New Curriculum and New Teaching Materials: Strategies for Teachers' Preparation. Junior High School Mathematics (Upper and Lower)

Author: Zhang Keli (Main Editor) / Wang Baocang (Sub-series Editor)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-01-01
Features: With the continuous deepening of curriculum reform in basic education, people have increasingly recognized the crucial role and sacred mission of teachers in the reform. Teachers' understanding and participation in the new curriculum are the prerequisites and foundation for its implementation, and they will ultimately determine the direction of the new curriculum's implementation and the depth of quality education advancement. In a certain sense, teachers are the most important curriculum resources. The quality of teachers and their level of professional development determine the identification, development, and utilization of curriculum resources, as well as the level at which the benefits of the new curriculum standards and textbooks can be realized. Currently, the status of the teaching staff in China's basic education field cannot effectively keep pace with the large-scale expansion of curriculum reform. Short-term general training and limited training on new curriculum standards and textbooks only serve to guide and provide direction for teachers. In the context of classroom teaching, teachers must use new concepts, adopt new curriculum standards and textbooks, enter the classroom, and face all students to deliver practical lessons. They will encounter various confusions and difficulties, such as the scarcity of new teaching materials, how to prepare lessons, how to organize teaching, how to conduct teaching evaluations, how to carry out teaching research activities, and how to innovate traditional teaching methods. As curriculum reform has progressed to this stage, teachers must fully leverage their subjective initiative, deeply understand and experience the essence of the new curriculum standards in teaching practice, fully grasp the new textbooks, and continuously engage in teaching reflection to improve teaching practices. Only in this way can the requirements of curriculum reform be implemented. To help frontline teachers quickly adapt to the new curriculum reform and effectively use the new curriculum standards and textbooks, we have organized the writing of the Strategies for Teacher Preparation with New Curriculum Standards and Textbooks series. With the actual needs of teaching and teachers as the starting point, the series provides assistance and support for teachers in areas such as interpreting teaching objectives, creating teaching scenarios, providing teaching materials, showcasing teaching cases, and improving teaching evaluations.
I. Principles and Requirements for Writing
This book is written under the guidance of advanced educational ideas and the concepts advocated by the new curriculum, aiming to promote the implementation of curriculum standards across disciplines, deepen the implementation of quality education, and advance educational research, particularly school-based teaching research activities. It seeks to promote teachers' professional development, improve their practical teaching abilities and skills, and enhance the quality of education. The writing process emphasizes four unities:
1. Systematicity and Scientificity
This series is written by subject, and each subject follows the content specified by the first-level and second-level themes of the curriculum standards, combining the core knowledge system of each textbook version to structure the book in units. Each unit begins with an overview, highlighting the systematic network of knowledge, the original perspective, and comparisons with the new curriculum standards. The series uniformly sets up columns, with each column featuring scientifically accurate knowledge content, systematically clear teaching objectives, scientifically reasonable activity designs, practical and innovative scenario creation, and detailed and reliable selection of quality education.
2. Practicality and Feasibility
The writing of this book is driven by the awareness of serving frontline teachers, effectively addressing teachers' difficulties in finding materials, collecting resources, designing activities, and creating scenarios, thereby reducing their workload. Unlike general teaching reference books, this series comprehensively covers the needs of teachers for preparation, serving as an indispensable assistant and guide for teachers' preparation and teaching. The writing process fully considers the current status of teaching staff, students, teaching design, and various educational resources in China, making the series widely applicable. Teaching requirements, activity designs, and scenario creation all take feasibility into account.
3. Timeliness and Innovation
Each subject is written by carefully analyzing the latest trends in educational reform at home and abroad, striving to stay at the forefront of curriculum reform in basic education. The content and materials selected are closely linked to the actual developments in politics, economy, science, technology, culture, and education in China and the world, reflecting contemporary demands. Innovation is emphasized, from content to form, from knowledge presentation to question design. The three-dimensional educational objectives of "knowledge and skills, processes and methods, and attitudes and values" permeate the entire book.
4. Inquiry and Leadership
Each subject pays attention to the professional leadership role of teachers, helping them broaden their knowledge horizons, enhance practical abilities, and encourage and inspire them to conduct educational research. It advocates a spirit of scientific inquiry, promotes research-based learning, and strengthens teaching evaluation and reflection. The selection of content in each column and the allocation of various questions reflect foresight and leadership, appropriately increasing inquiry-based, open-ended, applied, and comprehensive topics. This series is the crystallization of collective teaching research in curriculum reform.
