Innovative Education Informatization with Chinese Characteristics: Theory and Practice (Bridging Human and Machine: Future Education with Intelligence) 9811906211, 9789811906213

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Bridging Human and Machine: Future Education with Intelligence

Kekang He

Innovative Education Informatization with Chinese Characteristics Theory and Practice

Bridging Human and Machine: Future Education with Intelligence Series Editors Shengquan Yu, School of Educational Technology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China Ig Ibert Bittencourt , Computing Institute, Federal University of Alagoas, Maceió, Brazil

This book series will gather researchers from AI to brain science, scientists from data science to cognitive neuroscience; experts from academia to industry, and specifically pay attentions on the new frontiers and technologies that would transform future education. This series intends to empower readers a deeper understanding on future education from the perspectives of both enabling technology and learning science. Topics are covered but not limited to the cutting-edge and multidisciplinary research, development, and practice among the fields in education and technology. For example, some books would address what and how AI techniques can be used for enhancing learning and education system. Some books would seek an explanation on how brain science can connect human brain’s physical activities and cognitive process. Moreover, this book series would provide policy-makers and educational stakeholders more quality and equity education, and encourage government and private sectors to invest more resources in the development of educational tools and facilities with intelligence.

More information about this series at https://link.springer.com/bookseries/16427

Kekang He

Innovative Education Informatization with Chinese Characteristics Theory and Practice

Kekang He Advanced Innovation Center for Future Education Beijing Normal University Beijing, China

ISSN 2662-5342 ISSN 2662-5350 (electronic) Bridging Human and Machine: Future Education with Intelligence ISBN 978-981-19-0621-3 ISBN 978-981-19-0622-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0622-0 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

Contents

1

Exordium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Goal and Significance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Structure and Main Contents of the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Design and Development of This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Strategic Measures to Achieve the Goal of IIECC Through Maker Education System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Innovative Teaching Model—Chinese-Style Flipped Classroom, Characteristics, and Advantages of AI in Subjects Teaching in Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Design and Developments in the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Part I 2

1 1 1 2 5

7 8 13

Six Theoretical Supports for Innovative Informationaization in Education

Foundation Theory for Cultivating Innovative Talents: Creative Thinking Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Components of Creative Thinking—Three-Basic Forms of Human Thinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 Views on Classifying of Human Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Reconsideration of Classification and Basic Forms of Human Thinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 Main Features of Spatial and Temporal Thinking . . . . . . . . . . . 1.4 Materials and Processing of Spatial-Structural Thinking . . . . . 1.5 Materials and Processing of Temporal-Logical Thinking . . . . . 2 Foothold of Creative Thinking: Interaction Between Conscious and Subconscious . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Definition of Consciousness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Conscious and Subconscious Thinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 A Mental Processing Model of Creative Thinking—The DC Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

17 19 19 21 23 25 29 30 30 33 39

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3.1 Dependence of Logical Thinking and Imagery Thinking . . . . . 3.2 Imagery Thinking Based on Attributive Images Inseparable from Speech Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Classification and Definition of Creative Thinking . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 A Mental Processing Model of Creative Thinking—The DC Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5 Processing of Non-random Creative Thinking and Mental Operation Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 On the Cultivation of Innovative Talents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Core of the Cultivation of Innovative Talents: Cultivating Creative Thinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 The Five Myths of the Current Creative Thinking . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 The Six Elements of Creative Thinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Five Stages of Cultivating Creative Thinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Supportive Integration of Information Technology and Subject Teaching: Neo-Constructivism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Origin and Main Contents of Western Constructionism . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 Origin and Main Contents of Western Constructionism [1–3] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 The Main Contents of Western Constructionist Views . . . . . . . 2 Rise of New Constructionist Views—Reflection of the Western Constructionism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Is the Idea of Constructionism, Student-Centered or Teacher-Student Centered? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Constructionist View: Subjectivism or Unity of Subjectivity and Objectivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Constructionism as Main Theoretical Basis to Guide Current Educational Reform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Cultural Origin of Neo-Constructionism Confucius’ Heuristics and Teaching by Aptitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Instructional Philosophy of New Constructionism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Students’ Cognitive Subject Status in the Learning Process Should Be Highlighted [8] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Focus on the Important Role of Situation in Meaning Construction [1, 4] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Stress the Key Role of Collaborative Learning in Meaning Construction [1, 5, 8] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Emphasis on Both Teaching Environment Design and Learning Environment Design [2] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5 Vigorously Using Various Information Resources to Support Teaching and Learning [3] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.6 Stressing Teaching Objectives and Focusing on the Construction of Deep Meaning [9, 12] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

40 41 43 44 47 54 54 55 58 58 65 67 67 67 69 74 75 77 81 84 88 89 89 90 90 91 91

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5 Teaching Model Advocated by New Constructionism . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 5.1 Teaching Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 5.2 Sorting of Teaching Models of Information Technology and Curriculum Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 5.3 Two Most Popular and Effective Integration Models Advocated by New Constructionism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 4

Theory of Deep Integration of Information Technology and Integrated Subjects Teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Introduction [1] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 Overview: Development of Applications of Information Technology in Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 The Core Content of Information Technology and Curriculum Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Information Technology and Curriculum Integration in the US: Research and Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 US Theoretical Research on Information Technology and Curriculum Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Effect of Information Technology Applications in the United States at All Educational Levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Core Contents of Information Technology and Curriculum Integration in China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Goals of Information Technology and Curriculum Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Connotation of Integration of Information Technology and Curriculum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Approaches of Integrating Information Technology and Curriculum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 Comparison of Chinese and American Research on the Integration of Information Technology and Curriculum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Comparison Ways and Methods for Information Technologies and Curriculum Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 UNESCO Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Strategies of American Scholars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Countermeasures of Japanese Scholars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Countermeasures of Chinese Scholars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5 Analysis and Comparison of the Above Approaches and Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Impact of Information Technology on Educational Reform at All Levels and Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 Big Data Educational Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Cloud Computing Educational Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 Artificial Intelligence Educational Application . . . . . . . . . . . . .

105 105 105 106 107 108 113 116 116 117 119

123 123 124 126 141 144 145 153 153 155 158

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5.4 Internet + Education Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 5.5 Characteristics and Advantages of Emerging Information Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 5

6

New Instructional Design Theory for Integrating Information Technology and Subjects Teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Novelty of the New Instructional Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 Three Early Support Theories for the Growth of Instructional Design [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Main Characteristics of the System Method [1] [2] . . . . . . . . . . 2 Support for Formation and Growth of Instructional Design Theory from the Old Three Theories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Classification of Instructional Design Theories . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Embodiment of System Method Characteristics of the Old Threes in ID Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 The New Threes Supporting Formation and Growth of Instructional Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Correctly Implementing Holistic ID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Fully Reflection of Non-Liberality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Making Most of Synergy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 Effective Implementation of Fluctuation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5 Keeping the System Open . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Misinterpretations in New Generation of Instructional Design Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Novel Instructional Design of Balanced Teaching–Learning . . . . . . . 5.1 Theoretical Basis and Implementation Steps of Teaching-Centered ID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Theoretical Basis and Implementation Steps of Learning-Oriented ID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 Background, Theoretical Base, and Steps of ID of Attaching Equal Importance to Learning and Teaching . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Innovative Teaching Theory Supportive of Mandarin Chinese Teaching Quality: New Theory of Children’s Thinking Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 New Theory of Children’s Thinking Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Piaget’s Stages of Child’s Cognitive Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Basic Contents of Piaget’s Theory of Child’s Cognitive Development Stages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Piaget’s Contribution to the Research on Child’s Cognitive Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Main Defects of Piaget’s Theory on Stages of Child’s Cognitive Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

