Research On High School Chemistry Teaching Design Based On Situational Learning Theory

The Ministry of Education promulgated the General Senior High School Chemistry Curriculum Standards(2017 Edition),which clearly proposes "creating real-world problem situations and promoting a change in learning styles".This requirement actually addresses the pedagogical dilemma faced by frontline teachers,which is that due to the highly abstract nature of much of the chemical knowledge,students are often unable to truly understand it and find it difficult to reflect on new problems.The question of how to implement the proposals in the new standards has become a very urgent one.This paper attempts to introduce situated learning theory to explore a new way of learning and teaching.The birth of situated learning theory dates back to the 1980 s and emphasizes the importance of situated factors such as the physical and the cultural in learning,arguing that knowledge is not an abstract proposition or rule,but a situated practical skill.It defines learning as a process of social participation,and this participation is also participation in the practice of a social community within which one creates its own identity.In instructional design,situated learning attempts to reflect on school education,bringing the model of learning outside school into school,combining formal and informal learning to create a situated learning environment and enhance the efficiency of school education.The pedagogical concept of contextual learning is reflected in the concept of cognitive apprenticeship,which guides articulation,reflection and exploration through teacher modeling,coaching and scaffolding to efficiently acquire knowledge through practice.In this paper,an operational model was designed based on the theory and practice of situated learning,which was then applied to the relevant curriculum.This model addresses five different types of learning effects in secondary school chemistry,namely verbal information,intellectual skills,motor skills,cognitive strategies and attitudes,and adopts five strategies such as commonsense-based and puzzle-solving-based life experience situation creation,chemical history situation creation,enlightened and exploratory social-issue-based situation creation,and flexibly applies six types of teaching methods of cognitive apprenticeship such as modelling,coaching,scaffolding,articulation,reflection and exploration.The research object of this paper were 144 students in two natural classes of the second year of senior secondary school in Lincang City,Yunnan Province.One of the natural classes was randomly set as an experimental class and the other as a control version,and the two teaching and learning methods of situated learning and conventional learning were compared through a semester of teaching practice.Through tests,observations,questionnaires and interviews,this paper comprehensively compares the effects of the two teaching methods.It was found that(1)the overall average grades of the students in the experimental class improved significantly more than those in the control class;(2)the poor and middle students in the experimental class improved significantly more than those in the control class;(3)there was no significant difference between the experimental class and the control class in the improvement of the chemistry grades of the gifted students;and(4)the experimental skills,cognitive strategies and attitudes of the students in the experimental class were significantly better than those in the control class.Based on these findings,it can be effectively demonstrated that contextual learning can enhance students' learning in general,and particularly enhance poor and middle students' learning in terms of verbal information and intellectual skills.Overall,this study,through the practical evaluation of the situated teaching model,is conducive to the implementation of the teaching requirements of the new high school chemistry standards promulgated by the Ministry of Education in 2017,which helps to improve the overall learning efficiency and innovation ability of students,and can test and amend the teaching practice methods of situated learning theory.