Shanghai Area Elementary School Grades, Homework Problems, And Research

To alleviate the homework burden exerted on the primary school students has long been a commonly concerned issue for people at all walks of life. With the furthering of educational reform and promotion on quality education, all the experts on education attach great importance to the homework reform. The New Curriculum Reform has produced a vital significance to all aspects of the fundamental education, thus gaining a series of progress in terms of the effectiveness of the class instruction, judgment of the students and the professional development of the teachers. However, as an important aspect of the instruction, does homework attract adequate attention from the teachers? Have changes been made as far as the homework assignment is concerned? These issues are what the author decides to investigate in this thesis.Carrying out the reform on homework under the guidance of new curriculum, teachers are required to change their traditional value on homework. Firstly, they shall comprehend the essence the homework and explore the new forms of homework vigorously, so as to diversify the forms of the homework and the way we evaluate it . Based on the document analysis and the current situations of Shanghai education, the author selects thirteen primary schools in Shanghai covering 400 teachers of each subject and 320 students in Grade Four from four primary schools. By means of questionnaire survey and individual visits, the author precedes with a further investigation on the homework assigned to the students from higher grades in the primary schools in Shanghai. The investigation involves the following aspects: the current situation in which the teachers assign homework, the degree to which the students grasp, the extent to which the homework is affected by the new curriculum, the present situation of the homework assigned and the degree to which students like the homework as well.After understanding the overall characteristics of the homework in the higher grades in shanghai and the bottleneck facing the educators, .the author believe that the new curriculum reform have had a certain influence in basic education, but the impact of homework is limited; now the homework show a relatively homogeneous, mechanical characteristics, there is no good to promote the ability of students development; the teachers from the grassroots made some attempts to reform, and students who agree with this attitude. The author analyzes the reasons causing these problems in terms of educational value, public opinions and teacher's professional techniques. Furthermore, the author summarized the new exploration experience on homework made by the teachers from the grassroots in the course of New Reform. The author also puts forward her own idea on exploration mode about homework resources, design and judgment. According to researchers conducted earlier, the author suggests that teachers shall build effective values on homework, construct database of homework exercise, pay more attention to the homework design and improve the judgment mode aiming at creating a good learning atmosphere among the students, to help the student to forge a study habit in which a student is supposed to being proactive and responsible, being precise and honest,, and develop a method that is flexible and innovative.