171 171 172 175 179 179 182 184 184 186 191 192 193 195 197 197 198 199 201

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3 Contents, Significance, and Influence of the New Theory of Children’s Thinking Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Background of a New Theory on Children’s Thinking Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Main Contents of the New Theory on Children’s Thinking Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 New Theory of Children’s Thinking Development Against Negative Effect of Piaget’s Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 New Theory of Children’s Thinking Development Supportive of Mandarin Chinese Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5 Cultivation of Language Ability Combined with Thinking (Creative Thinking) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 New Theory of Children’s Thinking Development Provides Theoretical Support for the Leapfrog Development of Chinese Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Emphasis of a Strong Foundation of Preschoolers in Pronunciation, Meaning, and Sentence Patterns in Their Mother Tongue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Emphasis on Mandarin Chinese Characters Use as the Center: The Fundamental Approach and Method, Children Learn and Master Language Quickly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 We Should Combine the Training of Language Ability with That of Thinking Ability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Cultivating Creative Thinking in Mandarin Chinese Education [12] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 The Crux of Mandarin Chinese Education—Suffocating Creative Thinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Correct Understanding of the Relationship Between Language and Thinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 Understanding Relations Between Language and Thinking: Guiding Significance for Mandarin Chinese Teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Theory of Child Language Development for Foreign Language Teaching: Theory of Semantic Perception . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Speech Sense and Semantic Perception Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 Speech Sense (Semantic Perception) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Basic Contents of the Semantic Perception Theory . . . . . . . . . . 2 Model of Speech Comprehension and Production in English Language Teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Psychological Processing of Speech Understanding . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Psychological Process of Discourse Generation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Feedback Mechanism in Speech Comprehension and Production Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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215 215 217 221 225 230

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234 237 239 239 243

253 257 259 259 259 260 266 266 267 268

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2.4 The Key Role of Two-Way Interaction (Verbal Communication) in Language Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5 Significance of Speech Comprehension and Production Model for English Teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Ways of Altering Effects of ‘Deaf-Mute’ English Teaching . . . . . . . . 3.1 Reasons for the Failure of Traditional English Teaching . . . . . . 3.2 What Is the Communication-Centered English Teaching Mode? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Implementation of Communication-Centered English Teaching Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Ways to Integrate Information Technology and English Teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Connotation of Deep Integration Between Information Technology and Subject Teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Important Role of Communication-Centered English Teaching Mode in Deep Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Communication-Centered Teaching Mode Enables Multimedia and Network Technology to Play an Important Role in English Teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Effects of Innovative Experiments on English Teaching Based on the Semantic Perception Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 Comparative Tests of Beijing-Guangzhou Rural Experimental and Urban Elite Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 A Comparative Test in College Public English Classes . . . . . . . Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part II

8

270 271 272 272 272 274 277 278 281

282 283 284 284 285 292

Strategies of Achieving Informationization of Creative Education with Chinese Features: Encouraging and Applying Maker Education System

Reasons for Advocating Maker Education System with Chinese Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Origin and Connotation of Western Makers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 Background of Western Maker Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 The Connotation of Maker, Maker-Space and Maker Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 Maker Education in the Minds of Western Researchers . . . . . . 2 Analysis and Comparison of Maker Education in China and the West . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 The Commonness of Maker Education Connotation Between China and Western Countries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Differences of Connotation Between Chinese and Western Maker Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

295 296 296 296 297 299 299 301

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3 Status Quo of Maker Education in China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305 9

Advocacy and Implementation of Maker Education with Chinese Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Learning from the West Maker Education: Procedures and Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 Create Two Types of Maker-Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Conduct Teacher Training for Maker Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 Implement Special Courses for Cultivating Makers and Carry Out Relevant Maker Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.4 Cultivate Maker Culture Gradually Based on Maker Activities and Maker Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Attaching Great Importance to Cultivate Sense of Innovation . . . . . . 3 Vigorously Promoting the Cultivation of Creative Thinking . . . . . . . 3.1 Taking Constructionism as the Main Learning Theory to Support Maker Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Attach Importance to Embodied Cognitive Theory in the Guiding Role of Maker Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Main Advocates of Maker Education in the West Focus on the Change of Teachers-and-Students’ Thinking Mode . . . . 4 Practicing Cultivation of Innovation Ability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Supplement on the Maker Course . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Supplement on the Training Content of Maker Teachers . . . . . 4.3 New Requirements for Humanities and Social Science Classes of Primary and Secondary School Teaching . . . . . . . . . 5 Ways to Integrate Maker Education with Chinese Characteristics into the Current Education System—Web-Based and Non-Web-Based Leapfrog Trials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 Leapfrog Experiment Based on Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Leapfrog Experiment Without Internet Access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Promoting Educational Fairness Through Maker Education with Chinese Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1 Pay Attention to the Fairness of the Preparatory Stage of Maker Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 Pay Attention to the Fairness of the Specific Implementation Stage of Maker Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

307 307 307 308 308 308 309 311 311 312 312 316 317 317 318

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10 Deep Learning in Maker Education with Chinese Characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327 1 Knowing Deep Learning Research: History, Present Situation, and Connotation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328 1.1 The Origins of the Study of Deep Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328

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1.2 Discussion on the Connotation of Deep Learning in Academic Circles at Home and Abroad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Clarifying the Connotation and Basic Characteristics of Deep Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Connotation of Deep Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Basic Features of Deep Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 The Measures of Promoting Deep Learning in the Process of Implementing Maker Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Developing Scientific and Correct Educational Thoughts and Teaching Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Advocate Effective New Teaching Mode Vigorously . . . . . . . . 3.3 Encouraging Establishment of New Learning Communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 Striving to Create an Smart Learning Environment . . . . . . . . . . 4 How Does Deep Learning Embody Innovative Education Ideas and Learning Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Follow the Scientific Correct Idea of Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Adhering to the Innovative Concept of Teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Advocating New Teaching Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Extending the Connotation of Learning Community and Encouraging General Construction of the New Online Learning Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5 Working Hard at Creative Thinking Theory and Mastering and Using It—this Will Give You the Ability to Be Creative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.6 By Combining Maker Education with the New Generation of Deep Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 To Achieve the Highest Goal of Deep Learning-The Cultivation of Creative Ability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 Sticking to Down-To-Earth Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Working at Creative Thinking Theory and Using It—this Gives You Creative Ability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Part III Innovative Education Informationization—A Teaching Model: Chinese-Style Flipped Classroom 11 Causes for Wide Implementation of Chinese-Style Flipped Classroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Origin and Growth of Western Flipped Classroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 Origin and Development of the Western Flipped Classroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Two Developmental Stages of Western Flipped Classroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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2 Functions and Effects of Western Flipped Classroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Flipped Classroom Can Embody the Advantages of Blended Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Flipped Classroom is More in Line with Human Cognitive Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Flipped Classroom Contributes to Build a New Teacher-Student Relationship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Flipped Classroom Promotes Effective Use, Research, and Development of Teaching Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5 Flipped Classroom Fully Embodies the New Concept of “Emergent Curriculum” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Restrictions and Challenges of Implementing Western Flipped Classroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Restrictions of Implementing Flipped Classroom . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Challenges in the Wider Implementation of the Flipped Classroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Exploring Essential Features of Flipped Classroom from Chinese Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 An Overview of Experimental Research on Leapfrog Teaching in China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 The Background of Experimental Research on Leapfrog Teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Aim of Experimental Research on LT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 Overview of Development of LT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Key Factors of Success and Effects in Experiments of Leapfrog Teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Test on the Effect of LT Experiment on Primary School Chinese . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Test on the Effect of LT Experiment on Primary School English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Investigation and Test on the Effect of the Leapfrog Experiment in Middle School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Key Factor of Success in LT—Realizing Fundamental Changes of Classroom Teaching Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Innovative Teaching Mode in Leapfrog Teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Teaching Mode of Chinese in the Lower Grades of Primary Schools (2–1–1 Mode) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Teaching Mode of English in Primary and Junior Middle Schools (1–1–1 Mode) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Teaching Model of Mathematics in Higher Grades Primary and Junior Middle Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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4 Common Features of Chinese Leapfrog Teaching and Western Flipped Classroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Using Smart Classroom to Create a Better Teaching–Learning Environment for the Flipped Classroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 Characteristics of Smart Learning Environment (Smart Classroom) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 The Origin of Smart Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Reforming Traditional Classroom Teaching Structure: Significance and Measures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1 Significance of Reforming Classroom Teaching Structure . . . . 6.2 Measures and Steps to Realize Classroom Teaching Structure Reform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Chinese-Style Flipped Classroom: Implementation and Relevant Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Connotation and Classification of Concepts Related to Flipped Classroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 Various Teaching Concepts Related to Flipped Classroom . . . . 1.2 Classification of Teaching Modes in the Integration of Information Technology and Curriculum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Meaningful-Transference-Acceptance Mode: Procedures and Cases [1, 6] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Background and Teaching Process of Meaningful-Transmission-Acceptance Model . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Connotation and Characteristics of Meaningful Transmission-Acceptance Teaching Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Teaching Steps of Meaningful Transmission-Acceptance Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 A Case Study on the Implementation of Transmission-Acceptance Teaching Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Inquiry-Under-Teacher-Guidance Mode: Procedures and Cases [1, 7, 8] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Background and Teaching Process of the Teacher-Guided Inquiry Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Connotation and Features of the Teaching Mode of Inquiry-Under-Teachers’ Guidance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Steps of the Teaching Model of Inquiry-Under-Teachers’ Guidance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 A Case Study of the Teaching Model of Inquiry-Under-Teacher-Guidance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Inquiry Learning Mode: Procedures and Cases [1, 9] . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Background and Teaching Process of Research-Based Learning Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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4.2 Connotation and Features of Inquiry Learning Teaching Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Steps of the Teaching Mode of Research-Based Learning . . . . 4.4 A Case Study of Research-Based Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 WebQuest Teaching Mode: Procedures and Cases [1, 10] . . . . . . . . . 5.1 WebQuest Patterns and Implementation Steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 The Implementation Case of WebQuest Mode Dolly . . . . . . . . 5.3 Comparison of Western WebQuest Mode and Chinese Research-Based Learning Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 JITT Teaching Model: Procedures and Cases [1, 11] . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1 Background of Just-in-Time teaching Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 Connotation and Characteristics of Just-In-Time Teaching Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3 Steps of Just-In-Time Teaching Model [13–15] . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4 Cases of Just-In-Time Teaching Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 459

