2021年10月20日晚7:00-9:30，SSI-L项目初中组在腾讯会议室举行在线研讨活动。北京市海淀区4所学校的加入进一步扩充了初中组的研讨规模。本次研讨共有4所学校分享各自的议题设计及开展情况，学科指导专家与其他基地校老师对各校选题进行点评并给出建议。会议由初中学段负责人、山东省威海市教育教学研究中心初中教研室张涛主任主持，各学段基地校骨干教师、学科指导专家等40余人参与了本次研讨。
北京一零一中学矿大分校的于洋老师分享了本校初步设计的议题“形成健康的生活观”。在目前国内和国际越来越关注青少年健康状况的趋势下，该校团队基于中医对健康的思想设计了该议题。于老师指出，该议题旨在帮助学生树立健康的生活观，防患疾病。该议题内容中的起居观、运动观、身心观与学生的日常生活联系紧密，不仅关注中医的相关理论，也关注这些理论对学生生活的具体指导作用。
北京外国语大学瑞安附属学校的杨开天老师认为该主题的立意契合目前的背景，贴近学生的日常生活和初中生的认知，学生能够在议题学习中产生思考和讨论。从形式上来说，课程内容中设置了一些有关中医的实践性活动，学生也能获得一定的参与感。
张涛老师指出，北京一零一中学矿大分校刚参与项目就拿出了一个比较成熟的议题设计，值得肯定。但该议题在设计方面仍存在改进的空间，如目前的议题中“议”的成分不多，而更像一个对学生的单纯知识讲解式的教学，未来团队需要进一步思考如何使议题更加有争议性，促进学生的“议”。
山西临汾市解放路学校的吉青青老师分享了本校议题“转基因玉米的利与弊”的项目进展情况。目前，该议题已开展两次课程，在第一节课中，学生将从多个方面考虑“双减政策”、“人工智能”、“住校与回家”等例子中的利与弊，并在该过程中树立辩证思维，为后续的学习顺利开展奠定了思维基础。第二节课中学生学习玉米的发展历史和文化，帮助学生了解玉米对我国的重要作用，为后续的学习奠定知识内容基础。
山东威海市南海新区实验学校的王伟云老师指出，转基因问题是社会广泛关注的问题，目前以转基因为主题的议题已初步形成一个系列。在活动设计方面，该团队设计的议题活动有“低起点，小步子”的特征，学生的活动参与度很高，也能看出取得了非常好的学习成果。
张涛老师指出，临汾市解放路学校已经针对转基因话题研究了两年，转基因议题具有两难、有争议性、有社会价值等特征，是一个良好的选题。但转基因的问题比较复杂，其难度和可行性在教学中需要仔细考虑。此外，玉米文化不应该放在科学性中，五星图的“道德”改成“伦理”可能更贴合议题内容，目前来看玉米文化内容过多，可以考虑适当删减。此外，张老师指出该议题的活动设计很有逻辑，值得其他学校借鉴。
浙江省北京外国语大学瑞安附属学校薛孝锋老师介绍了本校新开发的议题“屋顶绿化何去何从”。基于上次讨论中的专家建议，该校对原有议题进行了修改，基于大中城市中绿化面积较少的问题提出了“屋顶绿化”的相关议题。该议题中涉及学生对屋顶绿化相关经济、政策、科学知识的了解，且涉及建构屋顶绿化生态模型等活动。在学习过程中，学生将基于知识和活动内容对议题进行多轮决策。
山西省太原市尖草坪区实验学校的刘妍老师指出，屋顶绿化是社会所关注的议题，先前的五角星设计和活动设计都具有较高的逻辑性。
张涛老师认为屋顶绿化的选题也符合社会性科学议题的需求。屋顶绿化是一项总体来说利大于弊的活动，国家也在大力倡导，但是国家的倡导与生活实际存在差距。张涛老师指出该议题的科学性活动的设计思路很好，但是议题的社会性方面需要进一步深化思考。
浙江省杭州市三墩中学吴幸春老师分享了议题“饮用水”的课程开展情况。在本学期初，项目组首先带领学生完成了对上一个议题“水体富营养化”的收尾工作，确保两个议题能够顺畅连接。目前，在新议题中已经完成了社团成员招募、学生自我介绍和评价方式介绍。在议题开展的初期，团队教师首先以问卷的形式收集了学生对引用水相关问题的看法，并以此引出驱动性问题。最后，吴老师提出了两个目前的议题开展中的两个问题，其一是成员考试时间冲突，时间紧张；其二是目前团队老师发现水系列议题的迫切性不足，希望在未来能够开发具有迫切性的短期议题。
山东威海市世昌中学的孔鹏飞老师认为三墩中学评价前置的做法值得借鉴。孔老师同时针对吴老师提出的两个问题提出了自己的看法，针对第一个问题，孔老师提出可以灵活授课，或者将长时间课程打乱成小模块的方式授课。针对第二个问题，孔老师认为饮用水的主题是很好的，可以从具体内容设计方面入手提升学生兴趣。
学科指导专家、北师大二附中特级教师彭梦华老师针对四所学校的主讲情况进行了总结式的点评。彭老师指出，无论什么科目的题目，只要贴近学生生活，学生能够顺利完成，都是好的议题。彭老师同时也针对部分学校议题做出了针对性的点评。针对北京一零一中学矿大分校的议题，彭老师指出该议题与人们的生活贴近，且具有一定的深度。但该议题对学生的历史和文学修养提出了一定要求，因此团队老师需要选择具有一定中医知识基础的学生。针对山西临汾市解放路学校的议题，彭老师提出项目组的老师需要确保能够把转基因的问题搞明白，让学生明白哪些育种方式能够算是转基因。针对北京外国语大学瑞安附属学校的议题，彭老师建议项目组需要更多地考虑政策因素，屋顶绿化是否在现有的政策下可行是学校需要重点考虑的问题；针对浙江省杭州市三墩中学的议题，彭老师指出该议题非常贴近学生的生活，其中包含着大量的问题，教学需要帮助学生树立正确的用水观和饮水观。
SSI-L项目负责人、中国基础教育质量监测协同创新中心科学提升部主任林静对今晚的研讨内容做出总结。首先，林老师针对会议中的部分议题给出了建议。针对“屋顶绿化”议题，林老师指出在目前的政策下，普通人可能与建造屋顶绿化距离较远，学生在讨论该议题时可能缺少立场；此外，屋顶绿化究竟在当地引发了多大的争议也需要纳入考量，否则该议题可能需要大量铺垫。针对“饮用水”议题，林老师指出该议题很有意义，在未来的议题设计中，可以把议题的视野拓展开，如“缺水地区的饮水观”、“以饮料代水是否健康”等话题。林老师建议，在SSI-L项目浙江区域联盟成立的背景下，以“水”为主题的议题可以在区域内推广。其次，林老师强调项目组研讨活动的定位是集体备课，希望各校老师能够大胆提出自己的质疑和批判，为其他学校的议题出谋划策，避免讴歌式的点评。最后，林老师指出社会性科学议题学习一定要与当地的实际情况结合起来，与学生的日常生活紧密结合，切忌臆造议题。对于一些“大视野”的议题，需要选择一个小的、与学生生活贴近的切入点。
本次研讨各学校充分、有条理地分享了议题设计或议题开展的具体情况，提出了切实的问题，并收获了指导专家和其他基地校老师的建设性意见。总体而言，本次研讨富有成效，为下半学期社会性科学议题教学的顺利开展和议题的进一步打磨深化起到了关键作用。
