Research On The Application Of Problem Situations In High School Biology Teaching To Develop Students' Critical Thinking ——A Case Study With The "Homeostasis And Regulation" Module

Critical thinking is the ability of thinking necessary for everyone in the information age,and it is a quality that must be possessed by personal development in the 21 st century.In recent years,the cultivation of critical thinking has been drawing more and more attentions in countries all over the world.In 2020,the “General High School Biology Curriculum Standards(2017 Edition,2020 Revision)” promulgated by our country also emphasizes the cultivation of critical thinking,by pointing out that critical thinking was an important part of scientific thinking and one of the core parts of the literacy of biological disciplines.Studies have shown that the level of critical thinking of high school students in China is generally low at present;the cultivation of critical thinking of high school students needs to be strengthened urgently.Critical thinking is often closely related to“problems” and “problem solving”.Creating problem situations in teaching can be an important strategy for cultivating critical thinking.At present,the research on this strategy mostly stays in the theoretical elaboration,and the research carried out in the actual teaching process is relatively lacking.The purpose of this study is to explore the application strategies of cultivating students' critical thinking based on problem situations in high school biology teaching activities,and thereby enriching the application research on cultivating students' critical thinking by creating problem situations.By doing so,we hope we can contribute to improvement of the current situation where the cultivation of critical thinking of high school students is relatively lagging behind.Firstly,we use the “Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory-Chinese Version”(CTDICV)to investigate the current situation of the critical thinking level of the sophomore students in a high school because understanding the status is the foundation for improvement.With a basic understanding of students' critical thinking at various dimensions,we designed the teaching strategy and set up the implementation procedures.Secondly,by taking the “Homeostasis and Regulation” module of Biology for high school students(Compulsory Part I)published by the People's Education Press as an example we discussed the strategies of applying problem-based situational teaching and teaching cases with problem situations created with “history of biological sciences”,“socio-scientific issues”,“conflict between knowledge and recognition”,and “social hot topics”.Subsequently,a four-month teaching practice was carried out to test the feasibility of these strategies in real class teaching.By analyzing the experimental data,it is found that the application of problem situations in high school biology teaching can effectively improve students' critical thinking level,which is mainly reflected in seeking truth,open mind,analytical ability,self-confidence in critical thinking,and cognitive maturity.At the same time,it also improves the students' biological academic performance to a certain extent.We expect that this study can provide a reference for the majority of teachers and researchers to apply problem-based teaching to cultivate students' critical thinking,and play a positive role in improving the current situation of high school students' critical thinking cultivation.