Comparative Research On Activity System Design Of Junior High School Geography Textbooks

Though the theoretical study of writing geography textbooks in our country starts in the late1980s, research of activity system on textbook only begins in the late1990s. Since《Geography for Junior High School Students》 has published in2001, activities actually appear in the junior high school geography textbooks. This article is under the background of China elementary education reform, explores the characteristics and differences of the activity system between China and England junior high school geography textbooks from a comparative perspective. The research nature is textbook research, the purpose of writing this paper is to enrich and develop the design theory of activity system on geography textbooks, and all so to provide recommendations for writing new geography textbooks. The article includes the following sections:The first chapter, activity system overview. For the study on activity system does not give a clear definition of activity system, statements on activity system are also not the same. This chapter first makes definitions of related concepts on activity system, next explores the composition of activity system and analyzes the functions of all types of activities based on the connotation of activity system.The second chapter, the theoretical basis. Writing and designing activities of geography textbooks use a variety of curriculum、teaching and learning theory as the guiding ideology. Therefore, study and master these basic theories can improve the quality and level of writing activity systems. This chapter discusses the guiding role and impact of these theories on activity system from curriculum theory, teaching theory, learning theory three aspects.The third chapter, an introduction to UK geography curriculum and textbook from comparative perspective. This chapter first introduces the setting of British education system and geography curriculum, second analyzes and compares geography standards between China and England, finally compares the basis contents and directory of these two series geography textbooks and draws contrasting conclusions.The fourth chapter, comparative study on activities of the two series textbooks.《Geography Matters》 is a set of activity books, the design of its activities is full of distinctive features and reference. This chapter from activity types, selection of activity, difficulty of activity and layout design these four aspects compares and analyzes characteristics and differences on activity system of the two series geography textbooks.The fifth chapter, conclusions. This article emphasizes on theoretical study, for the above content of comparison, the conclusion section of this chapter discusses four questions——inquiry, practice, situation, and information update speed on activities of the two sets of textbooks, and ultimately draws the optimization strategies of writing and designing activity system on China’s Geography textbook for junior middle school.