A Case Study of Kindergarten Education —— On Preschool Education and Case Study of Education
Educational case studies have been well applied in youth education, which has played a guiding role in solving the educational problems of students of all ages and made great contributions to the development of youth education. However, the case analysis of early childhood education has not been paid attention by the majority of front-line early childhood educators. This paper hopes to analyze the relationship between educational case study and the development of early childhood education by expounding the understanding and significance of educational cases.
Early childhood education; Case analysis; develop
2/kloc-in the decade of the 20th century, China's economy has been developing and its international status has been improving. The development of the country depends more and more on talents, and attaching importance to education has become the consensus of the whole society. More and more people are paying attention to early education. Parents no longer just want their children to get comprehensive care in kindergartens, but are eager for their children to get good early education.
Under the new requirements of early childhood education, it is the most direct and scientific way for our early childhood educators to innovate the working methods of early childhood education, improve their working ability, correctly understand educational cases and carry out educational case analysis.
First, the development and understanding of educational cases
Cases and case studies are imported products, which were first applied to Harvard Law School, and then applied to Harvard Medical School, Business School and Education College in turn. At the beginning of the 20th century, the idea of case study benefited western teacher education greatly. After entering the new century, with the deepening of China's educational reform, especially the promotion of the new round of curriculum reform, the value of cases is increasingly recognized by us, and cases and case studies have gradually become a beautiful landscape in the field of educational theory and practice in China.
Scholars in different countries have different understandings of the definition of a case. Lawrence defines a case as a record of a complex scene. Hansen is willing to describe the case as a description of real events, which can arouse everyone's thinking and debate and is enlightening; Richart believes that teaching cases are descriptions of teaching practice and show some typical stories including teachers and students in rich narrative forms. China scholar Gu Lingyuan thinks? Cases refer to teaching stories containing certain decisions or questions, which reflect the typical level of teaching thinking? . [1] Therefore, three words can be used to simply summarize educational cases: events, stories and descriptions. In view of the above definition, let's talk specifically about what characteristics an educational case should have:
1. Authenticity: Educational cases tell the completed educational events, show the important practical significance of real events, and do not fabricate false events.
2. Storytelling: Educational cases re-focus on teachers' own personal experience, not only putting themselves in, but also putting children in, changing the object of writing from a knowledge event to a human event, which is a story that happens when people deal with knowledge or people deal with each other.
3. Value: The stories described in educational cases are rich in connotation and have educational research value. A case, regardless of the size of the event, should have rich implications, which can arouse everyone's thinking and debate and give people many very beneficial inspirations. [2]
Therefore, only educational cases with the above three characteristics are qualified educational cases. Only by knowing what qualified educational cases are can we really get the effect of promoting teaching through the study of educational cases.
Second, the understanding of educational cases
The case study of education refers to the research method that teachers present the common events in education and teaching in the form of cases, and promote the solution of problems and share successful experiences through a series of thinking processing processes of analysis, research and discussion. Specifically, teachers take the problems encountered in classroom teaching, class management, early childhood education, interpersonal communication and other aspects as the research content, collect data by consulting relevant documents, interviews, observations and other methods, conduct comprehensive, in-depth and meticulous analysis and research, form cases containing problems and solutions to problems, and then gain new educational experience through research and discussion, sum up new educational methods, enlighten new educational concepts, and promote new educational concepts. The essence of educational case study is to explain the phenomenon of educational events, and it is a rational exploration and theoretical explanation of existing educational practice.
Similarly, for the understanding of educational cases, educational cases also have several important characteristics:
1. Case study is a qualitative research method. Before the research begins, researchers generally have no theoretical assumptions, but take research questions, directly sum up concepts and propositions from the original materials, and then rise to the theory to find general educational laws.
2. The case study emphasizes the collection of first-hand information in natural situations, which fully reflects the openness of the study. This requires researchers to go to the fields, go into activities and classrooms, approach teachers and children, and understand existence through field trips, personal experiences, interviews and exchanges. Natural truth? What happened in the end, why it happened, what consequences it caused, and the feelings and opinions of the parties. When screening and screening information, we should objectively, neutrally and truly reproduce the facts without any expectation and prejudice.
3. The analysis of data is mainly inductive. Case study requires researchers to spend a lot of time collecting all kinds of information, without considering which information is important, which information is irrelevant, which information will become evidence of research hypothesis and so on. With the collection of data, the research conclusion becomes clear gradually. Case study is a bottom-up dynamic process. In the whole research process, the researchers gradually summed up the general concepts, thus gaining a deep understanding of the research phenomenon, and thus constructing the theory. [3]
From the above analysis, we can say that case study is natural, which is the result of combining practical education and teaching with thinking research, and can be used to solve typical problems in the process of education and teaching. Through observation and reflection, cooperation and exchange, we can adjust and improve the existing education and teaching behavior and guide teachers' time. Case studies are open, and cases provide real events. The same event can get different analysis results in different teaching situations. Under the same background, different analysis can be made because of the different emphases of the participants, that is to say, everyone is allowed to have their own unique views on the analysis, research and interpretation of the case.
