Dewey Empiricism Of High School Geography Teaching Research From The Course

John Dewey(1859一1952) is of the most influential educators in the world in20thcentury’s，and also a landmark figure in the history of education．Dewey’s education thinkinghas produced far-reaching and wide-ranging implications in the basis educational reform ofworldwide scope．Today Dewey’s education idea still has realistic signification under thecondition of education modernization and education reformIn Dewey’s education theory, the “experience” is one of the most critical，fundamental andcentral concepts．The thesis arms to explore Dewey’s theory of experience and its guiding rolein high school geography teaching by theory analysis and combination of both the theory andgeography teaching.This thesis is divided into five parts, and the introduction part talks about the backgroundand direction of the research. Dewey’s theory used to have a great influence on the teachingmethod in the1920s in China. Up till today, there are many studies on his theory. Combiningthe requirements of educational reform and the researches by others, the introduction part ofthis thesis comes up with the research direction of this thesis.Part II defines the term “experience” by Dewey and makes it clear that Dewey’sexperience has the features of stillness and dynamics. This part illustrates the use ofexperience in geography teaching, gives some examples to analyze students’ experiences ingeography, and points out that study should be a reasonable combination of the two features.Part III elaborates the necessity and practicability of empiricism in geography teaching inmiddle schools. The underdevelopment of human beings and the age features of high schoolstudents mean the need of saving experiences. Geography is closely related to production anddaily life, which makes it easier to absorb more experiences. This part proves the necessity ofempiricism in geography teaching from two perspectives which include human developmentand educational reform. It proves its practicability from the age features of the students and thefeatures of the subject.Part IV makes use of some cases to analyze the organic combination between Dewey’sexperience and the teaching practice. Based on the teaching experience, many lively cases arebrought in and detailed analysis of experience in geography teaching is performed. The teaching philosophy of “starting from the basic point and instructing according to theindividuality” is brought up. Two aspects are covered, which include: the teaching content andorganization.The last part of the thesis makes a summary about the problems that occur in carrying outthe empiricism in teaching. There are some disadvantages in putting Dewey’s theory intopractice. The thesis elaborates the influence of direct experience and indirect experience, therelationship between teachers and students as well as restricted thinking pattern. This furtherimproves the research.It has been half a century since Dewey’s theory came into being. With the rapiddevelopment of education reform, Dewey’s theory still works as inspiration for our coursesreform and teaching reform.