Chapter 1

Exordium

1 Goal and Significance The goal and significance of this monograph Informationization of Innovative Education with Chinese Characteristics (IIECC): the theory and practice of promoting advanced and informationization (AI) in education with Chinese features is of great and profound significance, and it will have a critical and profound impact on the development of informationization in education. The six theoretical accomplishments of the book IIECC are the work of a squad of researchers in the Education Technology Institute, Beijing Normal University, China, which have been shaped since the early 1990s, after over 20 years of experiments and exploration. In order to successfully implement the goals of AI in Chinese educational background, we have taken strategic measures that implement, in large scale, and integrate with the existing education system in various subject areas of primary and secondary schools, fully representing the new teaching mode and AI.

2 Structure and Main Contents of the Book The goal of IIECC is to help train greatest number of Chinese teenagers, not only a minority of college students, with three aspects: a sense of innovation, innovative thinking (i.e., creative thinking), and innovation ability; such are the quality of innovative talents, which is able to build a lovely Chinese dream—to realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. It is the need of China to realize her dream, which is closely related to every other country (especially developing countries) to train young people to be innovative talents with three qualities, namely sense of innovation, innovation thinking, and innovation ability. Innovation in education in an information-based society with Chinese features displays, in theory and practice, Chinese insight and experience, which also has implicational significance for other © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 K. He, Innovative Education Informatization with Chinese Characteristics, Bridging Human and Machine: Future Education with Intelligence, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0622-0_1

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developing countries. This is why we are looking forward to sharing our experience with the belt-and-road countries. This is the basic thought and basis of the project.

3 Design and Development of This Book In fact, the goal of the global education informationization is to promote the cultivation of innovative talents, which must be implemented in the growth of the quality of teaching in schools at all levels. For this, all countries around the world have invested hundreds of billions of dollars in informationization of education. But so far, no developed countries, including the United States, are capable of realizing this goal. This is because, in the information setting, it is not enough to have the advanced information facilities and environment for students to develop, and there is a need for scientific theory and methods that can effectually guiding the informationization of education, and the developed countries, so far, have not formed such a system and scientific theory. After more than 20 years of in-depth research and practical exploration, we have independently formed a set of such theories (that is, the six theories to support the effective implementation of “innovative education informatization with Chinese characteristics” to be elaborated in this book), and these theories have been tested by the practical application of hundreds of primary and secondary schools in various regions (including developed eastern regions, remote and poor mountainous areas in central and western regions, and weak areas at the junction of urban and rural areas). It is therefore possible to make known to the experience of the countries along the belt and road, and their regions, which is of great significance. The agenda of the book and main contents enclose three aspects: A.

Contents of six theories for IIECC

These theories have absorbed advantages and rejected disadvantages of other theories and formed, a theory of innovation, in the Chinese national conditions and with years of trialing in primary and secondary schools to deepen the practice of instruction, which are the product of informationization theory in education of the project of Beijing Normal University. Its basic contents relate to the ensuing six areas: a.

Creative thinking theory—construction and demonstration of DC model

This theory is first put forward on the basis of research results from the latest brain science, brain physiological anatomy, psychology, and formation of inspiration and insight (i.e., how creative thinking forms) since the 1990s. The brand-new theory for the cultivation of innovative talents has unique role to play. It is also a crucial and ground-breaking theory to support the education reform in schools and improve the quality of subjects teaching (in fact, such support requires four core theories and methods, and creative thinking theory is one of them). b.

New constructivism theory

This is from constructivism emphasizing knowledge mainly through autonomous learning and independent construction by cognitive individuals (rather than instilled

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by others). The theory adopted concepts and rejected radical constructivism represented by D.H. Jonassen and others who have the pure subjectivist epistemology as its philosophical foundation. They see teachers’ leading role and the students’ cognitive status as completely opposite. For Jonathan thinks that as long as one pays attention to teachers’ leading role, it will influence and restrict students’ autonomous learning, and constructivism in this tradition, rejects the teachers’ role in the teaching process, as well as in teaching design. We also explore in detail the cultural origin of constructivism theory and finally found out that Confucius heuristic teaching and teaching according to their aptitude is the earliest cultural gene of constructionism, different from the western academia, which believed that Dewey’s child-centered and activity-centered theories are the origin of constructivism. This is by no means my personal supposition, but a rigorously reasoned scientific conclusion (see Section 3 of Chapter 3 of this book). Thus, we can logically present the thought that combines the teachers’ leading roles and the students’ subjective status (instead of studentcenteredness) as the fundamental guiding ideology, and unity of subjectivity and objectivity as epistemology as its philosophical origin of this new constructivism (some Hong Kong scholars call it Chinese constructivism). Through our survey of educational reform in many schools since the 1990s, it has been proved that the new constructionism has become an important theoretical root to support the integration of information technology and subject instruction in the aspect of teaching and learning. Because of this, the new constructionism has become one of the four core theories supporting the present teaching reform of various subjects in schools. c.

Integration of information technology and curriculum

This is the theory of integration, autonomously established by Beijing Normal University team, on the basis of the theory of integration of information technology and curriculum, which can reform the fundamental structure of classroom instruction. In fact, this is to support schools reform, significantly increasing subjects teaching quality and students’ overall quality. This theory is depth fusion theory, needed to support various disciplines of school reform (one more theory in addition to the four theory). d.

New teaching design theory

This new instructional design theory, with innovative efforts of Chinese scholars, came out of the three old theories (system science: system theory, information theory, cybernetics) and three new theories (dissipative structure theory, cooperative learning, and super cycle theory). Based on the analysis of the three old theories, which help instructive design supporting the present school reform, and its application, as well as the current academic circles in the use of the new theories to construct a new generation of instructional design theory solving the myth of practical issues, we created this new theory of design. The second innovation is grounded on Robert Mills Gagne’s teaching-priority design and Jonathan radical constructivists, absorbing their advantages and rejecting weaknesses, which is advocated and guided by the new three system science and the

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1 Exordium

new constructivism with combination of a new type of instructional design theory, balancing both teaching and learning. This is an information-based instructional environment, which can achieve the best effect of teaching, and therefore most popular with school teachers, especially primary and secondary school teachers (in fact, each discipline area of teaching reform relies on the instructional design; so, the above four theoretical supports are the new instructional design theory). In general, the four core theoretical pillars can meet the needs of the teachers. However, in China mother tongue teaching and foreign language teaching (usually English) have special needs, which cause most problems in the basic education for years. To meet the special needs and make improvements in the quality of teaching, in addition to the four pillar theories, it is probable to have subject-specific theories to guide the teaching. This is why the book involves new developments of child thinking (an unprecedented theory for teaching mother tongue) and the sense of language theory for foreign language instruction. This also makes the AI theory with Chinese features from four pillar theories to six. Here is a brief introduction to the latter two theories. e.

