Since the 1970s, the United States began to explore small class teaching, and was one of the first countries to propose the reform of small class teaching. From 65438 to 0996, Shanghai began to explore the reform of small classes, and from 65438 to 0997, Beijing began to explore accordingly. Hangzhou, Nanjing and other places have also carried out small class teaching experiments.
As for small classes, there is no exact concept in education. From the perspective of teaching organization, it means that the number of students in a teaching class is small.
What do you mean less? In educational practice, some people ask such a question: How big is the coverage of teachers' teaching vision in classroom teaching? A study of "vision and culture" at home and abroad shows that there are generally no more than 25 people. If there are more than 25 students in a class, the teacher will pay attention to one thing and ignore the other. The more students there are, the less they can care about them.
According to the data at home and abroad, small class teaching is a kind of teaching organization widely implemented in developed countries in Europe and America. In the 1980s, some states in the United States conducted experiments to reduce class size. At present, the average class size of American middle schools is 25. In the late 1990s, the United States proposed that the class size of primary and secondary schools in the United States should be reduced to 18 students. At present, the class size in Germany is similar to that in the United States, with an average of 25 students nationwide. There are 20 to 25 people in Britain and 25 to 30 people in Canada.
Judging from the connotation of small class teaching, its most essential feature is that teaching is oriented to the same and different students, not to the whole class; Teaching organization, teaching content, teaching mode, teaching method and teaching evaluation are all organized around the individual development of students.
To sum up, it can be considered that small class teaching is a teaching activity aimed at a single student and centered on his individual development in a teaching unit with less than 30 students. Small class teaching activities will change as follows:
1. Teaching activities will be reorganized in time and space.
2. The activity density, intensity and effectiveness of teaching participants (mainly teachers and students) and the interaction between teachers and students will be enhanced and increased.
3. The contents, methods, techniques and evaluation of teaching will be completely changed, which will promote the progress of educational concepts. Small-class teaching: It should be based on the concept of quality education with high standards and high requirements and the concept of modern school-running efficiency. Under the guidance of such concepts and ideas, it should be carried out by using teaching models, strategies, methods, technologies, means and evaluation that give full play to the essential characteristics of "small-class".
Second, the process of small class in China
From 65438 to 0993, two primary schools in Jiangyin, Wuxi City, Jiangsu Province carried out experiments on small-class projects led by Jiangsu Provincial Department of Education and other units.
Starting from 1996, Shanghai began to carry out small class education in a planned and step-by-step manner.
In 2000, Sinan Senior High School in Jiangsu Province (now Taihu Senior High School in Jiangsu Province) began to implement small class education in senior high schools, and the class size was controlled at about 30 students.
In 2009, Taihu Senior High School in Jiangsu Province opened nearly 35 small classes.
20 10 small class education strives to enter the national and provincial "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" outline.
In July, 2065438+00, Wang Xing, a teacher of Taihu Senior High School in Jiangsu Province, published his personal monograph "Small Classes in Senior High Schools", which was published by Nanjing University Press.
Third, the situation of small classes in the United States.
In the 1970s and 1980s, some states in the United States conducted experiments to reduce the class size. Starting from 1999, the U.S. government began to implement the plan to reduce class size, which is part of the appropriation bill of the Ministry of Education starting from 1999. From the known research, such as the evaluation of related projects in Tennessee, Wisconsin and California, it is found that small class teaching under the guidance of qualified teachers promotes the improvement of students' academic performance, enhances students' individual attention and reduces classroom interference. Small class teaching in lower grades strengthens students' basic math and reading skills. From the long-term effect, the repetition rate of students is low. After re-entering the big class, their academic performance is still improving year by year, and the level of college entrance examination is also improving.
Fourthly, the comparison of small class size between China and America.
The original intention of implementing small classes in the United States is to improve the quality of education. American studies have proved that small class teaching has the greatest impact on most disadvantaged students, and the poorest communities have the strongest demand. Therefore, the funds for small-class projects in the United States are mainly allocated to poor communities, and each state allocates 80% of the funds to school districts according to the number of poor students in each district. The remaining 20% funds can be allocated according to the number of students enrolled.
The proposal of small class size in China is the rational distribution of educational resources under the background of the decrease in the number of school-age children. In the middle and late 1990s, influenced by the family planning policy, the number of school-age children decreased and educational resources were relatively rich. On the other hand, parents put forward higher expectations for their children to receive quality education. In this context, some large and medium-sized cities began to explore small class teaching. From the educational reform itself, the exploration of small-class teaching is also a change from large-scale production to personalized education and individualized teaching. There are high requirements for promoting educational concepts and optimizing educational resources.