II. Writing Format and Column Descriptions
This series is written by subject, including: Chinese, Mathematics, English, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Moral Education, History, and Geography for grades 7-9, with six uniform columns:
1. Interpretation of Teaching Objectives
According to the new curriculum standards, the teaching objectives of each unit are interpreted from the three-dimensional perspectives of "knowledge and skills, processes and methods, and attitudes and values." From the professional height of the subject, the knowledge network structure and its internal connections are explained in an accessible manner. Necessary explanations are provided in conjunction with specific issues or examples, with a detailed analysis of key teaching points and difficulties. Solutions to key points, breakthroughs in difficulties, and key methods are highlighted, strengthening the requirements for ability and quality development.
2. Activity Design Suggestions
This column provides all necessary activity designs for the unit teaching (also including teaching content guidance or teaching flowcharts, knowledge links, etc.). To implement teaching objectives and enable students to actively participate in teaching activities at multiple levels, forms, and angles, thereby achieving efficient and high-quality classroom teaching, this book strives to help teachers design all teaching activities in each unit through effective preparation. Since each unit teaching consists of several teaching and learning activities, only if each activity is designed scientifically and reasonably and is easy to implement can the optimization of the entire unit teaching be guaranteed. When designing teaching and learning activities, two aspects are considered based on the unit's knowledge content:
- Classroom activity design (e.g., creating teaching scenarios, equipping teaching tools, multimedia-assisted teaching, student collaboration, teacher-student interaction, instruction and practice, experimental operations, etc.);
- Extracurricular teaching activities closely related to teaching, such as research-based learning activities, experimental exploration activities (e.g., after-school experiments, home experiments, laboratory operations, experimental design, small inventions, small creations, etc.), surveys and interviews, information collection, literature retrieval, social practice and community service activities, etc.
Activity designs strive to maximize the use of various educational resources and mobilize the learning enthusiasm of students at all levels. Through the development of teaching and learning activities, students become active participants and constructors of knowledge.
3. Teaching Material References
This column provides relevant textual materials for unit teaching, such as background materials, introductions to figures, major events, data resources, scenario materials, supporting examples, the latest developments, and historical evolution. It also recommends relevant books, web resources, and audio-visual materials.
4. Teaching Case Introduction
This column provides several teaching cases around the key content of the unit, reflecting the characteristics of various teaching types (e.g., new teaching lessons, problem-solving lessons, review lessons, experimental lessons, activity lessons, inquiry lessons, etc.). It emphasizes the design of various student activities, demonstrating a reform-oriented awareness in preparation. It closely follows three threads:
- The knowledge network thread;
- The cognitive thread aligned with student psychological activities;
- The developmental thread of ability and quality cultivation.
5. Classic Question Selection
This column provides supporting questions for teacher preparation. When selecting questions, attention is paid to difficulty gradients, striving for typicality and novelty, and ensuring each question is well-designed in terms of intent, scenario, and question formulation. The number of questions is moderate, with subjective and objective question types determined based on the unit content of the subject.
6. Teaching Evaluation Suggestions
Evaluation serves functions such as diagnosis, guidance, and motivation. This column provides ideas and methods for teachers to conduct various forms of teaching evaluation.
(1) Basic Achievement Evaluation
Each unit teaching is accompanied by basic achievement test questions, designed according to the requirements of "basic knowledge and basic skills" on a percentage scale. If the average test score of all students is below 60, it is considered that the basic teaching has not been achieved. If the average score is between 60 and 74, it is considered that the basic teaching has been achieved. If the average score is between 75 and 89, it is considered that the basic teaching performance is good. If the average score is between 90 and 100, it is considered that the basic teaching performance is excellent.
(2) Ability and Quality Evaluation
Ability and quality evaluation mainly focuses on students' foundational qualities, specialized qualities, and comprehensive practical and innovative activities. Based on the unit content of the subject, corresponding requirements for ability and quality items are proposed, such as experimental operations, creation, production, drawing, investigation reports, material analysis, thematic discussions, presentations, speeches, audio-visual skills, and talent demonstrations, etc. Each test evaluation result is rated as excellent, good, qualified, or basically qualified.
(3) Teaching Reflection
Teaching reflection is essential for teachers in the evaluation process and plays a significant role in improving the effectiveness of teaching and learning. For example: reflections on easily confused or mistaken content for students, improvements in lesson design, improvements in classroom teaching, new problems discovered in the teaching process, reflections on test results and other feedback information, and insights into the unit teaching, etc. Teaching reflection provides teachers with broad space for professional development.
Finally, we sincerely hope that educators and frontline teachers across the country, especially in junior high schools, will join us in sailing the ship of curriculum reform in basic education and together reach the shore of hope.