On October 20, 2021, from 7:00 pm to 9:30 pm, SSI-L Junior Group held an online seminar in the Tencent Conference room. The new participation of four partner schools in the Haidian District further expanded the scope of the junior high school team. In today’s seminar, four schools shared their issue-based activity design and implementation. Subject experts and teachers from other partner schools commented on the issue selection and gave suggestions. The meeting was hosted by ZHANG Tao, the responsible person of the SSI-L junior high school group and the director of the Junior High School team of Weihai Institute of Education and Teaching Research. More than 40 attendances, including backbone teachers and subject experts, participated in the discussion.
YU Yang from Beijing 101 Middle High School, Kuangda campus shared their newly designed SSI-L project “Forming a healthy outlook on life”. Nowadays, teenagers’ health condition is greatly concerned both domestically and internationally. Because of that, the team decided to choose the topic of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Teacher YU pointed out that this project aimed to help students to build a healthy outlook on life and prevent disease. The outlook of residence, exercise and physical, and mental health are closely related to students’ daily life. The project not only paid attention to TCM-related theories but also the actual guidance those theories could provide.
YANG Kaitian from Ruian Affiliated School of Beijing Foreign Studies University believed that the idea fitted the social background, closed to students’ life and their cognition. Students could think and discuss through SSI learning. In terms of the form, there were some practical activities related to TCM in the course that students could participate in.
ZHANG Tao praised the school to raise such a mature topic at the beginning stage, while also pointing out that there was still room for improvement in terms of the design. For example, there was only a relatively small portion of discussion, which was more like knowledge explanation. In the future, the team needs to think about how to make the topic more controversial and let students discuss it.
JI Qingqing from Linfen Jiefang Road School, Shanxi shared their SSI-L project “The advantage and disadvantage of transgenic maize”. At present, students had already taken two classes. In the first class, they discussed the pros and cons of topics such as double reduction policy, artificial intelligence, and living in school or going back home from multiple aspects, thinking dialectically, and building the foundation for later study. In the second class, students learned the development history and culture of corn which helped them to understand the important role of corn in China and would benefit their future study.
WANG Weiyun from Weihai Nanhai Experimental School, Shandong pointed out that genetically modified food (GM) is a social hot issue that has been discussed for a long time and there was a series of topics of that. In terms of activity design, the topic activity designed by the team had the characteristics of “low starting point and small steps”. Students participated in the activity actively and had achieved great results.
