在新学期的开始,北京师范大学SSI-L项目组小学组于2021年3月10日在腾讯会议室举行在线研讨会,全国小学学段负责人、北京市通州区教师研修中心小学特级教师曹春浩老师、北京师范大学二附中特级教师彭梦华老师、北京教育学院信科院创客教育研究中心主任于晓雅和项目负责人林静老师等学科专家出席指导,基地校的四十余名教师参与了本次研讨。
温州道尔顿小学鲍珍怡老师介绍本学期正在设计和实施的《海洋塑料垃圾污染》,其内容主要围绕课程背景、课程框架、实施情况、现有困难四个点展开。
根据林静老师对上学期《野生大黄鱼》的实施建议,该校骨干教师围绕海洋的相关话题做头脑风暴,形成了多个候选议题。根据学生的认知能力和兴趣,该校项目组最终选中了海洋塑料垃圾污染这一议题。海洋塑料垃圾污染已严重威胁环境安全和人类生活,并受到国际组织、主要国家和我国政府的高度关注,具有成为社会性科学议题的潜质。该项目结合模拟联合国的活动方式,以更好培养学生的高阶能力。
该项目的驱动性问题设置为“如果你是模联代表团成员,你们将怎样为全球 ‘清洁海洋’倡导活动提供一份‘减塑’行动清单?”,该问题指向的本质问题是“如何在了解科学概念和技术原理的基础上,考虑 人类可持续发展需求,作出行动决策?”,这一项目涉及“科技之光到环保灾难”“太平洋垃圾岛”“最严限塑令”等一系列社会热点问题,与小学语文、综合实践等科目的课标有重要联系,希望能在学习过程中训练学生批判质疑、社会责任、国际理解、沟通能力的核心素养,培养学生对“科学的运用经常会对伦理、社会、经济和政治产生影响”科学大概念的理解,最终达到四点学习目标,并进行相应的学习评价。
该课程设置十个课时以及成果演示、项目总结的环节,当前已经实施两周课程,完成了前三节课的学习任务。项目开始前让学生收集自己一天产生的垃圾,第二天在课堂上称重分类、计量,发现其中的绝大多数是零食包装袋,通过观看影像资料引出议题,有效引起了学生的共鸣,学生认识到了塑料流入海洋的可能性和危害;第二节课邀请有相关经验的专门教师讲解,让学生了解联合国、模联,确认自己的目标。第三节课上则完善第一节课写的问题清单,在教师帮助下形成了任务规划。总体进度良好。但鲍珍怡老师也提出,设计和实施中还存在两个问题:“认识塑料材料的化学本质”对四年级学生有较高难度,教学中简化内容是否会影响学生对议题的理解?针对四年级学生,科学建模活动是否有更好的开展方式?
哈尔滨市继红小学赫英红老师点评道,通过模拟联合国的形式赋予学生新的身份,使其从国际角度思考,有很高的立意,实施中学生的表现体现了科学研究的精神,也表现出了学习的自主性。赫老师提出,该议题背后有可争议的问题:塑料是一把双刃剑,未来人类如何利用好塑料又避免其危害?这里涉及到的伦理问题可以增加一个专门的课时来讨论。赫老师还建议,经过严肃的总结升华,研究成果可以正式递交给联合国。
学科指导组专家彭梦华老师提出了诸多改进的思路:海洋中的塑料垃圾污染与学生的亲自体验还有一定距离,希望该校能想一些措施让学生获得直接经验;整个项目只强调了塑料的害处,没有体现塑料对人类社会的价值,应当让学生全面了解塑料,避免学生对塑料产生偏激的厌恶情绪;塑料污染具有较多个环节,除了项目中强调的生产之外,塑料制品的后续处理也存在问题,同样值得强调;项目中动手研究的内容较少,只有一项调查和一项实验,还可以再增加,让学生亲身体会塑料性质;项目名称中的“海洋塑料垃圾”称呼很准确,而文稿中经常出现“海洋塑料”的缩写,该词汇指代不明确,应写全称“海洋塑料垃圾”。除此之外,彭老师还对文稿中的一些格式、用词和表述问题提出了建议,温州道尔顿小学的缪旭春老师做出了一些回应。如项目指向的“沟通能力”来自于美国4C框架,着重强调规范性表达、回应他人发言的能力,由于无法很好用课标描述,还有待进一步考究;项目指向的科学大概念出自于《以大概念理念进行科学教育》一书;尽管面向中年级学生,科学课程标准中高年级才涉及到的生态系统内容仍可以写入该项目与课标的联系,以明确项目中模拟游戏的指向性,这样更加有助于学生的发展。
学科指导组专家曹春浩老师也提出设想:让学生考察本地塑料处理的情况,以说明塑料如何进入海洋(彭梦华老师认为中国对塑料垃圾控制较好,可能无法调查塑料如何进入海洋,只能以其他国家为样本);让学生制定一套针对塑料的个人行动清单并付诸实践,最后评价自己行动清单的现实意义(缪旭春老师补充,这还可以作为学生评价的一部分);目前有生物分解塑料技术,可以在课堂中实际操作。曹老师还建议,学习评价应改为评价的描述性用语,并明确其操作性定义。
学科指导组专家于晓雅老师提出:塑料微粒的知识可以从物质循环的角度呈现,在最终形成的行动清单中也应当针对物质循环每一个环节分别提出,该话题也可以做实验,CCTV4有一套英文资料,上面有各种相关实验,可以参考并在课堂中使用。
项目负责人林静提出,项目中要突出伦理性和科学性,例如播放海洋动物被塑料伤害的视频、做海洋污染危害动植物的简化模拟实验、带领学生去当地海洋局了解情况;星型图中的政策部分还需细化、落实,如强调经济、安全的具体问题,不能止步于情感熏陶;联合国事务离日常生活很远,学生的直接经验难以逾越,为避免流于形式的热闹,建议先从本地出发,做过几轮之后、学生有了积累后,再考虑模拟联合国活动;温州道尔顿小学以“海洋”为该校SSI-L项目的教育话题,但除了海洋这个大背景,上个议题《野生大黄鱼》所指向的核心素养也可以在这个活动中延续,形成不同活动之间的有机关联,系列主题活动不必追求过多种类核心素养的培养。
林静老师向全体基地校倡议,在SSI-L的设计和开发中要注意以下三点:以一个议题整个多个主题活动、目标要可操作可落实可评价、活动从学生的已有认知即学生的起点做起。此外,林静老师还提醒各基地校骨干教师,在SSI-L的实施中要注意课堂录像,要注重课堂观察与反思,以反思性实践整合理论学习与实践探索。
At the beginning of this new semester, the elementary school group of Beijing Normal University’s SSI-L project team held an online seminar on TencentMeeting on March 10, 2021. Cao Chunhao, the head of the national elementary partner school section and the special-rank teacher of the Experimental School of Beijing Tongzhou District Teacher Training Center, Peng Menghua, the special-rank teacher of the Second High School Attached to Beijing Normal University, Yu Xiaoya, the director of Maker Education Research Center of Information and Technology Academy, Beijing Institute of Education, Lin Jing, the head of the SSI-L project and other subject experts attended this meeting to give their instructions. More than 40 other teachers from partner schools also attended this meeting.
Bao Zhenyi, the teacher from Wenzhou Dalton Elementary School, introduced the course “Plastic Pollution in the Ocean” which is under design and implementation. She mainly focused on four points to introduced this course: background, framework, implementation, and encountered difficulties.
