An Action Research On Developing A School-based Course: "Extensional Experiment On Life Science In High School"

School-based courses refer to the courses which are organized and assessed by the school teachers themselves. Comparing with the regular, school-based courses involve more flexibility and more creativity, which also focus on very needs of the varied students' group. Accordingly, this study will work on research of school-based courses on life sciences in high schools from two aspects of current exportation of school-based courses in shanghai and how to build the system of the former.Based on interview and survey focusing on school-based courses of life science in Shanghai, we analyzed the current condition with SPSS software, which shows us most schools in Shanghai have conducted school-based courses on life sciences, and the courses are mostly oriented to experimental techniques and common senses of daily life. Besides, Teaching methods of it have been varied and the courses have been well appraised, through which teachers have greatly altered their teaching concepts and accepted plenty of new ones. The relevant analyze on experimental high schools, downtown schools, and the popularity of the courses to the students, the cooperation of students all shows results of notable relevancy or remarkable relevancy, which can be regarded as good examples. The analyze also show that some problems do exist in school-based courses on life sciences, for instance, the exploration and assessment of the courses still lacks social participation, courses still lacks synthesis, school teachers still need more expert introduction on theories and practice, exploration of courses is limited by time, equipments, and etc. Some advice has been taken from different levels, and we develop a school-based course ourselves.The activity research referred in this thesis is carried on in Shanghai Yan'an High School, school-based courses on theme of "Extensional Experiment on High School Life Sciences" have been conducted, including analysis of students' demand, environment inside and outside school, introducing purpose of the courses, building the general outline, and compiling teaching materials. The courses are carried on within students of senior grade one and two through as self-determined courses, various types of assessments are carried out in student assessment, and the course itself is assessed in different levels. The courses are well appraised, and students through participation have raised their interests for life sciences, improved their senses of learning and practice, and reached the presumed goal of the courses. "Extensional Experiment on High School Life Sciences" has built a framework of school-based courses, and we hope it could be used as an example for reference.This research can not avoid of any insufficiency, for instance, choosing of the research sample in the survey is not very strict, and a few students join in the course development, which exactly requires further development. "Extensional Experiment on High School Life Sciences" is still in process, and we will concentrate on the problems to make further exploration.