Thirdly, the significance of educational case study in early childhood education.
Based on the increasing social demand for preschool education and the needs of teachers' own professional growth, it is very necessary for preschool teachers to carry out educational case studies. On the one hand, quality education has become a new development requirement of preschool education in China at this stage, which poses great opportunities and challenges for preschool teachers. It requires teachers to change their roles, update their teaching concepts, adjust their cognitive and ability structure, and improve their ability to analyze and solve new problems that constantly appear in the daily education process through continuous research in practice. On the other hand, for teachers' own professional development, after teachers' ontological knowledge and conditional knowledge have reached a certain foundation, practical knowledge plays a decisive role in further improving teachers' professional level, and the acquisition of such knowledge needs teachers to have it through self-reflection, research and training because of its unique personality, situational, openness and exploratory characteristics. Specifically, the case study of teacher education has the following functions:
1. Through case study, teachers can clearly understand their own education and teaching process. The teaching methods produced in the teaching process can be recorded and sorted out in time, and a lot of good case analysis materials will be accumulated over time; At the same time, teachers will encounter some problems in the process of education. Teachers can record in time, put forward their own opinions and think about ways to solve problems, so these opinions and methods are tacit knowledge that we often don't use, which promotes the appearance of teachers' tacit knowledge.
2. Through case analysis, teachers can have a deeper understanding of the key points and difficulties in their work. Case studies can encourage teachers to understand the problems in their daily work. What is this? 、? Why? 、? How come? Consciously explore such problems, sort out the problems in the work in time and clarify them. This way is not only of great help to carry out their own work in the future, but also of great help to other teachers in judging the importance and difficulty of their work.
3. Through case teaching, teachers can strengthen communication, help each other, share experiences and develop together; And it is beneficial for preschool teachers to implement advanced educational ideas in specific educational behaviors. Through communication, on the one hand, teachers can find their own shortcomings from cases in order to improve continuously, on the other hand, they will unconsciously improve their abilities and gain more research experience in the face of education and teaching practice.
4. Through case study, teachers can further improve their research ability and observation ability, find theoretical assumptions based on their own practice more easily, and may also sum up some new educational theories. In addition, teachers' educational cases can be used as valuable materials for educational theorists to build a bridge between theory and practice, so as to avoid the disadvantages of current theoretical education research from theory to theory, and then overcome the distance between researchers and practitioners, which is conducive to the overall development of early childhood education.
5. Case study is a process from finding problems to solving them. This process enables teachers to acquire new knowledge, problem-solving methods and independent inquiry learning ability, and at the same time cultivate stronger will and curiosity, so as to sprout more ideas, realize continuous innovation of cases, and help teachers break through the bottleneck and move towards a higher level of teacher professional development. [4-5]
In short, every kindergarten teacher should be aware of the value of educational case studies in promoting the development of early childhood education, and should not write for the sake of writing, let alone for the purpose of completing tasks. In a word, only by carrying out education case studies seriously and promoting the professional development of preschool teachers can we further improve the quality of preschool education and meet the social requirements for preschool education.
Fourthly, how to carry out educational case studies.
After fully understanding the definitions of education cases and education case studies, and fully recognizing the value of education cases, we will discuss how to do a good job in education case studies.
(1) The basic idea of educational case study is to record the real scene and the effect after treatment in the teaching process, form the theme, background and problems of the case, then think and discuss around the problem, put forward the methods to solve the problem, or put forward new teaching ideas, and finally form an educational case. Generally speaking, the writing of educational cases goes through the following four stages.
1. The preparatory stage requires researchers to understand the current direction of education reform and the main problems existing in the current education process, and to preliminarily determine the research objectives, research tasks and the style, type and structure of the case through related research and discussion among teachers, in combination with the problems they have encountered in the education process.
2. Collecting enough case materials in the material collection stage is the basis of educational case study. After making relevant preparations, researchers can capture the most authentic case materials through observation, interview, investigation and literature review.
