| Regarding the big idea as the core to strengthen the bonds of course contents and key competences cultivation is the deeper appeal of fundamental education reform.Based on the previous research,it was found that understanding from the level of order could make up for the disadvantages of Geography and History key competences.It takes into account multiple dimensions including the sensibility and rationality of knowledge,the value and regularity of content.Besides,it benefits teachers cultivating students’ competences by the big idea of spatial-temporal order(STO Idea).Three research questions,namely "how to characterize STO Idea" "how to construct the key items of STO Idea in middle school geography" "how to realize STO Idea’s multiple functions in middle school geography teaching",have been solved by finding and constructing the big idea as well as exploring its teaching with the mixed methods of text analysis,Delphi technology,case studies,and Q methodology that combines questionnaire survey and interview techniques.First of all,STO Idea does not specifically refer to a specific concept,but a big idea characterized as a generalizing model that includes basic components,advanced components,and conceptual components.Undoubtedly,STO is a big idea of the discipline or even inter-discipline,namely a system contains rich thoughts and shows great dominance in contents,ideological methods as well as the opinions of value.Secondly,the construct of STO Idea means the subdivision of its contents /views and then forms a system for geography education.It regards "the real world is ordered from a comprehensive spatial-temporal perspective" as the overarching conception,pointing to the aim that teachers help students to observe the world from space-time integration by competences cultivation based of big ideas.Five sub-concepts under the first-level dimension namely three components were extracted by text analysis of two types based on the general space-time theory and main ideological methodology of Geography,followed by specific items based on the insights of key competences,big ideas and curricula.And then,they were revised by two rounds of expert consultation.Finally,STO Idea was constructed by three components that provide the basis for disciplinary contents,and five sub-concepts(order of spatial-temporal completeness,order of spatial-temporal alignment,order of spatial-temporal coupling,order of spatial-temporal transformation,order of spatial-temporal constraints)as the second-level dimension followed by 15 key items.They point to the realization of many functions in teaching including context analysis,teaching interpretation,teaching design and competences cultivation.Thirdly,the realization of STO Idea’ s many teaching functions are neither out of the existing curriculum system nor regenerating.Besides,transformations are necessary for STO Idea because it does not directly correspond to teaching and learning.For example,grasp the principle of consistency and hierarchy to transform the big idea items into more substantial learning content.On the one hand,it provides a structural scheme for curriculum content,that is,teachers and researchers could organize,reconstruct,replenish,or expand it with an orderly vision of time and space by reorganizing two types of units(elements and regions of the earth’s surface)from three parts,while further exploring the internal constructions of various units based on five sub concepts.On the other hand,it reveals teachers’ teaching philosophies and behavioral preferences.Based on STO Idea and its analysis orientation by making a survey tool of the specific theme(river),this paper chose 45 teachers whose teaching preference showed both heterogeneous and compatibility.Combining factor analysis with interview results,it indicated the teaching preferences of junior and senior high school teachers can be roughly divided into three groups.The survey results,to some extent,support the rationality of the construct of STO Idea and provide empirical data and resources for the following teaching practice.Fourth,based on STO Idea,some common paths and strategies for the teaching design of the geographic unit and competence cultivation were proposed.On the one hand,relying on the three components,STO Idea could be embed in the teaching units wholly including the four key segments,namely determining unit content and teaching theme,condensing expected goals and key issues for its presentation,designing evaluation evidence and learning process,as well as determining self-examination and teaching improvement.On the other hand,unlike the design paths,some overall clues and specific strategies for nurturing the core competencies of Geography were raised respectively based on five sub-concepts which were interacted with their own strong points.Taking the order of spatial-temporal completeness as an example,teachers could use multi-temporal and multi-scale materials to transform abstract time into concrete space-time information helping students to perceive the geographical item as a whole orderly,which is conducive to develop a preliminary comprehensive thinking and regional perception ability.Last but not least,the realization of STO Idea in Geography teaching is a "closed-loop" that based on the relationship between contents,teaching status and itself which gives feedback to the theoretical framework after the implementation.As the implement of "the interrelationship between water bodies in land" as a part of the river unit,this study demonstrated its effects from the aspects of changing teacher concepts,providing teaching ideas.Meanwhile,it puts forward higher requirements for teachers’ discipline literacy and ontology understanding for students to consolidate the knowledge of time-space attributes and time-space ordered thinking.In short,the construction of STO Idea and its teaching realization,as an energetic but challenging theme,has showed its theoretical innovation and practical value from the certain perspective for teachers in this paper. |
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