Based on Prof. Lin Jing’s suggestions for the issue “Wild Yellow Croaker” last semester, this school’s backbone teachers brainstormed on the ocean-related topics and come up with several issues to be chosen. Considering students’ cognitive ability and interests, the school project team finally decided to work on the issue of marine plastic pollution. Now, plastic pollution in the ocean has seriously threatened the environmental safety and human life, receiving great attention from international organizations, major countries, with Chinese government included. So this issue has the potential to become a social scientific issue. By combining the form of Model United Nations, this project can better cultivate students’ high-level abilities.
The driving question of the project is set as “If you are a member of the MUN delegation, how will you provide an action list of ‘plastic reduction’ for the global ‘clean ocean’ advocacy?” This question is essentially pointed to “how, based on understanding scientific concepts and technical principles and considering the needs of sustainable development for human beings, will we make decisions in action?” This project involves a series of social hot spots like “environment-friendly materials, from hope to disaster”, “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” and “the strictest plastic limit order”, which are closely related to the curriculum standards of such subjects as Chinese and comprehensive practice. It is hoped that during the learning process, we can cultivate students’ core competencies including critical thinking, social responsibility, global view, and communication ability. We also hope to strengthen their understanding of the big idea of science that “The use of science often has an impact on ethics, society, economy, and politics”. In the end, we can reach the four-points learning goals, and make relevant learning assessments.
This course has ten lessons and sections for results presentation and project summary. Now, as the course has started two weeks, the learning tasks of the first three lessons have been completed. Before the start of the project, students were asked to collect the garbage they produced in one day. And then in the next day’s class, students weighed, sorted, and counted them, finding that most of the garbage was snack bags. By playing certain videos, this issue was effectively introduced to students, arousing echoes in their hearts. They got to know the possibility and detriment of plastic flowing into the ocean. In the second lesson, some specialized teachers with relevant experience were invited to teach about the United Nations and Model United Nations so that students can know their goals. In the third lesson, with the help of teachers, students refined their question list written in the first lesson and made their own task plans. In general, the project is going well. But Ms. Bao Zhenyi also pointed out that there are still two problems in the course design and conduction. She said, “It is difficult for fourth-grade students to understand the chemical nature of plastic materials. Will the simplified teaching content affect students’ understanding of this issue? For them, is there any better way to carry out activities of scientific modeling?”