3. At the stage of analysis and research, researchers are required to interpret the case materials from multiple angles and in all directions. It can be the reflection of individual teachers on case materials, or it can be a collective discussion (such as teaching and research activities) to study together. In the research, we should pay special attention to the overall investigation and in-depth analysis of educational activities, so as to rationally analyze the data and explore the reasons for special circumstances. The theoretical analysis stage can be carried out in two different ways: one is subjective and objective analysis to find the crux of the problem from both subjective and objective aspects; The second is the status quo-process-background analysis, which traces the development process from the status quo analysis, discusses the dynamic causal relationship between the process and the status quo, and further analyzes the background factors of the process, thus excavating the true value of the collected materials. When necessary, the case study can also carry out literature analysis, that is, by consulting the literature, I can be inspired by the relevant research results of ancient and modern times and find the theoretical basis to support my case study, thus enhancing the persuasiveness of the case study. At this stage, it is best to adopt the method of collective discussion in order to form a valuable case. [5-6]
4. Form the case stage. On the basis of multi-angle research and analysis of the case, it can be expressed according to a certain structure to form an educational case.
(2) The basic elements of educational case writing are generally composed of six parts: theme, background, case problem, description of situation and details, educational achievements and discussion. The main points of each part include: [7]
1, subject: The core of this case, what problems do you want to reflect, should be determined from the most rewarding and thought-provoking point of view.
2. Background: Basic information such as the time, place and people of the case, such as existing problems and research methods.
3. Case question: refers to the question that can explain the theme of the case, reveal the confusion, connect with relevant theories and inspire readers to reflect.
4. Description of situation and details: around the theme, screen the original materials, delete the plot, describe the specific content in a targeted manner, and write the details that can highlight the problem clearly, which makes people think. The form of description can be a real dialogue in the process of education and life, or a thought-provoking story. Case descriptions cannot be fabricated, but should come from the problems that teachers have faced and real teaching experience. In short, it is necessary to ensure that the case description can closely follow the theme and highlight the key to the problem.
5. Educational results: the classroom effect of educational measures, including children's and their own feelings.
6. Thinking and discussion: It is the key to the success or failure of the case study of education to analyze and interpret the case from multiple angles by using educational theory and return to the theoretical level of basic education.
When writing specific educational cases, its structure can have different forms of expression, such as? Fact description+comment? 、? Complete description+reflection "? 、? Question+description+comment? Wait a minute. But whatever form it takes, it must be completed. What you say has substance, makes sense, is realistic and pragmatic, and sees the big from the small? . It should be pointed out that case study is not so distinct and gradual, but a cyclic process from finding research problems to explaining research findings. Its research steps can be expressed in a very operational way: finding problems-analyzing problems-making plans-collecting data-analyzing data-criticizing and modifying-trying out tests-collecting data? Write case study report.
Five, education case study and the development of early childhood education
Under the background that children's quality education is paid more and more attention, when the society puts forward higher expectations for early childhood education, our early childhood education development should focus on the age characteristics of children's growth and development, as well as the influence of family and society on children's growth and development. However, these are all vacancies in our early childhood education. Therefore, in order to better promote the development of early childhood education and meet the expectations of society for early childhood education and early childhood educators, we should fully understand and attach importance to the decisive role of early childhood education case studies in improving the ability level and development of early childhood education in China, and earnestly carry out educational case studies to improve the effectiveness of educational case studies.
Improve the effectiveness of educational case studies, so that every front-line teacher has a better environment to collect case materials and refine better educational ideas. Therefore, our front-line preschool teachers should make use of this condition to better carry out educational case analysis, strive to understand educational cases and case analysis, carefully dig out cases that promote the rapid development of preschool education in the process of education according to the requirements of case analysis, and complete research and refine more educational theories and methods.
I hope that every front-line educator can strive to achieve the following aspects: First, educators need to have keen insight and strong thinking ability, and be good at capturing all kinds of effective information in practical work, obtaining case materials, finding problems from materials and grasping the essence of problems. Secondly, we must have a certain educational theory literacy, and constantly think and discuss the problems found in connection with educational theory, so as to reveal the essence of the problems. I believe that attaching importance to case analysis and striving to improve personal insight and educational theory literacy will greatly promote the development of early childhood education.
References:
[1] Cai Shoulong. A case study on education _ Also on the educational research in the experimental area of the new round of curriculum reform [Z]. Educational theory and practice, 2003
[2] Gu Mingjuan. On education case and education case study [Z]. Educational theory. 20 1 1
Juan Huang Juan. Education case and case study _ case teaching [Z]. Preschool Education Research, 2003
[4] Tang. Education case study promotes teachers' professional development [Z]. Friends of Teachers, 2005
[5] Hong Fei. Education Case Study _ The Ladder of Teachers' Professional Development [Z]. Innovative Practice, 2004
[6] Chen. Interpretation and writing of educational cases [Z]. Research and Exploration. 2004
[7] Breeze. Educational narrative research and educational cases, educational case study [Z]. New Curriculum Research. 2005
Click the next page to learn more >>& gt Kindergarten Education Case Paper?