| The General Senior High School Geography Curriculum Standard(2017 Edition)clearly proposes to cultivate students' core literacy of geography based on the fundamental task of“strengthening moral education and cultivating people”.Through geography courses,students are expected to cultivate four essential characters and key abilities,including vision of human-land coordination,comprehensive thinking skills,regional recognition,and geography practice.Research travel has been an important form of connecting classroom and off-campus resources in recent years.In 2016,the Ministry of Education and 11 other ministries and commissions issued the "Opinions on Promoting Research Travel of Primary and Middle School Students",which include research travel into primary and secondary education teaching plans.Hence,research travel has become an important method for cultivating students' core literacy,and the research travel course plan is the basis for carrying out research travel activities.Research travel is featured by its regional,comprehensive and practical characteristics.As the only tropical island province in China,Hainan Province has unique natural resources ideal for carrying out humanistic studies.It has become a best place for organizing geography research travels.As of December 2019,Hainan Province has successively recognized 39 provincial research travel education bases and 16 national education bases(Some national and provincial bases have duplicates),which provides favorable conditions for the implementation of research travel.At present,many scholars have done a lot of research on the theory and method of research travel,but few can design research travel curriculum or do empirical research based on the actual situation of students in township schools.In order to promote the effective development of research travel,this paper investigates and analyzes the current status of research travel in Hainan Province;based on theories like the Sense-Making” Theory in constructivism,the role of Gardner's multiple-intelligence theory in cognitive structure,and John Dewey 's “Learning by Doing”,according to the requirements of the core literacy of geography and the curriculum standards of geography courses,this paper sorts out the topics of research travel in high school geography compulsory courses,and designs four types ofresearch travel course plans in accordance with the attributes of geography.Taking the four parallel classes of Grade 10 in Haikou Changliu High School are the research object,this paper assesses the research travel from various aspects,including: students' attitude before participating in research travel,the command of geography knowledge,the ability to observe and judge geographic matters and problems during research travel,the ability to complete tasks,achievements in research travel,sense of organizational discipline,collective awareness,coordination and communication ability throughout the whole process.Then,this paper analyzes the research travel evaluation scales of the experimental group and the control group,and tests their mastery of relevant geographic knowledge after the research travel,probes into the role of geographic research travel in cultivating students' core geographic literacy,and arrives at the principles that shall guide the course design of geographic research travel.The results show that:(1)As a new type of comprehensive practical course,research travel is very interesting.However,the little knowledge of research travel is still a serious issue.According to the survey,only 9.92% students are quite familiar with the research travel courses,while 4.59%parents have heard about or know well about research travel.According to our interviews with teachers,and only a few of them know well about research travel.Without sufficient knowledge of research travel,students give little play to their activeness and tend to lay more emphasis on “travel” than on “study”;parents become the obstacles of the research travel activities;and teachers are unable to carry out research travels in close integration with their actual teaching practice.As a result,research travel fails to play its proper role in school education.(2)Students' attitudes towards research travel are positive: 75.70% of the students who have participated in the research travel say they like it very much,and 52.50% of them express their willingness to participate in the research travels organized by the teachers.Parents have high expectations for the research travel activities: 57.59% of them very much hope that the school will carry out research travels,and 53.71% of them allow their children to participate in research travels.(3)In the research travels,ensuring the safety of students is the top priority.On the premise that safety is guaranteed,the content of the study activities needs to be considered aswell.Survey data show that 81.63% parents prioritize safety factors when considering research travels,and even 51.16% teachers believe that students' safety is the main constraint factor of research travel.(4)The course of geography research travel is an important part of the teaching of the geography course.The course design of the geography research travel should follow the systematic,procedural,feasibility,and feedback principles of instructional design.This is different from the spring and autumn tours.The course design of geography research travel in senior high school based on the geographic core literacy must have clear objectives,practicable teaching content and evaluation quantitative tables.The content of such course design shall also take into consideration the local research and research travel resources,school faculty,and students' affordability.(5)Scientific and reasonable research travel programs shall be designed based on high school geography content before research travel activities are organized.This will allow students to walk into the society,be close to the nature,and effectively improve their geographic practice.It also allows students to develop a comprehensive thinking to recognize the geographical matters,and then form a correct view of human-land coordination.After four research travels are organized,the p-value of comprehensive evaluation results of trips in the experimental group and the control group is both less than 0.05,indicating that there is a significant difference between the experimental group that carries out activities according to the trip curriculum plan and the control group that does not.No matter in what kind of research travel activities,organizing and carrying out research travel activities according to the scientific and reasonable geographical course plan of research travel will help students improve their "abilities to communicate and coordinate with team members".Different course plans of geography research travel play different roles in improving student's geographic core literacy.Various types of such course plans shall be implemented in order to better improve students' geographic core literacy in an all-round way.(6)The results of the related geography knowledge test organized after four research travels show that the p-value between the experimental group and the control group is less than 0.05,and the average score of the experimental group is higher than that of the control group in each test.This shows that the research travel activities carried out according to thecourse plan have a clear auxiliary role in students' understanding and mastering textbook knowledge. |
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