in China, our study on practical education manifests these characteristics:research of practical education in basic education is still very weak; existed research of practical education is not deep enough; ideas of research is not wide relatively; methods of research is undiversified. Abroad especially in Europe and the United States, researchers from the mid-19th century began to study practical education. Reviewing their current literatures, the research of practical education in Western developed countries shows following characteristics:long history’ research on practical education, wide range of research on practical and attaching much importance on practical education.Research methods of this thesis include reading literature, questionnaire survey, interviews, cases study, observation of class and activity. It will discuss related issues of practical education through international comparison. In addition, it will reflect practical education in China through two lines of history and today’s current situation. In particular, it will reflect the situation of twelve years about the implementation of Comprehensive Practical Activity Curriculum in China. It will develop along with the line of research:what is practical education, why should we study practical education and how to promote practical education in China. It is made up of eight chapters.Practical education is one of education thoughts tides, which is booming in the world. It has at least threefold of meanings. At the low layer, practice education is a kind of educational measure and method, and it is often linked with practical activities. At the middle layer, practical education is a kind of curriculum system and education system. At the high layer, practical education is a kind of education philosophy that students can develop through practice. Three layers of meaning of practical education is progressive and linked closely. The features of practical education include:student as the subject in practical education, practice-oriented, practical activities as the carrier in practical education, aim at developing student’s practical ability and comprehensive quality.Generally speaking, we were on the road of "book first" in the long-term historical stage in ancient China. After the foundation of New China, labor courses and craft courses were formally chosen in the curriculum of primary and secondary schools in China. During the “Cultural Revolution”, practical education went towards the extreme. After the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of Chinese Communist Party, basic education went back to normal track. However, during this period, atmosphere of examination-oriented education started to grow and spread. Since1999, China has announced a series of major education policy documents, which call for strengthening students’ practical education in primary and secondary schools. The results of questionnaires survey show that China’s primary and secondary schools should change their ideas and increase much emphasis on students’ practical ability, we should provide plenty of practice learning opportunities for students to improve their practical ability, and we should take effective measures to promote development and implementation of comprehensive practical activity curriculum and other practical courses.Life education theory illustrates the close link between education and life. It gives good inspiration to practical education that we promote not only campus outside practice but also school practice, and practical activities should accord with the interests and needs of the students. Subject education theory demonstrate the subject position and role of student in education and bring a lot of inspirations to practical education that we should develop fully students’ initiative and emphasize the team work in students’ practical learning activity. Practice philosophy theory lays a solid philosophical foundation for practical education, which points out that practical activities is very important avenue of student development. It also inspires us that we should guide students to master theoretical knowledge in practice learning activity and conduct scientifically hands-on learning activities and avoid reckless activities. Activity education theory tells us that practical activity is important mechanism of students’ development. It stresses students’ outside and inside behaviors and argues that students can develop through all kinds of activities.Today, in the process of practical curriculum development in China, there are some problems that many people don’t attach importance to practical curriculum, the types of practical curriculum are not plentiful, content of practical curriculum lacks graduation and systematic designation, and teachers haven’t many theories and technologies of practical curriculum development and so on. Development of practical curriculum is a complex work. For instance, subjects of curriculum development include not only teachers and students but also maybe involve laboratory’s personnel, practice base’s personnel, other community agency’s personnel and students’ parents. Objectives of practical curriculum are the start point of practical curriculum development, which plays a directional role in the development and implementation of practical curriculum. Objectives of practical curriculum arise mainly from three sources:requirements of society to students, educational goals of schools, students’ situation and characteristics of physical and mental development. As explicit curriculum and formal curriculum, development of practical curriculum must follow general pattern and technical operation procedure of curriculum development. Implementation strategies of practical education include:classrooms inside and outside penetrate mutually each other, all disciplines cooperate mutually each other, comprehensive practical activity course plays a leading role, and schools make an overall arrangement for practical education, and community provides all-round support for practical education. Forms of teaching organization of practical education include individual student activities, team work activities, and whole class activities and so on. Teacher-student relationship in practical education should be a relationship of equality and cooperation, and should avoid dominant relationship between them.The subject of curriculum evaluation in practical education was teacher before, which made subject of curriculum evaluation simplified and is not helpful to scientific and comprehensive evaluation. In curriculum evaluation of practical education, every subject of curriculum evaluation may play important role, including teachers, students, and other subjects of evaluation. Teachers can take a variety of evaluation methods, including process evaluation, diagnostic evaluation and summative evaluation. Evaluation methods of student include students’ self-evaluation and peer evaluation. According to different kinds of evaluation content, they can be divided into three main areas, namely fields of experience, fields of skills and methods, fields of emotion, attitude and values.