Preliminary Discussions About Scientific Explorations Activities In Physics Teaching

The essential-quality-oriented education entails the cultivation of the student's innovative and hands-on abilities and promotes their all-round development. It is under such a guideline that educational reforms have continued to go further and deeper. It is stressed in the "Standards of Physics Curriculum under Full-time Compulsory Education (Experimental Manuscript)", published in July, 2001, that "scientific explorations" are both the student's aim of learning and one of the most important teaching approaches. Listing "scientific exploration" in the above "Standards" provides a drive on the nation's educational cause and manifests the orientation of the physics curriculum reforms. Then, in what ways should scientific explorations be conducted in physics teaching? This is a brand-new research project for physics teachers.Based on the constructionalism theories, against the backdrop of curriculum reforms, and starting out from the origin and the meaning of exploration-oriented teaching, this article firstly makes a summarization on such relevant theories as focus on the process of designing and organizing exploration-oriented teaching. Secondly, based on the author's personal teaching experience, this article also makes preliminary discussions about the tactics for effectively conducting exploration-oriented teaching. To follow are an elaborate introduction to the process of the exploration-oriented teaching activity conducted by the author, "The Knowledge of Physics in the Bicycle", and an exhibition of selected exploration reports by the students. Lastly, this article presents the author's personal cognitions in above teaching activity and discusses the cultivation of students' capabilities through such exploratory activities.The current research project can help improve the junior middle school teacher's all-round understanding of exploration-oriented teaching. It is useful for these teachers to apply such an approach on physics teaching in a scientific manner so as to cultivate the student's sense of innovation and promote their hands-on abilities. In this way, the guidelines of the new standards of the physics curriculum can be realized. This is realistically significant for promoting physics education in junior middle schools.