Verb (abbreviation of verb) The controversy about small class teaching in America.
Some educational and research departments in the United States hold different opinions on small class teaching, and most of them support and affirm it. A researcher at the Education Examination Service Center, the world's largest independent testing institution, found that small class teaching really helps to improve mathematics academic performance. Education policy makers in some states believe that classes with fewer junior students have better learning results. Small class teaching is especially beneficial to poor students in high-consumption areas. The study also found that small class teaching has different effects on the fourth and eighth grade students. The former's main function is to improve the teacher-student ratio and directly stimulate students' academic performance. The latter is to improve the teaching environment and reduce learning obstacles such as truancy and study interruption.
Scale has also brought a lot of criticism and negative opinions. The main reasons for critics are:
1. The cost of implementing small class teaching is too high. If the average class size in China is reduced by 10 students, it is estimated that teachers will have to pay $8.5 billion more, which is totally inconsistent with the principle of cost-effectiveness.
2. Lack of qualified teachers. Some school districts, especially poor school districts in remote areas and urban areas, have experienced excessive classes and lack of funds. Many teachers lack practical teaching experience and the quality of teaching is worrying, not to mention not many teachers are willing to teach in poor places.
3. Insufficient educational facilities. The number of new classes has increased, but there are not enough classrooms for the new classes, which leads to the establishment of temporary classrooms in schools, which cannot meet the long-term and stable learning needs of students.
Sixth, the enlightenment of small class size in America.
1. Guarantee the implementation of the project from the capital investment. First of all, the government can follow the trend of population development and promote the reform of small class teaching when conditions permit. While encouraging governments at all levels to increase investment, we will actively absorb private funds and raise funds for small class reform through multiple channels. For example, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation supports the reconstruction of American high school education. In the past five years, about 1500 high schools (accounting for 8% of all public high schools in the United States) have paid 733 million US dollars to support high schools to reduce the size of schools, adopt small class teaching system and improve the quality of education.
2. Strengthening teachers' professional training is the key to ensure the smooth progress of teaching reform in small classes. It is worth noting that the training of small class teachers can not only pursue form, but also ignore the particularity of small class teaching and the professional quality of teachers. The United States has also encountered such problems. For example, the federal small-class teaching reform initiated by 1999, many schools regard subject training as the main training form of small-class teachers, which is not conducive to the professional development of teachers in small-class teaching. Therefore, we need to re-analyze the professional development of teachers in small classes, design appropriate teacher training objectives and contents, and establish institutional guarantee suitable for the professional development of teachers in small classes, so as to improve the professional quality and ability of teachers in small classes.
3. Pay attention to the fairness of education while pursuing benefits. Give special investment to poor school districts that need small class teaching most. This year's government work report put forward for the first time: "The central government should budget according to the national fiscal education expenditure accounting for 4% of GDP, and local governments should make corresponding arrangements to ensure the realization of this goal." Shanghai has allocated more than 70 billion yuan, most of which will be invested in basic education. Therefore, educational reform projects including small class reform are guaranteed by funds, and special attention should be paid to disadvantaged groups and poor students to achieve equalization of public services.
4. The government adopts flexible policies, makes full use of project funds, improves teaching level, and flexibly solves problems in the process of project implementation. The process of promoting small class teaching reform in the United States is not smooth sailing, and many people complain that more investment has less effect. China's investment in education is incomparable to that of the United States. We must pay attention to the scientific nature of project management, reduce the waste of funds and resources, and effectively improve the effect of small class teaching.
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In fact, we have been in contact with small class teaching for several years, but in actual classroom teaching, some teachers still use "almost the same" teaching methods as when there is no small class teaching, so there is actually a problem!
Yu Jixiang's Detailed Explanation of Small Class Education: A New Exploration Based on Individualized Teaching is Happiness Siping Primary School in Hongkou District. It has been teaching in small classes for more than ten years. In recent years, they have focused their attention on individualized teaching under the background of small class education, made valuable explorations, and compiled the exploration results into a book.
The following are our feelings after reading this book, and the excerpts are as follows:
1, small class teaching and small class teaching
When the number of students in a class is relatively small, we call it "small class", and the teaching activities carried out in small classes are called "small class teaching". "Small class teaching" is not necessarily "small class teaching". If the number of classes is small, teachers still implement teaching according to the traditional class teaching system. This kind of teaching can only be called small class teaching, not small class teaching.
