Some scholars believe that the fundamental feature of an organism is activity, which is manifested as a process, and the process is an internal and continuous creative process among the elements that make up an organism. It shows that one organism can be transformed into another, so the whole universe is an endless process of activity. The real world is a process and consists of a series of events, and the essence of things is expressed through these events. Dewey expounded his process thought in the concept of "aimless education". He pointed out that life, growth and experience transformation are a positive development process step by step, and the purpose of education exists in this process. The purpose of growth is to get more and better growth, and the purpose of education is to get more and better education. In fact, his education has no purpose, not in an absolute sense, but means that there is no preset educational purpose. Because the purpose of education is in the process of education, and the process of education is not a means but an end. In the ideal state of education, "education is always a reward for yourself". What he emphasizes here is that education should make students become active participants in teaching activities, not indifferent bystanders. Its essence is to emphasize that education should stimulate students' learning motivation, because motivation can stimulate new learning needs, and such learning motivation is exactly what education expects, that is, the "reward" that education deserves. Peters, a British educational philosopher, believes that knowledge and education have intrinsic value and need not be proved by the results of education. This kind of activity has inherent perfect standards, which can be used to evaluate rather than because of its consequences. The above viewpoints have different perspectives, but they all fully affirm the value of the process itself.
Since 1970s, Marton and Saljo in Sweden have begun to study students' learning styles. After them, there are related studies by Westel, an Englishman, and Biggs, an Australian. Through research, Biggs found that students' learning style is closely related to learning motivation and learning strategies: learning motivation determines the overall direction of learning, while learning strategies help to achieve the overall goal of learning. Further research shows that students usually show three main learning styles, namely, surface teaching method, deep teaching method and achievement teaching method.
Surface learning is based on external motivation. In this case, students study for other purposes, not out of cognitive interest. Learning becomes a balanced activity between failure and overwork, which is usually associated with the quantitative view of learning. The appropriate learning strategy is to find the most important topics as much as possible and reproduce them accurately. When students are faced with other tasks, they may regard the learning task as an imperative. They will regard learning as a series of separable subtasks, not as a whole. Surface layer learning directly adopts surface layer coding.
Deep learning is based on internal motivation, and its motivation points to satisfying learners' curiosity and inquiry interest to the maximum extent. This kind of learning is task-based, so learners will link the task with the overall coding and personal understanding of the meaning of the text, theorize and systematize the task and form hypotheses. Deep learning often involves or leads to complex and emotional satisfaction, which is also a very important learning result. However, superficial learning often makes students hate learning. They worry about their grades all day and worry about the time they spend.
Achievement-based learning is based on achievement motivation. Students who adopt performance-based learning methods will consider how to make full use of time and space. This learning strategy is considered as learning skills. Under the modern teaching concept, what our teaching expects is the deep learning mode, but it opposes the superficial learning mode, and fundamentally does not support the achievement learning mode. However, due to various factors inside and outside education, it is very common for students to adopt achievement-based learning methods. The task of education and teaching is to guide such learning methods to deep learning methods.
Biggs believes that learning style has an important influence on learning results, which can be characterized by his three-person learning model:
Biggs' Three-person Learning Model
In Biggs' learning process theory, students' learning style is not only an important factor to determine the learning result, but also an important content of the learning result itself. For example, students' interest in learning content itself is an important part of learning motivation and is included in learning methods. Therefore, learning interest not only affects the learning result, but also is an integral part of the learning result, or the expected result of teaching and learning. For another example, a good learning strategy is not only an important reason to determine the learning result, but also the expected result of teaching and learning. The learning strategies here are also included in the learning methods. The evaluation of students' learning is not only the evaluation of the final result of learning, but also the evaluation of learning methods. To evaluate students' learning style, we must pay attention to the learning process.
Procedural evaluation has the following two important characteristics.
First, pay attention to the learning process. Students will adopt different learning methods in the process of learning, and different learning methods will lead to different learning results. However, the existing evaluation methods and tools pay more attention to the evaluation and measurement of learning results produced by surface learning methods, but do not pay attention to or can not evaluate the learning results produced by deep learning methods, thus forming a dead end of evaluation. This is an important factor that leads students to adopt superficial or achievement-based learning methods. The result is a vicious circle of "superficial (achievement) learning style-low-level learning results-superficial (achievement) learning style". The process evaluation just pays attention to students' learning methods in the learning process, and guides students' learning methods to develop in a deeper direction through the evaluation of learning methods. Therefore, the process evaluation well fills the dead angle of the above evaluation. For example, the methods of students' self-evaluation and mutual evaluation in process evaluation can enable students to gradually master the correct learning style, establish the correct learning motivation and master the learning strategies suitable for them, thus truly improving the quality and effect of learning. The result is a benign interaction of "deep learning style-high-level learning results-deep learning style".
