Four years ago, as a supporting school in the community, many people held a wait-and-see attitude towards the newly built Third Experimental Primary School in Suzhou Industrial Park: the school location is secluded, the children of migrant workers are mostly students, the family education support is limited, the teachers are young and inexperienced, and the enrollment in the first year is only 300 students...
Such a new school with a general starting point in all aspects may be difficult to run well in a short period of time.
However, to the surprise of most people, this school has become a high-quality school in the minds of the people in only 4 years. What is the secret of the school's development?
In the words of Principal Gu Chao: "In a high-tech park, the development of the school naturally cannot be outside, resonate with the same frequency as the regional development, and plant the seeds of science and technology education in the hearts of children from an early age, which should become the meaning of the school's development." ”
In the past four years, the Third Experimental Primary School has taken science and technology education as a breakthrough, let science and technology enter the campus, and provide students with high-quality and personalized growth "nourishment" with rich and diverse school-based courses; at the same time, promote science and technology education into the classroom, continuously deepen classroom reform, and promote high-quality teaching and learning.
Science and technology education has entered the main position of the classroom
Recently, Zhao Yong, a parent of the Third Experimental Primary School, and his children completed a summer assignment that seemed to be "not doing business" - designing a car that could move without using any ready-made assembly materials and power units. It took a lot of time and energy, but he and the child enjoyed it, "Although the child spends time 'playing', but the interest in learning is getting higher and higher, such a play I raise my hands in favor, the more the merrier." ”
Play well, can you still learn well?
In the eyes of the teachers of the Third Experimental Primary School, the secret of this is to let science and technology education really go to the main classroom and "really do" science and technology education. Unlike other schools that regard science and technology education as the "icing on the cake" and are only active in extracurricular and club activities, in the third experimental primary school, the foundation and main position of science and technology education are in the classroom.
With learning as the center, focusing on guiding students to think with evidence and consciously using scientific speculation methods, the core of science and technology education is to guide students from learning results-oriented to process-oriented, from focusing on knowledge accumulation to ability improvement.
How can traditional classrooms be transformed from teacher-centered to student-centered?
School teachers have pointed the blade of reform at the teaching materials, and through the study and integration of the content of the teaching materials, the "new bottle of old wine" has been realized.
Gu Chao, who has been a science teacher for 31 years, led the teachers to start exploring, trying to reconstruct the content of the textbook based on research problems.
Taking the circuit unit in the second book of the fourth grade as an example, according to the textbook arrangement, the unit is divided into 8 sub-sections such as "Electricity and Our Life", "Lighting Up Small Light Bulbs" and "Simple Circuits", which require 7 class hours. In accordance with the requirements of the curriculum standard, the teachers decided to replace the original textbook class schedule with how to make the small light bulb light up, how to design the room photo, how to use electricity safely, and how to build the signal light.
Benchmarking curriculum standards, teachers found that the appropriate content is themed, problem-based, and project-based, and students can not only learn interestingly, but also learn more deeply.
Today, the school, which has only been established for 4 years, has completed the school-based "transformation" of science textbooks for grades one to five. Every new semester, the science teachers of the Third Experimental Primary School must continue to integrate the units and improve the project-based learning content according to the curriculum standards and the content of the textbooks. Today, these collective wisdoms are the basis for schools to develop national curricula.
From blossoming outside the classroom to taking root in the classroom, this exploration is not easy. Gu Chao said that to do a good job in the school-based implementation of the national curriculum, it is necessary for the teacher team to overcome the huge teaching inertia and re-treat the teaching materials and curriculum standards, "We must figure out what the intentions of the textbook preparation, what requirements the curriculum standards put forward, and how to make the science courses after the project still meet these standards."
Each discipline contains science and technology resources
Does science and technology education only exist in information technology classes, science classes and integrated practice classes?
The Third Experimental Primary School gave a different answer: "Every subject contains rich resources for science and technology education!" "This science and technology education that started from the science classroom has also expanded to more disciplines.
In the first semester of the third grade, Chinese teacher Wang Mengxuan conducted a project-based teaching design with the topic of "Poetry and Literature Club 'Little Editor'".
Categorizing poems on topics, editing articles and pictures, designing layouts, completing binding designs and presenting presentations... This chinese class, which starts from the teaching materials and goes beyond the teaching materials, integrates the strength of the teachers of the school's language, art and other disciplines, so that the children can experience the charm of interdisciplinary learning.
There are also science and technology resources in the art class.
