Practical Research On Cultivating Students' Scientific Thinking In Junior High School Biology Teaching

With the continues innovation in economy,the mental workers are needed instead of machines,thus it is necessary to carry out the thinking education in schools.Students in junior high school are at a key stage to develop their thinking patterns from a low level to a high level,so how to seize this critical period in biology and to cultivate students' biological thinking patterns have become an important teaching topic in the new round reform for basic education.This study first adopts the REI to make clear the current situations among junior high school students about their thinking patterns,then in order to find out the factors that can influence the development of students' thinking patterns in the biology teaching class,questionnaires are used among students and an interview is carried out among teachers.The results show that the rational thinking pattern gain the upper hand than the affective thinking pattern,and this trend becomes more obvious as the grades increase.Students' thinking patterns at grade 8 are at a key developmental period,however,students in grade 7 have already prefer the rational thinking patterns to the affective thinking patterns when they solve problems.By analyzing all the factors,we can find that the key factor that hinder students' development in their thinking patterns is the lack of thinking education among teachers and students.Besides,we still lack the practice instructions in thinking education.Based on the above reasons,this study presents the strategies to develop students'scientific thinking in biology teaching.First,conclude the thinking method in the textbook to give students instruments in their thinking development.Second,since the though control is the top of the thinking structure,the author proposes the demands that students should follow in their conversations and cooperation among different groups.Based on the aims of thinking,the materials of thinking and the dynamic development of thinking process,the author proposes the strategy to clarify the aims of thinking.Students uses the visualized tools of thinking to explicit the thinking process after they process the thinking materials.Finally,by combining concept teaching,experimental teaching with exercises teaching to establish the thinking classroom.The subjects of the study are students in Grade 7,the teaching materials used in the study is People in Biosphere,and by using students' classwork,tests scores in biology tests and the results in their thinking tests,a teaching experiment is carried out.After the teaching experiment,the results show that the integrity and the flexibility of studentsthinking in EC has increased a lot compared with students' in CC;besides studentstests scores in EC also improve significantly(P<0.05)which means they have a deeper understanding of knowledge than students in CC.Thus,the results of the study can be concluded as follows:it is feasible to carry out the thinking education in junior biology teaching,and by using different thinking methods students' thinking can be trained effectively and their scientific thinking can be cultivated.Junior middle school stage is the key period of developing students' thinking,however,as time is limited,this study only carried out among students in Grade 7.As the force of education,junior biology teachers should first cultivate their scientific thinking patterns,then they gradually adopt it in their practical teaching.