Second, pay attention to unexpected results. The learning process of students is rich and varied, and different students have different learning experiences, leading to different learning results. The traditional goal-oriented academic evaluation frames the evaluation objectives in a very limited range that educators think is important, which makes many valuable educational objectives ignored and weakens the positive role of evaluation orientation. Process evaluation focuses on the whole field of students' learning experience, and holds that all valuable learning results should be affirmed through evaluation, whether they are within the predetermined target range or not. In this way, students' learning enthusiasm is greatly improved, and the richness of learning experience is also greatly enhanced. This is the ultimate goal that modern teaching expects. It should be pointed out that process evaluation will also evaluate the learning results. Different from the traditional evaluation, the result here is the result of the process, and the evaluation standard is not preset, but the goal is free and the values are diverse. For example, some students' own informal learning activities, such as talking with others, browsing the Internet, watching TV or reading some books that are not on the list of teachers, may lead to new thinking, which often becomes an important source of new ideas and discoveries.
Second, the classification of process evaluation
(1) According to the division of evaluation subjects, process evaluation can be divided into three categories: students' self-evaluation, peer evaluation and teachers' comments.
Student self-evaluation and peer evaluation in process evaluation refer to the self-reflection and mutual evaluation of students' learning methods and attitudes towards themselves and others at the end of a learning stage. Teachers' comments are the guiding evaluation of excellent examples in the process of students' self-evaluation and mutual evaluation. This kind of evaluation also pays attention to the learning results, but its attention to the results is based on the principle of multiple values, which reserves space for unexpected learning goals. For example, in the self-evaluation and mutual evaluation activities organized by teachers, the author saw a senior one student telling his classmates about his learning experience at the end of a geography module. She wrote down the incomplete parts of the textbook and what the teacher said in the "problem book" After class, she learned about the problems in the "problem book" by consulting the relevant materials in the library and online, and learned a lot of knowledge that was not available in the classroom and books. In the conversation, pride and joy are beyond words. This is a valuable and unexpected learning achievement formed by students in the process of learning. This evaluation method can not only form good study habits and motivation, but also help students to evaluate themselves and others, which is also needed for lifelong learning.
(2) According to the evaluation level, it can be divided into teacher's evaluation of the group and group's evaluation of the individual.
This evaluation method is an "embedded" process evaluation in the teaching process, and usually adopts the way of competition. For example, divide the whole class into several study groups first, or divide the students into different "learning communities" by using the original natural grouping. The teacher defines the competition rules in advance: how many times each group asks and answers questions, how to record the quality and how to evaluate it; Summarize the methods of classroom performance in each group; Evaluation and reward methods at the end of module or semester, etc. In this two-level evaluation process, the teacher only evaluates the group, and finally at the end of a stage of learning, the students are evaluated individually through peer evaluation within the group. Its characteristics are: teachers do not have too heavy evaluation burden, which is in line with the reality of large class teaching in China. In addition, due to the way of competition, students' enthusiasm for participation is also high, which is conducive to enhancing the effect of classroom teaching. The problems that should be paid attention to in the implementation of this evaluation are: the frequency of evaluation should be appropriate, otherwise the record burden will be too heavy, which will affect students' learning.
(3) According to the degree of standardization of evaluation, it can be divided into procedural evaluation and random evaluation.
Process evaluation usually refers to the evaluation that teachers organize to reflect and evaluate students' learning process at the end of a learning stage. As a procedural evaluation afterwards, procedural evaluation has the following characteristics. First, there is relatively concentrated time and suitable venue. Can be completed in one module or one semester; This process evaluation can be implemented in each module or only in some modules. Second, the evaluation process will be recorded accordingly. For example, the process evaluation scale, group mutual evaluation records, teacher comments and so on. Third, the evaluation results will serve as the basis for evaluating students' academic performance at this stage. Random evaluation has no relatively fixed time, place and complete evaluation procedure. It is usually carried out in the teaching process, without making evaluation records, and the results are not used as the basis for students' overall evaluation. A teacher's praise or criticism, a kind of affirmation or negation, and even a look and an action of students in class are guiding students' learning and thinking, and standardizing students' learning behavior and learning methods. So random evaluation is integrated with teaching. The above two evaluation methods have their own characteristics. The former can give full play to students' subjective initiative and make students learn to evaluate in evaluation, but it takes a lot of time and has a heavy burden on teachers and students. The latter is conducive to giving full play to the leading role of teachers, flexible in methods and conducive to the organization of teaching, but students are passive. Therefore, usually the two evaluation methods need to be used together.