Comparative Study Of The Shanghai-junior-high-school Biology Textbooks Complied For The 1^st And The 2^nd Curriculum Reconstructions

With the continuing effort in pre-college curriculum reforms, high-school biology curriculum and textbooks have been significantly improved in recent years. The city of Shanghai initiated its first curriculum reform in 1988 and adopted a new textbook Human Body and Health Education for the sixth grade students in 1991. Ten years later, the city conducted the second reform and complied a textbook Life Science (1st edition) for grade eight in 2004. This textbook was firstly used by a number of middle schools in Shanghai. Based on their feedbacks, a revision Life Science (2nd edition) was published and used citywide in 2007.The goal of this thesis is to promote the current curriculum reform for high school biology through the comparison and analysis of the abovementioned textbooks. This thesis begins with the introduction and significance of the curriculum reforms. Based on the current learning theories, content and structure of the textbooks and the teaching-efficiency evaluation, two of the most important aspects, were systematically studied and summarized below.1) Textbook content and structure: Based on literature analysis, four subtopics including curriculum theory, goal, content, and learning evaluation were compared. Followed this study, more detailed analysis in the textbook content including overall text structure, layout and format was also elaborated. Based on these studies, a more conclusive evaluation on these textbooks was provided.2) Teaching-efficiency evaluation: Two different sets of evaluation questionnaires were designed for teachers and students, respectively, focusing on five directions: the depth of knowledge, psychology characteristics, culture effect, editing and printing quality of the textbooks, and possibility of using the textbooks in citywide. Based on these questionnaires, statistic studies were systematically conducted.Based on the abovementioned studies and feedbacks from the students and teachers, the quality of these textbooks was evaluated and outlined below.1) The textbook Human Body and Health Education emphasizes the traditional biology with a better content organization and language style. This textbook, however, lacks the necessary contents in teaching students the how does the field develop and how to apply the knowledge they learn for real world application. Therefore, students'learning roles in this class has not been emphasized properly. 2) The textbook Life Science (1st Edition) does an excellent job in teaching students basic knowledge and how to applying the knowledge they learned for practical applications, broadening their knowledge in life science, and developing the student's ability and interest for further learning.3) The textbook Life Science (2nd Edition) perfects the early edition by incorporating certain important contents, improving the textbook appearance, and using a novel content-module design. Overall, such improvements allow both students and teachers to use the textbook in a more flexible and efficient fashion. This newly textbook provides excellent education materials, allowing the students to connect what they learned in the class with their daily lives. Overall, it is an excellent textbook that promotes the diversity of life science education.Based on the studies summarized above, recommendations for future revision, and suggestion on how to use these textbooks more effectively were also provided in this thesis.