Comparative Study Of The Life Oriented Content In Chinese And American Junior Middle School Physics Textbooks

The physical curriculum standard of compulsory education in China(2011 Edition)emphasizes: from life to physics,from physics to society.Physics curriculum should pay attention to the connection between physics knowledge and students' daily life and social development.Life oriented content is conducive to students to better grasp physical knowledge and use physical knowledge to solve problems.As an important resource for teachers and students,textbooks should pay more attention to the use of life oriented content.As a powerful education country,the United States emphasized that science education should pay attention to the relationship between science,technology and society in the next generation of science standards(NGSS)released in 2013.American Physics textbooks have their own unique views on the use of life oriented content.The research object is the first volume of the eighth grade junior high school physics textbook of Educational Science Edition and the main junior high school physics textbook of the United States "Science Explorer" are the research objects.Based on the study of a large number of documents,this paper uses the content analysis method to classify and present the life oriented content in the textbooks of the two countries,and analyzes the characteristics of the two textbooks in the aspects of classification and presentation.Then it compares and analyzes the two textbooks from the aspects of classification,presentation,content,column setting,chapter introduction,illustration,exercise,main line content and so on,and finds out that they have four similarities in the use of life oriented content: unbalanced distribution of life oriented content,more life oriented illustrations,less life oriented experimental content and less life oriented exercise content.And there are many differences between the two kinds of textbooks: in the selection of knowledge content,the knowledge content selected in the Education Science Edition is simpler than that in the Science Explorer,which can make better use of the life content for explanation;In the form of chapter introduction,Science Explorer not only introduces the life illustrations like the education science textbook,but also designs a life experiment activity according to the knowledge of this chapter;In the aspect of illustration style,the textbook of Education Science Edition tends to adopt caricature illustrations,while Science Explorer almost uses real photos as living illustrations.In terms of the form of life oriented exercise content,the life oriented exercise in teaching materials tend to let students use mathematical methods to solve life-based physical problems,while the Science Explorer usually uses the form of letting students narrate and explain life-based physical problems to others for exercise training.According to the conclusion of the study,some suggestions are put forward for the selection of life contents in the textbook:First,the selection of life oriented content should be as rich as possible,and the selected life oriented content should cover all aspects of social life;second,strengthen the presentation of life oriented experiments,and increase the use of life oriented exercises;third,the life oriented illustrations in textbooks should be unified with authenticity and artistry,with both colorful pictures and real photos;Fourthly,the students' language intelligence and mathematical intelligence should be considered in the exercises of daily life in the textbooks.I hope this study can provide some reference for the revision of compulsory education physics textbook.