New developments of child thinking

This is a new theory about the teaching of mother tongue, which is based on Paget’s stages of child cognitive development and based on our own years of experience in the research of teaching of mother tongue in primary and secondary schools. This theory has exceptional function for guiding and realizing the substantial improvement of quality mother tongue instruction (i.e., so-called leapfrog development) under the information environment (see Chapter 6 for details). f.

Sense of language—new developments in child language

This is a new theory that has been based on Chomsky’s and others’ theory of child language acquisition and comprehension, and based on the research in English instruction in schools. The teaching theory has no irreplaceable guiding significance and role (see Chapter 7) of the significant advance of foreign language instruction in information environment. The ultimate goal of informationization in education is to improve the quality of subjects teaching and the students’ general excellence, and the above theories of innovative thinking, integration of information technology and curriculum, and the new instructional design theory (balancing teaching and learning) are necessary and supportive to quality teaching in schools. Among them—Creative thinking theory can provide teachers with effective teaching modes and methods, in relation to specific teaching skills of different disciplines, to cultivate students’ innovative thoughts, creative thinking, and innovative abilities, at the time of achieving basic subject knowledge and skills, enhancing students’ innovation quality, so that to implement, in effect, the goal of cultivating creative personnel (not only on paper). New constructivism theory, for teachers of all levels and kinds of schools in their process of integration of information technology and discipline instruction, provides the most effective teaching and learning theories and methods (including ideas of how to teach, and how to learn and how to promote students autonomous learning,

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exploration, independent construction of learning), helping attaining the goals of subject teaching and improving teaching quality. Integration theory (that is, the theory of depth fusion) helps teachers integrate information technology into various subjects teaching, realizes big investment, big output, high investment, high benefit, solving the major challenges facing international education informatization since the twenty-first century, i.e., the information in the economic system, the corporate sector, as well as military, medical, and other fields, can greatly improve productivity or made significant results, only in the school education system results do not show; development of information technology in education can actually produce revolutionary effect, rather than just some minor progresses in teaching methods. The new teaching design theory, which pays equal attention to both learning and teaching, can help teachers of various subjects to design new instructional models and methods that transform traditional classroom teaching structure, integrates information technology into teaching processes of various subjects effectively, and provides strong support for realizing leapfrog development in quality upgrading. Two other important theories—New Developments in Child Thinking and Sense of Language that has been mentioned above—are to achieve first language teaching and foreign language teaching (English language teaching in most parts of China). These two very important subjects, and two consistent worries, will have theoretical and methodical support in innovation of subject teaching. As it is known that mother tongue teaching has been regarded as slower, ineffective, and expensive since the 1970s (Mr. Lu Shuxiang, a famous professor of Mandarin and literature at Peking University, first made this sharp criticism of Chinese language teaching in China in 1978). In China, English teaching has been derided as deaf and mute English. My own research team, since 1990s till now, for more than 20 years of tryouts and exploration in hundreds of schools, at various regions, big, medium-sized, and small, eventually developed two kinds of subject teaching theories, namely new developments in child thinking and sense of language. Theories and applications of these will be shown in Chapters 6 and 7 of this book. These two theories have unique worth and effect, for obtaining quality teaching, realizing advances in mother tongue teaching and English language teaching. The following is a brief introduction to the structure of the book and main contents of the last two parts.

4 Strategic Measures to Achieve the Goal of IIECC Through Maker Education System As described above, IIECC aims to educate Chinese teenagers (not only a minority of college students) with three aspects of qualities of innovative talents; that is, innovative consciousness, innovative thinking, which contributes to realize the Chinese dream; that is, to rejuvenating the Chinese nation. All this is by no means a rapid

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project, but implementation of the goal into the current education system (especially in primary and secondary schools), in a harmonious and organic way, involving the above six theoretical guidance, with the effective integration of information technology into various subjects in school instruction. As it is known, the human society, since the 1990s, enters information society, marked by computers and the Internet (especially since the twenty-first century), since the international academic community pays attention to the training of innovation ability and innovation personnel, which generally believed that the innovative ability is the core of the talents in the new century). In this respect it is an area worthy of our efforts, particularly the experience and lessons of scholars who advocate and implement Maker and Maker education. The execution of Maker education is usually divided into two stages: preparation stage and implementation stage. The enactment stage is to let Makers really create physical works; the preparation stage is to provide Makers with the knowledge base and necessary skills needed to create physical works, which can be combined with many courses in existing primary and secondary schools. Of course, it also needs to innovate and improve the curriculum contents, teaching concepts, teaching models, and methods of in primary and secondary schools. Therefore, since the twenty-first century, a new teaching concept and method represented by STEM or STEAM has been proposed for natural science and art courses in schools. Here S, T, E, M stand for, respectively, Science, Technology, Engineering, Math; and STEAM stand for Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, and Art. The meaning of STEM and STEAM is to bring different disciplines together, with engineering as focal point, rather than to isolate and separate them. It can be seen that in order to train young people to be Makers, the ideas, concepts, and relevant teaching methods and measures advocated by Makers education in K to 12 through STEM or STEAM are quite creative and worth learning from. However, while learning the ideas from western developed countries with an open mind, we should also be critical and not blindly copy the practice. This is because our educational conditions are completely different, and also because the western academia, though there are limitations that we need to avoid (like radical constructivism). This is the basic thought and starting point of our emphasis on implementing the Maker education system with Chinese features rather than directly applying the western Maker education system. In fact, Maker education in the west has many advantages, most prominent being that it emphasizes the need to create physical works so that the cultivation of innovation ability and innovative talents can be implemented instead of just saying nothing, it also has two disadvantages: One, overlooking the cultivation of the innovation consciousness, calling on adolescents to participate in Maker activities purely personal interest, hobby, and overlooking questions such as why innovation and for whom to innovate, thus teenagers in innovation may lose political direction, and cause a loss to views on life (for details see Section 2 of Chapter 8). Two, for the creation of the real work focus on material things, and completely ignore mental products. Material products are needed for the country’s economic

4 Strategic Measures to Achieve the Goal ...

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progress, but the mental products are also needed for the country’s future and the rejuvenation of the nation (see Chapter 8). And our own research team absorbed the experience and measures of Maker education, tried out in Chinese context, for nearly 20 years, in more than 30 regions and nearly 600 primary and middle schools in the teaching reform, and gradually formed a new Maker education with Chinese features. In order to cultivate innovation consciousness (why innovate and for whom to innovate) in Chinese Maker education, it must be closely integrated with the existing interdisciplinary teaching in the middle and primary schools, rather than copying Maker education in the west in an amateur level. That is not only application in lab, but also in classrooms; that is to say, the new Maker education with Chinese features should be in regular school classroom, rather than in museums or cultural palace. For the origin of Maker education system with Chinese features, similarities, and differences with western Makers, see Part 2 of this book (Chapters 8–10).

5 Innovative Teaching Model—Chinese-Style Flipped Classroom, Characteristics, and Advantages of AI in Subjects Teaching in Schools Flipped classroom first appeared in chemistry classes at a high school in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado in 2007 and spread across North America and the world since 2010. The reason why flipped classroom is welcomed by the majority of teachers, and even enthusiastically sought after, is that after the traditional teaching mode is reversed (or flipped), “shallow” cognition such as initial conception and understanding of new contents is put before class—students are allowed to watch teaching videos online; the “deep cognition” of doing homework, doing experiments, analyzing, solving, and exploring special problems is carried out under the guidance of the teacher in class, which is obviously more in line with students’ cognitive process, and also very conducive to deep integration of information technology and subjects teaching. Therefore, in the process of implementing the grand goal of innovative education informatization with Chinese characteristics, in order to integrate with the existing education system, especially to realize the deep integration of information technology and the teaching process of various disciplines, it is very necessary to adopt the teaching mode of “flipped classroom,” so as to fully reflect the characteristics and advantages of “innovative education informatization theory with Chinese characteristics.” The reason why we adopt the Chinese-style flipped classroom instead of directly borrowing the western flipped classroom is that despite its many advantages, the western flipped classroom also has two major drawbacks: The first flaw is that it is easy to increase the students’ schoolwork burden—due to flipped classroom students at home watch and learn teaching video data, on the Internet. If only one class uses the model of learning one day, the burden is not heavy; if there are two or more than two courses at the same time using flipped

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mode in one day, it will seriously increase students’ work burden, even affect students’ physical and mental health. The second flaw is that flipped classroom is problematic to expand into primary school because it requires students to access the Internet at home, which is a double-edged sword. Primary school students’ independent learning ability is still weak, so many education experts do not agree that flipped classroom should be admitted into primary schools [1] (Beijing Education Commission also has a clear position on this). However, Chinese-style flipped classroom, while inheriting all the advantages of flipped classroom, can completely eliminate the above two major defects. (For the origin and growth of Chinese-style flipped classroom see Section 3 of this book (Chapters 11–13).)

