On Setting And Promotion Of Good Lesson Standards

Based on series of successful activities focusing on courses and class teaching, an education bureau in Pudong New District took further measures to promote the course reform with emphasis of class teaching, enhance the teaching quality in the middle schools under the charge of the bureau, and improve teachers' professional skills and students'learning effects. Given the backdrop, the bureau launched a discussion about the standards of good lessons. It organized the research on how to have a good lesson and displayed the achievement through good lesson demonstration. I was fortunate enough to take part in the project. As the head of a discussion team centering on the question what kind lesson is good, I arranged my team members to join in discussions on standards of good lessons.We mainly used the action research method. I discuss the three links in the paper: who sets standards for lesson evaluation, discussions on standards and how to implement such standards and overcome possible difficulties. In addition, I conducted investigation in each link and verified the consistency of its conclusion with teaching practice, discussion contents and specific cases to reinforce the reliability and validity of the research. We made questionnaire survey with 198 valid samples from YJNX Middle School, JPXX Middle School, XZY School and MYSY School representing public, private and public-to-private schools respectively. We also had interviews with 11 teachers and administrator/times from middle schools, district education development institute and colleges. We collected lots of specific cases and comprehensively consulted relevant documents.Our team and I participated in specific meetings organized by the education department, took part in evaluation of demonstrative lessons in several middle schools, and participated in discussions on good lessons organized by their Chinese teaching research team. On careful thought of traditional standard setting subjectivity, we believe standards of good lessons should not be set by administrative leaders and experts only. It is essential and feasible for teachers and students to participate in standard setting. The standards should be acquired through teaching practice. They are pluralistic and include such factors as teaching methods, relationship of teachers and students, apprehension and appraisal. The promotion of acknowledged standards is also a question. Teachers tend to be slow and lack responsibility to implement the standards. Therefore a support system should be established for standard implementation.In the end the paper discusses the difficulties in standard promotion and corresponding strategies. Standards of good lessons are guidline for teaching. We can not have good lessons and enhance teaching efficiency without good standards. Standards of good lessons are also the beacon for teacher growth and help teachers to walk on the right direction.The paper aims to draw some basic results through empirical and action researches to lay foundation for relevant study.