How do you record things by time, how do you distinguish the importance of things, and what can you see in other people's knots? Starting from the problem, art teacher Chen Sijia developed the curriculum "Knotted Rope Memorization" and distributed it to children, allowing them to get closer to this ancient method of memorization in their hands-on and sharing. To this day, fourth-grade student Xiaoxin still treasures this colorful rope.
After studying the "Compulsory Education Art Curriculum Standards" and sorting out the requirements for art knowledge at various stages, Chen Sijia also successfully applied for the research topic of "Development of Art Characteristic Resources Based on the Inheritance and Innovation of Traditional Chinese Patterns" last year.
"From the exploration of science classrooms, we have more and more realized that the essence of science and technology education is not new technologies and new tools, but whether it pays attention to the cultivation of students' innovative spirit and thinking ability." Shen Songming, director of school teaching, introduced that more teachers have begun to take science and technology as an organic part of the curriculum, through problem-based research and project-based learning, so that students can not only meet the requirements of relevant curriculum standards, but also promote the development of core literacy through expression, communication and collaboration.
Teachers have changed their teaching, so, has real learning happened?
Since 2018, in order to conduct a follow-up evaluation, Yao Jijun, a professor at the School of Educational Sciences of Nanjing Normal University, has conducted an evidence-based study on this, evaluating the project-based learning curriculum of the whole school.
In the study, Yao Jijun and his team used a primary school in the same district as the control group, and the third experimental primary school as the experimental group. At the beginning of the experiment, there were no significant differences in classroom performance, problem-solving ability, and cooperative communication ability between the two schools. As the experiment progressed, Yao Jijun found that "the students of the Third Experimental Primary School have stronger motivation and interest in learning. Compared with the regular curriculum, students rated the classroom for project-based learning higher. ”
The top-level design ensures the implementation path
With the direction and the team, how to ensure that the science and technology education does not deviate in the implementation?
Starting from the top level, the Third Experimental Primary School has built a three-dimensional goal for the curriculum: to help children learn to control life through health, character, and technology; to help children enjoy life through friendship, nature, and art; and to help children understand life through history, science, and philosophy.
"Every teacher needs to keep these three goals in mind and strive to help children become healthy, happy, and mentally free explorers and thinkers from these three dimensions." Ni Yuan, head of the school's Steam project, said.
Taking the school-based course "Bridge" as an example, the course content includes understanding various bridges between China and foreign countries, and working as a team to complete the construction, design and display of bridges. From the perspective of the goal dimension of this lesson, it points to helping children control and understand life.
Unlike the scattered school-based curriculum development in many schools, in the Third Experimental Primary School, the school-based curriculum with the theme of science and technology innovation has basically been serialized, and it is mainly carried out with the saved classroom time.
"After the content of the textbooks suitable for project-based learning is unified, the efficiency of teaching and learning has been improved, and the class schedule is less than that of the textbook." What do you do with the extra time? Gu Chao and the teachers began to think newly.
"The core of science and technology education is to stimulate and protect children's creativity, so the precious time saved must not be used to catch up with the teaching progress or brush up on the exercises, and we encourage teachers to actively develop project-based learning courses." Gu Chao introduced that in order to help teachers shift from "teaching to teaching" to "teaching by learning", the school has compiled a teacher training manual to provide accurate guidance for the design, organization and development of project-based learning.
"Ten minutes before the course, first use the question to arouse the interest of students, and then ten minutes, you can use the group free discussion to inspire students to think, after entering the core link of the classroom, the teacher should guide the students to complete the relevant design and production as an explorer and interpreter..." This summer, the school ushered in a group of new teachers, in the induction training, Ni Yuan focused on solving the teachers' confusion about what is problem-based learning, how to develop the curriculum, how to assign homework and other issues.
From the newly built school on the shore of Yangcheng Lake, which is not optimistic, to the new paradise for teachers and students to grow, science and technology education is driving greater changes here.
"The essence of 'double subtraction' is a return to the law of education and teaching. In our school, through the comprehensive change of teaching and learning based on science and technology education, it has alleviated parents' anxiety, reduced the burden on students, and improved the interest of teachers and students, which is one of the paths that the 'double reduction' may achieve. Ni Yuan said that from weak schools to high-quality schools, the turnaround of the Third Experimental Primary School also confirms that returning to the common sense and law of education and teaching will release greater endogenous power for the school.
Author: Liang Dan, a reporter of this newspaper
China Education News, September 8, 2021, 6th Edition Title: Principals Weekly And Practice