6 Design and Developments in the Book Since the book title is Theories and Practice of Innovative Education with Chinese characteristics, it is logical to start the book with education informatization, information technology hardware, and software infrastructure and related teaching and learning resources. Then it can be carried out and implemented, so the frame structure of the book should be “digital classroom” and “digital campus,” “smart classrooms” and “smart campus.” Nearly a decade ago, as the rise of a new generation of information technology, as the big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and the Internet+ , digital campus has gradually taken over the term smart campus, and then introduces various online, teaching and learning support platform and teaching resource management and teaching evaluation system of research and development. On the basis of further discussion of these it the six supportive theories of innovative education can be effectively introduced, as well as large-scale implementing education informatization goals and measures. This is a logical structure of planning. Given the current academic and the social concerns from all walks of life both at home and abroad (including enterprises, schools, government departments, and the people in the society) for education informationization, from the angle of technical environment, technical conditions, namely the education informatization related hardware and software infrastructure, such as digital campus or smart campus, in support of online teaching and learning platforms and resources related to the research and development and, therefore, received large amount of investment of human power, financial and material resources, also achieved considerable results. Take China for example: On multimedia computer and network communication, such as early information technology, the construction of digital campus, compared with western developed countries, China started a bit later, but in the Eastern developed regions and the Midwest some primary and middle schools in big cities since the late 1990s, especially in the new century, multimedia computer and network communication have been in rapid development, after 2010, with big data, cloud computing, artificial

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intelligence, Internet+ becomes more and more popular, emerging information technology, such as smart classrooms and smart campus has started to move quickly into our country in the east and Midwest cities of a number of primary and secondary schools, in this respect, compared with western developed countries, we are not backward. Chinese scholars also made a great contribution in this aspect, such as Beijing Normal University; Professor Ronghuai Huang’s team of researchers in cooperation with a famous network education company in Fujian (Hokkien) Province (Wanglong Huayu Education of Science and Technology Co. LtD.), after years of work, has developed a set of suitable materials for primary and secondary schools, and its functions are quite advanced as smart classrooms and smart campus products (including a complete set of software and hardware facilities, and is rich in teaching resources). The research team led by Professor Banqi Liu, of Keda Xufei Institute of Education Technology, has also published a series of papers and monographs in the field of digital campus and smart campus. The research team led by Professor Youqun Ren of East China Normal University and Professor Di Wu of Central China Normal University have also made outstanding contributions in this regard. Take the teach-and-learn platform that supports Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) as an example. It turns out that the three most influential technology platforms in the world are Udacity, Coursera, and edX in the United States. However, the research team led by Professor Jiangang Cheng and Professor Xibin Han from Tsinghua University in China, started a little later than the western counterparts, focused on the functional requirements of MOOCs technology platform. On the basis of summarizing the research and practical experience of e-learning in universities over the past ten years, it has absorbed the excellent functions and strengths of various MOOCs technology platforms at home and abroad, but abandoned the existing problems and defects. After years of efforts, it has finally developed a new platform with Chinese features: U-MOOCS technology platform. U-MOOCS is the abbreviation of Ubiquitous-Massive Open Online Course System. The prominent advantage of U-MOOCS technology platform is that it supports a variety of diverse learning theories, and to support transport-receiving, autonomous exploration, collaborative communication, role playing, etc. a variety of different teaching modes, adapts to a variety of learning environment and learning methods, and provides the restructuring, extensible open online education function. These functions and theoretical supports have surpassed the three famous international technology platforms, reaching the current international standards. This is something we should be proud of and grateful to. In addition, CCtalk—a live online platform like Hujiang area, Shanghai—is of low cost, high benefit. And through three platform modes effectively promoted the quality of compulsory education in the area, in balanced development, and with local strength: synchronous classroom, the introduction of famous teachers’ classroom outside the region and distribution mail class of the county. Therefore, they are very popular with multitudes of teachers and students. And open internet-based learning meta-platforms were designed to support deep learning, led by Shengquan Yu, a professor at the School of Education Technology at Beijing Normal University. It involves new concepts of generation, evolution,

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adaptation, social cognition, and others, and the learning unit is the minimum resource organization unit; the platform structure is composed of six parts: learning element, knowledge group, knowledge cloud, learning tools, personal space, and learning community, which can well support nine kinds of interactive behaviors that can promote deep learning. Its innovative ideas and advanced functions have reached the current international level. It is because the education informatization related hardware and software infrastructure (such as digital campus or wisdom campus, support of online teaching and learning platform) related to the research and development of teaching and learning resources has been widespread concern of the academic and social from all walks of life, and has achieved significant results, so interested in the aspects of readers to check just mentioned articles published various scholars and specialists or related companies (such as network companies—Longhuayu, Iflytek Co. Ltd) products, book for these content will not repeat them here. In other words, these areas are not covered in this book, not because they are not noteworthy, but because they have been thoroughly studied by many experts, scholars, or enterprises. As mentioned above, the main contents of this book aim to implement innovative education in information-based society of Chinese features with six theoretical supports, to achieve the goal of innovative education, an information-based society with Chinese features, embodying information-based innovative education, with advantages of new teaching mode. I emphasize, with special focus, on these three areas, not because in reaching ambitious goals of education informatization, these software and hardware infrastructure construction (various online instruction and learning support platforms, as well as learning tools and related research and growth of teaching resources), are more important, but because they have already gained widespread attention from all walks of life, while the former (framework listed three sections in the book) so far, I think is still not favored by domestic and foreign academic circles, let alone the attention of the society from all walks of life. This is the basic thought and starting point for me to write this monograph even though I am of an advanced age. In fact, the theory of implementing the education informatization as a guidance is to decide whether it is a key ingredient in the success of education informatization, but academic circles at home and abroad and from all walks of life neglected this area. To think of this theoretical research in practice of informationization and related with authentic teaching context, it will make more sense. But if the research is rooted in the local reality, in long-term and in-depth manner, at all levels of primary and secondary school’s classroom teaching, including developed urban areas, weak urban and rural areas, rural areas, and remote and poor mountainous areas, it will be able to understand the national conditions and to grasp the essence of the problem. Then, on this basis, independent innovation and development in education information theory are another area of research. The above six supporting theories for AIECC are formed through long-term practice and independent research and development, which is why it is called the supporting theory of AIECC. Since the twenty-first century, the global education informatization has a big problem—big input little output, high investment little benefit, hundreds of billions

