Junior High School In The New Curriculum Context Of Regional Geography

Regional geography is one of most important components of geography study for junior high school students. Along with the change of education focus, the reforms of the curriculum, the requirement of regional geography study for the junior high school student changes as well. Comparing with memorizing the actual regional geography knowledge, the ability for those students to learn the regional geography is more important. So what is the current status of regional geography study for those students?This article analyses the 331 students from Zhabei district in Grade 6,Grade 7 and Grade 8, who are under the new curriculum for regional geography study. A survey is used in this study. The survey covers areas, such as: text book, content, homework, teaching style, the purpose of the regional geography study. One-to-one meetings are conducted with some students. During the meeting, the questionnaires were based on the test results of regional geography study of those junior high students in 2007, the common mistakes made by those students in their homework, and the feedback from the class room. We analyze the current situation of regional geography of the junior high students, on their cognition strategy, element cognition strategy, resource management strategy and other general strategies. Special strategies are under investigation as well, including the usage of following methods during the study: graph, compendium, analysis, comparison, induction and correlation. The study shows that the junior high students are interested in regional geography, because it satisfies their curiosity and it grows their knowledge. However they don't like to spend too much time on the homework..The survey reveals problems such as, short term knowledge, shallow understanding of the knowledge, confusion of the geography concepts, misuse of geography principles, in complete background knowledge. On the strategy side, we find problems of following: low level of memory strategy, less use of review strategy and self control strategy. The preparing grade students still rely on the teacher too much, while the grade one and grade two students are more self dependent, and use those strategies more often.Based on all those findings, suggestions are giving on how to raise the student interest level, how to complete the students'knowledge system, how to teach the student for effective learning strategy. With all those efforts, we wish to have a more effective classroom experience in the future, to raise the interests of the student on regional geography study and let them learn the knowledge that will benefit them life long.