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A Case Study On Classroom Instruction In Integrated Science Education

Posted on:2005-12-17Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:F F ZhouFull Text:PDF
GTID:2167360125965196Subject:Curriculum and pedagogy
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By the autumn of 2001, the eighth curriculum reform has come to a start. The Outlines of Curriculum Reform in Basic Education points out the objectives that need to be achieved. Therein, the instructional objectives are: (1) to shift curriculum functions; (2) to keep curriculum structures balanced, integrated and selected; (3) to connect curriculum contents with the real life; and (4) to facilitate students to improve their learning methods. Driven by the international tendency in curriculum reform, integrated science curriculum has been tried out in junior middle schools in China with the purpose to achieve the objectives mentioned above. The Outlines of Curriculum Reform in Basic Education indicates that it is supposed to enhance the integration of curriculum content, to fade away the boundary between subjects, to connect curriculum contents with student experiences, and to transfer knowledge an methods from one subject to another. The districts truing out integrated curriculum still face up to much more difficulties than those carrying out separated curriculum because separated curriculum has been in a dominant position since the PRC was founded.The documents concerning science curriculum mainly compare the single period with curriculum reform, which contributes to the understanding of science curriculum and to the spreading of curriculum conceptions. However, it is confined to the static research, which is of little use of communicating fully with the teachers in the long term. The author, as a postgraduate from Center for School Curriculum Research and Development in Guangxi Normal University, is vested the chance to go inside the district trying out integrated science curriculum for two years. The author relies on qualitative methods to do the research about the implementation of science curriculum with the help of the teachers in the experimental districts. Based on continuous investigation, the thesis presents the events taking place in the classroom over nearly two months, and then reveals the problems and the underlying causes.The thesis starts from the origins, methods and procedures of the research. Then the thesis presents the typical science class, and describes classroom organization, emotion cultivation and skills training. Later on the problems are listed out such as inadequacy of inquiry learning, inefficiency of the instruction, one-way communication between the teacher and students, and classroom disciplines. Finally the thesis points out the solutions by means of comparing the ways two teachers deal with the same materials. There is no doubt that external evaluation (e.g., High School Entrance Examination) determines how flexibly teachers can organize activities in their own classroom. However, the key factor is the shift in curriculum conception.Science curriculum is often associated with activities by mistake so that students are forced into various activities in the science classroom. As a result, teachers tend to deviate from curriculum objectives, and more worse, organize activities for the sake of themselves. As a matter of fact, teachers are suitable for science curriculum. Only when they deepen their understanding about the nature of science, the nature of education and the goals of science curriculum. Therefore, teachers need to study theory, reflect practice, and more importantly, act as the researchers. Teachers are encouraged to reflect instructional process, and to absorb the newborn conceptions that will influence their own instructional theory and practice.In the absence of time, energy and new conceptions, teachers tend to repeat simply what textbooks and reference books say rather than organize the science classroom creatively, thus held back by the problems mentioned above. Based on the theories of constructionism, teachers are supposed to get to know students' previous experiences and cognitive schema, to design the instructional context in the light of students' interest and motivation, and to conduct classroom activities interactively at a reasonable speed.
Keywords/Search Tags:science curriculum, curriculum experiment, qualitbtive research, activities, instructional design
PDF Full Text Request
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