Class teaching system is based on the pursuit of teaching efficiency, and it is expected to train a large number of talents in unit time. Under the premise of the shortage of educational resources and the urgent need for talents in society, adopting the class teaching system with large class size can cultivate a large number of "standardized" talents for the society in a short time. During the industrial revolution, the invention of various machines and the use of industrial and agricultural production put forward higher requirements for employees, but the original ways and means of cultivating people in schools can no longer meet the needs of society, so the class teaching system came into being in the west and spread to all parts of the world, becoming the basic organizational form of school teaching activities in all countries of the world.
With the deepening of China's reform and opening up and the influence of the family planning policy, great changes have taken place in school education in the eastern developed areas. The number of students is gradually decreasing, and small class teaching has gradually become the normal state of school education. At the same time, with the rapid development and diversity of social development, people pay more attention to students' personality development and healthy growth, and demand that education serve everyone's uniqueness and differences and truly teach students in accordance with their aptitude. "Small class teaching" is an educational practice to achieve this goal.
If class teaching system and large class teaching pursue teaching efficiency, small class teaching pursues teaching efficiency. Efficiency and benefit are two different concepts. Efficiency refers to the workload actually completed per unit time, emphasizing quantity, the more the better. The benefits are mainly reflected in three aspects: first, the input cost is reasonable; The second is to improve the output quality; Third, the output should meet the needs of society. The core of the development of educational connotation is to improve the quality of education, which itself is the pursuit of efficiency. With the increasing social wealth, the investment in education will inevitably increase year by year, and from the perspective of the national population change trend, the total number of students in China is gradually decreasing, which makes it possible to gradually realize small class teaching. To improve the efficiency of education and teaching, we must cultivate high-quality talents through intensive cultivation.
2. Individual teaching and personalized teaching
Broadly speaking, education has existed since the appearance of human beings. In the long historical period, people's education for their children has always been "individual teaching" and "one-on-one". After the invention of writing, schools appeared. Several, dozens or even hundreds of students gather in the school to study, and the combination of national teaching and individual teaching has become the main teaching method of the school. After the emergence of class teaching system, "individualized teaching" has been paid less and less attention, and can only be seen when teachers give individual tutoring or face-to-face homework after class.
From the perspective of improving teaching effect, the effect of "one-on-one" and "individual teaching" can be achieved to the extreme, but the input cost is too high to be realized in the current society. The practice of teaching in small classes broadens the research horizon and opens up the exploration ideas of Happiness Siping Primary School. They realize that individualized teaching is not easy to realize, but it can be explored. Individualized teaching is a teaching that adapts to and pays attention to individual development under the condition of group teaching, which is between individualized teaching and class teaching.
Personalized teaching is first of all an educational thought, a concrete embodiment of humanistic thought and an educational principle of teaching students in accordance with their aptitude. It emphasizes that teaching should be student-centered and acknowledge and respect their differences. Personalized teaching is a kind of value pursuit, which emphasizes tapping students' potential and developing everyone's personality, rather than narrowing or eliminating the differences between students; Personalized teaching is a teaching strategy and mode, which not only affirms the rationality of collective teaching, but also pays more attention to overcoming the disadvantages of over-emphasis on unity in collective teaching.
"In recent decades, one of the most active areas of educational innovation is personalized teaching. In the educational environment all over the world, more and more diversified technologies suitable for individual differences of learners have been developed "(International Encyclopedia of Education). The primary task of implementing individualized teaching is to thoroughly grasp the differences between disciples. Leibniz said: "There are no two identical leaves in the world." Personalized teaching emphasizes the full development of students' personality on the basis of individual differences, which is the core of personalized teaching.
Western scholars generally regard Bell-Lancaster, which started in Britain in the19th century, as the origin symbol of the western personalized teaching system. The specific practice of Bell-Lancaster system is that teachers mainly teach older students, and then the best one-"mentor" teaches younger or worse students. By the end of 19 and the beginning of the 20th century, an educator named Birkhurst in Dalton, USA, carried out Dalton system, carried out quite thorough teaching differentiation, and strengthened and deepened the original distribution of children's education level. Its essence is to make each student take greater responsibility for the speed and method of their own learning.
There are three main problems in personalized teaching: 1) Personalized teaching is to cultivate and establish individual personality; 2) The teaching process is dominated by students' self-management, self-responsibility and autonomous learning; 3) Education and teaching must create a good environment and reform the teacher-student relationship and evaluation system to meet the needs of students.