New Curriculum Concept and the Implementation of Junior High School Biology Classroom Teaching

Author: Guan Wenxin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-05-01
Features: "The philosophy of the new curriculum is the soul of the new curriculum. Establishing a new educational philosophy, changing traditional teaching and learning behaviors, and recreating a brand-new self is a process of rebirth through fire and transformation for a teacher. This is where the greatness and difficulty of the new curriculum reform lie. A few experts proposing a new educational philosophy is an innovation, and tens of millions of primary and secondary school teachers transforming this new educational philosophy into their teaching practices is also an innovation, and a greater one." This is a passage from the postscript of the "New Curriculum Philosophy and Classroom Teaching Action Strategy Series" edited by Professor Guan Wenxin of Hainan Normal University. This experience is likely deeply shared by many frontline educational experts. Putting philosophy into practice is difficult, truly difficult. It can even be said that the birth of an educational philosophy is easy, but fully implementing it in practice and transferring it from experts to ordinary teachers is not. From experts to ordinary teachers, it's like a 'war' between the few and the many, and it's made even more intense by countless habits, inertia, and the like. To achieve this transformation, which is difficult but necessary, it's currently popular to offer teachers various general training programs and curriculum standard study sessions for the new curriculum reform. Their task is to help teachers accept the new curriculum philosophy, but acceptance is merely recognition, not yet a quality of the teachers. To transform a philosophy into a quality requires more than just recognizing it; it also requires further understanding and, and such understanding is only effective in practice. Our theoretical guidance is not only about explaining what and why, but also about clarifying how to do it, focusing on the transformation of philosophy into action. We want teachers to further understand the theory through transformation, to feel the charm of the theory in transformation, and to savor the sweetness of teaching guided by theory. Professor Guan Wenxin's "New Curriculum Philosophy and Classroom Teaching Action Strategy Series" highlights concrete examples to speak for themselves. Its foundation is the "Outline for the Basic Education Curriculum Reform (Trial)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Outline"). Each book is divided into eight parts: "For the Development of Every Student," which proposes the core philosophy of the new curriculum reform and interprets the reinterpretation of the curriculum function proposed in the "Outline"; "Towards Life," which proposes two basic philosophies and interprets the reinterpretation of curriculum content and structure proposed in the "Outline"; "For a Brighter Tomorrow" and "Participation is the Core of Curriculum Implementation," which propose basic philosophies and interpret the reinterpretation of curriculum implementation proposed in the "Outline"; "Making Classroom Teaching Full of Innovative Vitality," "Teaching is for Learning," and "Achieving the Integration of Curriculum and Teaching," which propose basic philosophies and interpret the teaching process; "Development is the Hard Truth," which proposes a basic philosophy and interprets the reinterpretation of curriculum evaluation proposed in the "Outline." Among these eight parts, "For the Development of Every Student" is a necessary macro introduction, while the other parts do not simply and rigidly promote theory but instead select numerous teaching design examples from teachers' classroom teaching practices and use them as media to provide a meticulous, interpretive analysis of the new curriculum philosophy. These fragmented examples and insights form a more vivid and tangible new curriculum philosophy. For example, when interpreting "The main theme of the new curriculum reform is to cultivate students' innovative spirit and practical ability" in "New Curriculum Philosophy and the Implementation of Junior High School Chinese Classroom Teaching," the sixth teaching example is a segment of teaching "The Old Man and the Sea." The teacher asks the students to imagine the ending of the novel, and the students' imagined endings are very consistent with the original ending. The book comments on this: "This teaching example fully reflects the teacher providing students with space for imagination, allowing them to boldly continue the story's ending. Through students' bold imagination, their understanding of the text becomes deeper, and their thinking becomes more flexible and profound." Such examples and comments are highly effective. For teachers who truly take on the responsibility of education and teaching at the frontline, they need more vivid guidance that can enter their classrooms. These small teaching examples are the most tangible things for them. Through these individual, subtle examples, they gradually accumulate a deep understanding of the new curriculum standards and easily implement them in practice. These examples have also been carefully selected. They all come from frontline distinguished teachers and excellent teachers, and each example reflects a certain aspect of the new curriculum philosophy from different angles, making them deeply meaningful. At the same time, these examples vividly demonstrate the life interaction between teachers and students, exude the vitality of life, and show the trajectory of children's growth and development, revealing to us how these excellent teachers transform the new curriculum philosophy into concrete, tangible teaching actions. Reading these examples, we can truly feel the charm of the new curriculum philosophy and the educational wisdom of these excellent teachers. The most profound insight these examples give us is that to truly understand the new curriculum reform and philosophy, one must delve into the vivid classroom teaching and practice to the new philosophy. The "New Curriculum Philosophy and Classroom Teaching Action Strategy Series" is not just a "festival of teaching examples," to the point where it overly focuses on details and loses the macro perspective of the new curriculum philosophy. In addition to teaching examples, philosophy and strategies are also fundamental elements of the series. The philosophy presented in the book is easy to understand and deeply engaging. It does not explain philosophy with theory or concepts, but uses facts to explain philosophy and uses the most familiar things to teachers to explain the philosophy. Like "Who Moved My Cheese?," it tells an adult fairy tale and discusses life's philosophy, using a simple form to explain profound truths, which is also one of the aspirations of the book. The action strategies in the book are specific, detailed, and highly actionable. Each interpretation of the new curriculum's basic philosophy is composed of three parts: the basic connotation of the philosophy, the philosophy as seen through teaching examples, and the action strategies provided by the teaching examples. These action strategies vividly and detailedly summarize the teaching examples and philosophy, proposing action principles and guidelines for the implementation of the new curriculum.