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of money and huge amount of human power in hardware and software of education informatization infrastructure construction were spent, in schools of various levels, of various disciplines of teaching resources, and of the development of related learning tools, financial and material resources. However, it is a great pity that, so far, informatization has significantly improved the productivity of enterprises and economic sectors (the cost has been significantly reduced, while the output and quality of products have been greatly improved), and achieved significant results in other fields such as military and medical treatment. But all this does not happen in the field of education (especially in primary and secondary schools). It seems that information has become something to be possessed or not to be necessary tools in the process of education and teaching, and it is the icing on the cake rather than an indispensable and important factor, not to mention a revolutionary influence. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century (especially in the past 10 years), many experts and scholars at home and abroad (especially American scholars) have reflected and discussed on this major problem, but failed to find a convincing answer. In fact, the answer is simple—all countries in the world (including the United States) have not developed a complete scientific theory that can really guide the effective implementation of educational informatization. The six supporting theories proposed in this book are just such a systematic and complete set of scientific theories. In fact, during the past 20 years, Beijing Normal University research team has tried out in years of teaching, with the six theories supportive of education informatization, in more than 30 counties in the experimental regions, and nearly 600 trial schools of primary and secondary schools, including city developed areas, urban and rural integration of weak areas, rural areas and outlying and poverty-stricken mountainous primary and middle school experimental school. As a result, big investment has yielded big output, high investments high benefits, namely these schools greatly enhanced teaching quality and students’ wide-ranging quality. This advance is not general or abstract, but specifically implemented in subjects teaching and the full quality of students in schools, such as: Mandarin Chinese: through two years or so, children (including rural children) in the second graders can read and write (that is, eight years old children can read and write, which is absolutely up to the international standard. In developed countries, their aim is for this standard, “striving for ability to read at eight years old”; and while we can say, this aim is reached)—children can read more than 2500 common Chinese characters, read popular books for young people, and use the computer to type and write 700–800 words articles (or 300–400 words handwritten) complete, smooth, and fluent, in a lesson (40 min). English: students who have completed primary school (including rural students who have only been allowed to study English for four years according to the new curriculum standards) will be able to improve their vocabulary, listening, and speaking skills significantly. In general, the ability of primary school graduates in these areas should reach the level of junior high school graduates (or even senior high school students) stipulated in the new curriculum standards. All the other subjects of primary and secondary schools: through integration of information technology and subject teaching, the teaching quality greatly

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improved—students’ comprehensive quality, the new standard measured from the three-dimensional teaching targets, problem solution ability, as well as change of thinking ability. At the same time, students’ comprehensive qualities (including ideological and moral character, patriotism, filial piety to parents, care for others, indomitable psychological quality, spirit of cooperation, benevolence, etc.) should be well developed. These advanced goals are not pulling up seedlings to help them grow, still less showing up, nor are they purely subjective good wishes; it is a scientific conclusion drawn from long-term tentative research under the guidance of theories. The reason why this is a scientific conclusion is that as long as the following two conditions are met, the goal of greatly improving the quality of subject teaching and students’ comprehensive quality will certainly be achieved. In other words, the idea and mode of information-based teaching are completely repeatable and operable. Since the year of 2000, we have carried out a large number of educational reform experiments in more than 30 different types of experimental areas and nearly 600 experimenting schools. It has been proved that as long as the following two conditions are met, we cannot say that we can achieve the above goals 100%, but at least 85% of them should be no problem. And the rest of the individual experimental schools that failed the goals due to either for one of two reasons: A.

B.

The school principals, in the experimental subject, lacked understanding, paid little attention (especially some elderly or ready to retire ones, who lacked motivation to reform); Some schools (especially rural schools), due to the lack of teachers, workload is too heavy (a teacher has to bear two or three courses, some have to be the class teacher), simply did not have the time to learn new ideas from the projects, new teaching methods, and new teaching resources.

To achieve the above two conditions are in fact not complex, but indispensable. These two conditions are: First, we should pay close attention to students, try to fully mobilize their initiative, enthusiasm and even creativity. We must make available cognitive inquiry tools, collaborative communication tools, emotional experience, and internalization tools (extended reading materials in Chinese and extended listening and reading materials in English. For science subjects such as mathematics, physics, and chemistry, computer-based learning software is needed to act as such tools, such as geometric drawing board, modeling software, tabulating tools, interactive course-ware of physics, VR and AR software, simulation experiments of chemistry). Second, we should pay close attention to teachers, who use innovative theories, models, and methods of information-based instruction for training teachers participating in experimental projects. The innovation theories of information-based teaching involve the guiding ideology of research, teaching philosophy and how to conduct teaching design under the information-based environment and other

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directional issues. The teaching modes and methods solve the problem of how to operate the project teaching, which makes the experimental teaching repeatable and copiable. The goal of the above six theories of AIECC is to expect a rise in subjects teaching quality and students’ comprehensive quality in schools, which have resulted in big investments with high benefits), after nearly 20 years of experimental research and the exploration over 30 county districts, it proved to be completely achievable in a broader range, and even the whole country. For many years’ academics, the people from all walks of life, including administrative departments, focused more on education information technology environments, technical conditions, and less concerned with theoretical supports needed for the realization of goals. In particular, the tendency of experts and scholars, as well as ordinary teachers, trusted more of the theories of other countries, and less on domestic research and innovations. And this is why I, at an advanced age, insisted on writing this book, which focused not on the soft/hardware and infrastructure construction as well as a variety of online education informatization, teaching and learning platforms of research and developments of teaching resources, such as contents, but only the implementation of the six big supportive theories of information-based innovative education of with Chinese features to achieve the goals of education informatization and related teaching mode as the core contents of the book and see the following chapters for in-depth discussion.

Reference 1. Wang, X., & Yanna, M. (2014). MOOC—Innovation and development of multiple forms of online education [J]. Information Technology Education in Primary and Secondary Schools, (2), 27–30.

Part I

Six Theoretical Supports for Innovative Informationaization in Education

As mentioned in Introduction, the theory and practice of innovative informationization in education have solid theoretical foundations, its contents involving six areas: theory of creative thinking (construction and verification of the double circulation model or DC model), neo-constructionism, deep integration of information technology and curriculum theory (namely depth fusion theory), new instructional design theory, and specifically new study on child thinking development and theory of language perception (a new theory on child language development) for two disciplines of language teaching, native and foreign languages. The following six chapters target specifically on each of these six areas for elaboration.

Chapter 2

Foundation Theory for Cultivating Innovative Talents: Creative Thinking Theory

At present, it is a global concern for the cultivation of innovative talents, and the essence of innovative talents are innovative awareness and innovative ability—this is because innovative talents are those who possess three qualities of innovative awareness, innovative thinking, and innovative ability. Innovative awareness refers to lofty ideals of contributing to human civilization and progress, the spirit of devoting oneself to the advance of science and technology and strong desire to create and invent. Innovative thinking (also creative thinking) is a kind of high-level and complex cognitive ability that forms innovative ideas, theoretical methods, and product designs. Innovative ability denotes the practical ability to transform the above innovative ideas, theoretical methods, or product design into mental or material products of practical value. From the above three qualities, we see that innovative awareness belongs to the category of thoughts; innovative thinking is the foundation and necessary condition for forming innovative ability (without innovative thinking, innovative ability will be baseless)—this is the scientific basis for people to conclude that the essence of innovation talents have innovative thoughts and innovative ability. Among the three qualities of innovation talents, innovative awareness mainly answers the question of why to innovate and for whom to innovate, namely the purpose and motivation of innovation. Obviously, innovative awareness can only be established through long-term and persistent education of outlook on life and values. Innovative thinking (i.e., creative thinking) and the ability to innovate answer the question of how to innovate. Creative thinking responds to forming innovative ideas, theories, methods, and product design; and the ability to innovate to transform innovative ideas, theories, methods, and designs into actual mental or material products (i.e., literary works, musical compositions, paintings, or patented products). Innovative awareness is the goal and motivation to innovate, which is of vital significance to the cultivation of innovation talents. But the innovative awareness © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 K. He, Innovative Education Informatization with Chinese Characteristics, Bridging Human and Machine: Future Education with Intelligence, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0622-0_2