He Yinghong, the teacher from Harbin Jihong Primary School commented as follows. She thought that it’s quite good to give students new identities by MUN and make them think from an international perspective with high intentions. During the process, students showed both the spirit of scientific research and the autonomy of self-directed learning. She said the possible controversy behind this issue is: since plastic material is a double-edged sword, how could we in the future make the most of it while avoiding its harm. From this aspect, we can specially add another lesson to discuss the ethical issues involved here. She also suggested that the research results might be formally submitted to the UN after improvement.
Mr. Peng Menghua, an expert of the subject guidance group, put forward many ideas for improvement: 1. There is still a certain distance between the real plastic pollution in the ocean and students’ personal experience gained from their daily garbage. It’s hoped that the school could come up with some ways to let students directly experience what it looks like. 2. The whole project only emphasizes the harm of plastics, rather than also show the value of plastics to human society. In case that students might bear extreme detest to plastics, we should power them with comprehensive knowledge about plastics. 3. Plastic pollution can appear in multiple processes. Besides the production part emphasized in the project, there are also problems in the subsequent disposal process, which is also worth mentioning. 4. In the project, we don’t have much hands-on research, with only one investigation and one experiment. There can be more to be added to let the students get more personal experience of the nature of plastic. 5. The term “marine plastic waste” in the project title is accurate, however, the simplified version of “marine plastic” often appears in the manuscripts, which is not clear and should be changed to “marine plastic waste”. Besides, Mr. Peng also gave his suggestions in terms of formatting, wording, and descriptions. Miao Xuchun, the teacher from Wenzhou Dalton Primary School made some responses to Mr. Peng’s advice. For instance, 1. the “communication ability” pointed in the project comes from the 4C framework of the United States. It emphasizes more the ability to express oneself in a standard way and the ability to respond to others’ speeches. Since it’s not easy to describe it in the curriculum standards, further study is needed. 2. The big idea of science in the project comes from the book about working with big ideas in science education. 3. Although this project is targeted at higher-grade students in primary school, the content of ecosystem that appears only in the curriculum standards of middle and high school can still be written into the parts of “relation between the project and the curriculum standards”, in order to clarify the project direction of simulation game, which is also better for students’ development.
Cao Chunhao, an expert from the subject guidance group also shared his ideas. 1. Let students investigate how the local plastic waste is processed, so they can better understand how the plastic waste goes into the ocean. About this point, Mr. Peng thought that China does a good job in controlling plastic waste, so it might not be possible for students to do the investigation. He suggested using other countries as an example. 2. Let students make a personal action list to reduce plastic pollution, put them into practice, and finally give a self-evaluation on the practical significance of their action lists. About this point, Ms. Miao Xuchun added that this can also be used as part of students’ assessment. 3. Currently, we have developed the technology of biodegradable plastic. This can be operated in the class. Mr. Cao also suggested, the learning assessment should be changed to descriptive terms for evaluation and its operational definition should be clarified.
Ms. Yu Xiaoya, an expert of the subject guidance group, proposed that the knowledge of plastic particles can be presented from the perspective of material circulation, and each part of the material circulation should be addressed in the final action list. We can also make experiments on this issue. CCTV has a set of English materials, with all kinds of relevant experiments included, which can be used as a reference in the class.
Project leader Lin Jing proposed her ideas as follows. 1. The project should emphasize the aspects of ethics and science, such as playing videos of marine animals being harmed by plastics, doing simplified simulation experiments on how animals and plants are being threatened by marine pollution, and taking students to visit the local oceanic bureau to know the situation. 2. The policy part in the star-shaped scheme needs to be further refined and implemented, like emphasizing the specific issues of economy and security, rather than just stop at emotional levels. 3. The UN affairs are far away from our daily life, so MUN is hard for students to handle from their personal experience. In order to avoid a mere formality, it is recommended to start from the locals, and consider the MUN activity only after a few rounds when students have accumulated enough knowledge and abilities. 4. Wenzhou Dalton Primary School uses “ocean” as the education topic of its SSI-L project. Actually, in addition to the background of ocean, the core literacy pointed by the last issue “Wild Yellow Croaker” can also be continued in this activity, so we can form an organic relationship between different activities. Meanwhile, there’s no need for the series of theme activities to cultivate various kinds of core literacy at one time.
Ms. Lin Jing suggested to all partner schools that in designing and developing SSI-L activities, the following three points should be paid attention to that the multiple activities of various themes should be organized by one issue and its goal should be operable and evaluable. The activity should be based on the existing knowledge of students, that is, start from their cognition start. What’s more, Ms. Lin Jing also reminded the backbone teachers of each partner school to pay attention to class recording, observation, and reflection, integrating theories and practices.