Research On The Practice Of Middle School Biology Unit Teaching Based On Big Concepts

With the publication of the latest compulsory education biology standards,the curriculum concept for the biology curriculum puts forward new requirements to focus on themes and big concepts,to streamline the curriculum structure and to enable students to take the initiative in learning.Big concepts are the essence of all knowledge in secondary school,a high level summary of the essence and core of things.While unit teaching is a system of content that categorises the same type of thing and focuses on the hierarchy of concepts,thematic unit teaching based on big concepts is an important way of systematically linking the basic knowledge,methods and skills of a subject together,from the surface to the core,in order to implement the core literacy of the subject.The Big Ideas-based units emphasise the principle of ’less and more’,and the difference between traditional classroom teaching and classroom teaching,with a change in the way classroom teaching is delivered,focusing on a shift from single teacher assessment and academic assessment to diverse and comprehensive assessment.This requires teachers to develop their own level of professionalism,to continuously study the teaching materials in depth,to analyse students’ learning and to develop more curriculum resources for use in classroom teaching,so that students can spend more time on improving their core literacy skills and promoting the development of their overall abilities.The implementation of the Big Idea is therefore inseparable from the practice of unit teaching,and the two are inextricably linked.In this study,first-year students were selected to study the contents of the junior high school biology textbook,such as "the structure of seeds,seed germination,plant flowering and fruiting",to carry out the practice of junior high school biology unit teaching based on big concepts.Before the practice,we reviewed the literature,analysed the connotation,characteristics and current status of research on big concepts and unit teaching,and analysed and determined the big concepts and unit teaching models and strategies that point to core literacy in biology;secondly,we integrated the concept of "green plants in the biosphere" in the first book of Grade 7of the junior high school biology edition of the Human Education version,and combined it with the concept of "green plants in the biosphere" in the first book of the compulsory education.Secondly,we integrated the concept of "green plants in the biosphere" in the first book of the seventh grade of junior high school biology,analyzed the unit objectives of the practical unit,the learning objectives under the core literacy,the learning situation and the important and difficult points in the new curriculum,and designed the teaching plan of the unit and used it in practice,The results showed that there was a significant difference between the pre-and post-practice scores of the classes using the big concept-based units,indicating that the students’ learning ability and core literacy had improved to a certain extent.On the basis of theory and practice,I suggest that teachers should be encouraged to actively participate in subject construction and research on unit teaching,strengthen their own professional learning and literacy,and skillfully use various assessment mechanisms to focus on students’ learning processes.Schools should establish unit teaching research teams to encourage and promote the implementation and development of unit teaching in junior secondary biology,thereby supporting the professional development of teachers and students in general.At the same time,relevant education departments should provide teacher training related to unit teaching based on broad concepts,while focusing on areas with weak educational resources and promoting the professional growth and improvement of frontline teachers in a variety of ways.This study is based on junior high school biology,and through a six-month educational practice,we have practised teaching units based on big concepts in junior high school biology.The results show that teaching units based on big concepts is feasible at the junior high school level,and that it can contribute to the achievement of students’ core literacy goals and the improvement of teachers’ professionalism,and also provide other biology teachers with some ideas and ways to explore classroom units using big concepts.It also provides other biology teachers with some ideas and ways to explore the use of big concepts in classroom units.