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and the innovative ability must have the creative thoughts as the foundation, without creative thoughts, innovative awareness will be unrealistic talk; without creative thoughts, the production of mental products or material products will be rootless, and the so-called innovative ability will be nothing but work that takes twice efforts and gets it half done. Therefore, in this sense, creative thoughts are the important basis and prerequisite of innovative awareness and innovative ability. This shows that the key to really cultivate the innovative spirit and innovative ability of the youth is to implement the cultivation of innovative thoughts, that is, creative thinking. On the face of it, this doesn’t seem like much of a problem; but the issue of how to cultivate the creative thinking of adolescents remains a problem unsolved in international psychological and educational circles. As we all know, the essence of creative thinking is the psychological process of the human brain, producing inspiration or insight. But for a long time, due to academic circles both at home and abroad (including professions as education, psychology, and philosophy) are not clear about psychological process of inspiration and insight (that is, what creative thinking embodies), so the inspiration and insight cast always a layer of mystery, unable to explain clearly. Basically, this is due to the status quo of disciplinary segmentation—psychologists only study external behavioral manifestations (such as behaviorism) and internal processing (such as cognitivism and constructionism); but internal psychological process is determined by the neuro-physiological mechanism of cerebral cortex, and while neural physiological mechanism by cranial nerve physiological anatomy, which belongs to the field of medicine. Therefore, inspiration and insight are always covered with a layer of mystery, becoming an indefinable, unexplained thing. Fundamentally, this is caused by the current situation of subject segmentation. Psychology scientists’ study both the external manifestations of human behavior (e.g., behaviorism) and internal psychological processes (e.g., cognition, doctrine and constructionist theory), and the neuro-physiological mechanisms of the inner mental processing involved in cerebral cortex, which belongs to the medical field, it can only be understood through brain neuro-physiological anatomy. It belongs to the study of brain neuro-physiologist. In other words, psychologists have always looked at the neuro-physiological mechanisms as “black boxes.” The decryption of the “black box” is left to the brain neuro-physiologist in the medical field to complete. Brain neuro-physiologists know a lot about inside of the “black box,” but know little about psychology. This is the reason that inspiration and insight have been shrouded in a layer of mystery for so long, unclear about its essential root cause. But if we explore the problem from another angle, we may get a completely different result, to find effective ways and methods to cultivate creative thinking. In fact, any one researcher, if she/he can, through independent learning, understand the contents of different disciplines and in-depth inspection of relevant literature materials grasp the two aspects of basic knowledge, psychology, and brain physiological anatomy (of course, it will cost much time and energy), so that one can solve the above major problems. The discovery and proposal of the mental processing model of inspiration and insight (DC model—the Processing Model of Inside and Outside

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Circulation Model, referred to as Double Circulation) is based on this seemingly unrealistic idea. In order to eliminate the mystery of inspiration and insight, clarifying its nature, I collected and used the latest achievements of brain physiological anatomy, both at home and abroad since the 1990s (the research achievements in the field of medicine), to illustrate inspiration and insight formation processing (that is, the creative thinking formation), of psychological processing mechanism, and the specific processing process, so that people can really understand inspiration and insight, their exact connotation and its essence. This is how the book Theory of Creative Thinking— Construction and Verification of the DC Model [1], came into being, which was translated into English in June 2017 and published worldwide by the internationally famous academic publisher Springer. I am an educational technologist, not a psychologist; as a treatise in the field of psychology, the book to be published by Springer in English and published worldwide should be reviewed and approved by at least five famous psychologists in the field. The innovation theory in the monograph given affirmation by the contemporary international first-class psychologists, not only because it uses brain and nerve physiological anatomy of the latest research findings since the 1990s, but also because it has been experimented for more than two decades in hundreds of schools to verify the effects. On this basis, it is possible for us to find and provide a set of feasible, repeatable, and extendable materials, with effective models and methods for teachers (especially teachers in primary and secondary schools), combining subjects teaching with creative thinking while completing instruction of knowledge and skills of a subject. As mentioned above, the key to cultivating innovative awareness and ability is to cultivate creative thinking, which is the basis we provide Chinese wisdom and Chinese plan for the effective cultivation of innovative awareness and innovative ability for the global youth.

1 Components of Creative Thinking—Three-Basic Forms of Human Thinking 1.1 Views on Classifying of Human Thoughts To understand the nature and elements of creative thinking, one must first understand the connection and difference between creative thinking and other forms of human thinking. To this end, we should first understand the basic form of human thoughts. There are several different views on the division in the field of philosophy and psychology, at home and abroad. The first view is that there is only abstract logical thinking. For example, in the psychology of thinking textbooks of liberal arts in colleges and universities in China, the task of psychology of thinking is specified as follows: the main question to answer is: How do people think? If thinking is regarded as the process of using concepts

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for judgment and reasoning, then psychology of thinking is not mainly to study concepts, judgments, and reasoning, nor to study the correct concepts and rules to be followed in judgments, but to focus on how concepts are formed? How do people master them? How do people judge and reason? How do people solve problems? Thinking as a process, the study of its occurrence, change, and the law of change. Clearly, the author sees thinking only as the process of applying concepts, making judgments, and reasoning, that is, logical thinking. For another example, the book Unlocking the Mysteries of the Brain and Consciousness points out that imagery thinking can only realize the understanding and grasp various specific special things. It cannot be separated from the concrete and the particular; it cannot go beyond the present understanding of the concrete and the special; it cannot go from particular to general; it cannot go from the present to the past and future; it cannot reach there from here; and ultimately, it cannot grasp the essence and laws of things. It is only the preliminary stage of conceptual thinking. Although this view also admits that there is imagery thinking, in fact it only regards it as an adjunct to logical thinking (just the primary stage of conceptual thinking) and denies that imagery thinking is one of the main forms of human thinking; therefore, it can still be classified as the first view. The second view is that there is only visual thinking (thinking based on visual representations). The famous art psychologist Rudolf Arnheim believes that the basic material of thinking is representation, not concepts nor language as people usually speak. Language is but an aid to the principal material of thought (representation), and only a clear representation enables the mind to better reproduce the relations between the objects concerned. He also believed that the abstract grasp of the overall structural characteristics of things is the basis of perception and all primary cognitive activities, and the most important thing in perception is visual perception…. Arnheim proved with many facts that visual perception itself has cognitive ability, comprehension, and problem-solving ability; that is, it has the function of thinking, so visual perception is not of low-level, on the contrary, it is one of the most basic forms of human thinking. In his view, when people see an image (whether it is a perceptual image or an inner representation), these are abstract activities; in other words, when people think about problems, they always have some specific image as a starting point. In Arnheim’s view, such thinking is neither pure imagery thinking nor pure abstract logical thinking, but visual thinking. The third point of view includes abstract logical thinking and imagery thinking. This is a widely accepted view in the field of psychology, although it is very onesided. This view of abstract (logical) thinking is basically the same as the first view; that is, it is the process of using concepts to judge and reason. Although abstract (logical) thinking also depends on actions and representation, the main materials of this kind of thinking are concepts of speech. Abstract (logic) thinking can be divided into formal logic thinking and dialectical logic thinking. As for imagery thinking, the third point of view holds that it is characterized by representation and images as main materials of thinking and can be divided into two different stages: concrete imagery thinking and general imagery thinking.

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The fourth point of view, thinking includes logical thinking, imagery thinking, and creative thinking. The representative of this view is Professor Xuesen Qian, a scientist in China. Here it should be clear that in the early and mid-1980s published articles, Professor Qian once held the view that basic forms of human thinking were divided into imagery (or basic types), abstract/logical thinking, and inspiration and insight, three forms of thinking, but later he revised the original classification. In a letter to Professor Chunding Yang dated June 28, 1995, Professor Qian pointed out: thinking is the study of thought processes and results, regardless of the process in the human brain. In this way, imagery thinking and inspiration/insight thinking as I put forward earlier are the same; that is, imagery thinking, inspiration, and insight are all imagery thinking in different brain states. In addition, the person’s creation needs to add results of imagery thinking to logical thinking, which is the dialectical unity of two kinds of thinking, a higher level of thinking, another name of it is creative thinking. This is wisdom! So, forms of thinking can be reduced to logical thinking, visual thinking, and creative thinking. The fifth view includes three types: critical-analytic thinking; creativecomprehensive thinking; and practical situation-thinking. The author of this idea was David Sternberg, an American psychologist, published in 1996. The idea is presented in the book Teaching for Thinking. He believes that critical-analytic thinking involves the ability to analyze, compare, judge, evaluate and examine. Creative-synthetic thinking involves the ability to hypothesize, imagine, generate, discover, and create. Practical-contextual thinking involves the ability to practice, apply, and implement theories.