ZHANG Tao said that the school had discussed GM-related issues for two years. This issue is controversial, has social value, and also requires students to think dialectically. It is a good issue. However, it is also a bit complicated that teachers need to carefully consider the difficulty and feasibility of teaching. Besides, the culture of the corn is not scientific, so it’s better to modify the element of “moral” in the five-star diagram to “ethics” to make it closer to the issue. Moreover, there were too many contents on the cultural side and was suggested to delete it. ZHANG praised the logical design of the issue and encouraged other schools to learn from it.
XUE Xiaofeng from Ruian Affiliated School of Beijing Foreign Studies University, Zhejiang province introduced their SSI-L project “Roof greening”. Based on the experts’ suggestions in the last discussion, the school revised the original issue and put forward the new one. That was because they found there were only a few green areas in large and medium-sized cities. Students were going to learn the economic, political, and scientific knowledge of the green roof. They would also build ecological models for roof greening. During the study, students would make multiple rounds of decisions based on knowledge and activities.
LIU Yan from Taiyuan Experimental School of Jiancaoping District, Shanxi pointed out that, this is a social hot issue, and both the design of the five-star diagram and activities were highly logical.
ZHANG Tao believed that the issue of green roof met the standard of social-scientific issues. Roof greening is an activity that does better than harm in general, and the government is also vigorously advocating it. However, there is a gap between the policy and real life. ZHANG pointed out that teachers needed to further think about the social aspect of the issue.
WU Xingchun from Hangzhou Sandun Middle School introduced their SSI-L project “Drinking water”. At the beginning of this semester, the team led students to complete the previous project of “Eutrophication of water” to better connect with the new project. At present, they have already recruited participators for the new project, asked students to do self-introductions and they also have introduced the evaluation method. To begin with, teachers collected students’ ideas towards water-related issues through sending out questionnaires and they then raised the driven question based on the result. At last, Teacher WU pointed out two problems faced during the implementation. One was the time limitation and the conflict between examinations. Another one was that they found water issues were not urgent enough, so they hoped to develop a short-term issue with urgency.
KONG Pengfei from Weihai Shichang Middle School, Shandong agreed that it was a good idea to bring forward the evaluation section. Teacher KONG also gave suggestions on two difficulties mentioned by WU. For the first one, KONG suggested a flexible way of teaching or breaking the long class into several short ones. For the second question, he said the issue regarding drinking water was very good and could enhance students’ interests through better module setting.
PENG Menghua, a subject expert and a special-grade teacher of No. 2 High School affiliated to Beijing Normal University, summarized today’s session. He pointed out that no matter what kind of subject it is, as long as it is close to student’ life and can be successfully completed, it is a good issue. PENG also made specific comments on each project. Project of “Forming a healthy outlook on life” from Beijing 101 Middle High School, Kuangda campus was close to our daily life and serious. However, this issue requires students to have some knowledge of history and literature, so teachers need to invite students with a certain knowledge base of TCM. As for the project “The advantage and disadvantage of transgenic maize” from Linfen Jiefang Road School, PENG suggested the team make a clear definition of GM so that students could distinguish under what kind of cultivating method is a GM product. In terms of the project of “Roof greening” from Ruian Affiliated School of Beijing Foreign Studies University, he suggested teachers consider the local policy. The school should focus on whether it is allowed to build roof gardens under the current policy. Last was about the project of “Drinking water” from Hangzhou Sandun Middle School. PENG pointed out that the issue is very close to students’ lives and has a lot of questions. Teachers need to help students to establish a correct view of using water and drinking water.
Dr. LIN Jing, the SSI-L project leader and Director of the Science Improvement Department of China Collaborative Innovation Center of Assessment for Basic Education Quality summed up the seminar. First, she gave some suggestions. For the project “Roof greening”, she mentioned that under current policy, roof greening may be far away from ordinary people life and so as students. They may find it a bit hard to raise opinions. Besides, the team needs to consider how controversial the issue is, otherwise, teachers need to pave the way. As for the issue of “Drinking water”, it is very meaningful. In the future, teachers can add more sections into the project such as “how people treat drinking water in water shortage areas” and “is it healthy to replace water with drinks”. LIN suggested that seize the moment of the establishment of the Zhejiang Regional Alliance for the SSI-L project, issues about “water” could be promoted in the region. Moreover, LIN again emphasized that the orientation of seminars like today was to prepare lessons together. LIN hoped that teachers could raise their doubts and criticisms actively, make useful suggestions and avoid eulogizing comments. At last, LIN pointed out that the issues of SSI-L projects must be highly relevant to the local situation and needed to combine with it. Those issues should be close to student’s life instead of just drawing one. For those big issues, teachers could start from small topics which are close to students.
In today’s seminar, all the schools shared their project designs and current situations logically and specifically. They also raised several questions and received useful suggestions from experts and teachers from other schools. All in all, the discussion was fruitful and played a key role in the smooth development of social science teaching in the second half of the semester and future design polish.