1.2 Reconsideration of Classification and Basic Forms of Human Thinking The above discussion briefly introduces several main views of basic forms of human thinking. Some of them have obvious biases (such as the first and second views), but in general, these ideas have certain basis and rationality to it; some even have a large impact (such as the third opinion), some have innovative ideas (such as the fourth and fifth views). But these ideas do not clarify the scientific basis of their respective categories (all of them are purely speculative products), and there is no such thing as a philosophical epistemology to consider forms of human thinking, but only from psychological processes or thought contents, which is to consider the problem from the specific psychological science perspective, and not from the epistemology of philosophy. In order to have a deeper understanding of this problem, we will make further arguments from the following aspects.

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What Is Thinking—Scientific Definition of Thought

Psychologists and philosophers believe thinking is a unique function of the human brain that has evolved over a long time and define it as a summary and indirect reflection of regularity of the brain’s intrinsic properties and internal relations.

1.2.2

Why Thinking Functions

In order to survive and develop, humankind must fight natural forces, which requires understanding and mastering basic laws and basic nature of things in the objective world and their interrelations, to further transform the objective world, so as to achieve the desired goal in the struggle against natural forces. And thinking is the intellectual function that human beings need to achieve this goal.

1.2.3

How to Comprehend Thinking

To Examine the Nature and Law of Things in Motion According to dialectical materialism, the objective world is of material, and matter is always in motion; and movement is the essential attribute of matter; space and time is the form of movement; and various concrete things in nature and society are just changed states of the material in motion. Therefore, it is possible to understand and grasp the nature of things in the objective world and rules of their interrelations, only by investigating and analyzing the forms and features of different states of motion (that is, essential properties of matter).

The Non-separability of Movement of Mater and Space and Time The non-separability of motion of matter in space and time is a scientific truth that has been firmly proved by Einstein’s theory of relativity. When we talk about something, we need to say where it is in space, in what form it exists; that is, the nature of existence in space; and the interrelations with other matters in spatial location, arrangement, combination, or interaction between things, which is the spatial structure characteristic of things; that is, the regularity of inherent relationship between essential properties that are in the state of static state (the relative static state). In addition, when matter moves, it moves in a process, in sequence and with duration. So, when we look at the change and relationships of things, it is not possible to break away from time, which is to say that it is not only the sequence and duration, but temporal order of things, which is the regularity of inner connections between the essential properties and things that are in a significant change state (the state of motion).

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The Core of Epistemology Is Theory of Reflection Materialist epistemology suggests that matter is the primary, and consciousness is secondary. Consciousness is the reflection of the human brain; the core of materialism is reflection. Thinking is the main content of consciousness, and of course it is secondary. The definition of thinking is based on this reflection. In order to be able to make generalization and indirect reflection, the form of reflection must be able to adapt to the form of existence of matter in space and time, which meets the needs of generalizing and indirectly reflecting the nature of motion.

1.2.4

Division of Basic Types of Human Thinking

Therefore, according to Marxist epistemology, human thinking should have two basic forms of reflection: one is the spatial structure characteristic of things, which can effectively generalize and indirectly reflect the nature of things and interrelations. That is to generalize the relative static state (spatial-structural thinking, spatial thinking for short). Two, to effectively think about the time sequence of matter, when things are in motion, generalize indirectly the nature and inherent relationship of matter in the state of motion (or significantly dynamic state, time thinking for short).

1.3 Main Features of Spatial and Temporal Thinking 1.3.1

Main Features of Spatial Thinking

Spatial thinking reflects the spatial-structural features of things, which refer to the existence of things in space and nature, their spatial position, arrangement, and combination of things, their relatedness to other things. That is, the laws and essential attribute of things in the state of existence and the internal connection between things, so the basic features of this kind of thinking is to grasp the basic attributes of things (i.e., the form and nature of things in space through reflection, by grasping the spatial-visual representation of attributes of things, such as height, weight, posture, eyes open or close, etc.); and by grasping the internal connections between things, (namely space position, arrangement, combination, and interaction; mainly through reflecting the spatial-visual representation of structural relations between things). In short, reflecting the characteristics of spatial structure is the main feature of spatial thinking.

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1.3.2

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Main Characteristics of Temporal Thinking

Main Features of Time Thinking Temporal thinking is for generalizing and reflecting on the sequence and duration of the movement of things. That is to reflect the nature of physical activities (or the state of change) of dynamic state (or significantly changing state). And obviously, the basic feature of this thinking is to grasp the nature of movement of things from one-dimensional linear time axis; and logical thinking, based on language, is the best fit for this requirement. This is because logical thinking can be used on one-dimensional time axis with written and spoken language, through analysis, synthesis, abstraction, generalization, and other methods, to conveniently process various properties of things, and extract the essence of things in terms of concepts. Based on this, concepts can be made to judge the structures of more complex things. It is also possible to determine simpler interconnecting features between things. The complex interconnections of things can be solved by reasoning, based on judgment. Therefore, logical thinking is best suited to reflect the movement of things in one-dimensional linear time axis, which can explain essential properties of things and work out generalization and indirect reflection of things of the internal patterns between things.

1.3.3

Abstract-Logical Thinking Be Temporal-Logical Thinking (Or Linear-Logical Thinking)

Scientifically speaking, abstract-logic thinking should be temporal-logical thinking (or linear-logical thinking) because: first, abstraction and generality are the features of all thinking, not just logical thinking. Modifying logical thinking with abstract, or simply abstract thought, is easy to mislead people to think that only this kind of thinking is abstract, which improperly raises logical thinking and lower other forms of thinking. This is a great problem in the current academic world, especially in philosophy and psychology. Second, as mentioned earlier, because logical thinking is based on the sequence of language symbols, its essential features are linear and sequential, which are best suited for the movement of things that reflect the sequence of things in onedimensional linear time line. Therefore, naming this thinking as linear-logic thinking or temporal-logic thinking is reasonable and logical.

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1.4 Materials and Processing of Spatial-Structural Thinking 1.4.1

Representation: The Processing Material for Spatial-Structural Thinking

Representation is the trace of past perception, which is the impression that is perceived in the past and currently unperceived in people’s minds, and it is often the analysis and the comprehensive result of the impression of multiple kinds. In other words, this impression can be used as a whole, and can be decomposed and combined (in the nineteenth century). A Russian physiologist, Ivan Mikhailovich Sechenov, points out that the main feature of representation is that it is a summary of the compromised individual, split, and divided perception, and emphasizes that an image is formed based on analysis and comprehensive activities. The appearance has the following properties.

Representation Can Be Separated From Concrete Things Although the unprocessed representation is still a perception, it is one step further than perceived sensory perception, which can be separated from specific things (and without stimulation of senses is nothing to mention sensory perception); thus, it is possible to remove the concrete from the mind and process representation, making it more and more accurate and stable.

Representations Possess Abstract and General Features Representations not only have intuitiveness and iconicity, but also have a degree of abstraction and generality. It is the reflection of abstraction and generalizations of objective things, and it is possible to achieve the grasp of the nature of things by decomposition, composition, generalization, association, and imagination, so that we can rise to the level of whole, essence, and rational understanding of things by local, surface, and perceptual cognition.

Spatial-Visual Imagery as the Main Processing Materials of Spatial-Structural Thinking This is because: first, the main channel that the brain gets information from the outside world is vision. The experiment by the American experimental psychologist Treicher shows that the human brain gets 83% of information from outside world from vision, 11% from hearing, and no more than 6% from all other sensory channels (including tactile, emotional, smell, taste, etc.).

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Second, the holistic and intuitive visual representation is conducive to spatialstructural thinking. Visual image presents a whole and intuitive space scenario, which is convenient for people to make a holistic grasp of the spatial-structural of things through visual perspective, spatial integration, and pattern matching, which is what spatial-structural thought requires and no any other representations (auditory, the sense of smell…) can match. Third, the structure and unity of visual representation are good for storage, recalling, and thinking processing. Although sometimes the visual representation is blurred, not clear, but it is always intact, and with a certain structure, though the representation of the fragments also reflects the local structure of the object. This is conducive to memory coding, storage, recalling, and thinking processing.

Two Types of Spatial-Visual Imagery and Two Types of Spatial-Structural Thoughts (Imagery Thinking and Intuitive Thinking) There are two kinds of visual imagery used in spatial-structural thinking: one is the visual representation of properties of things (which can be referred to as attribute representation); the other is a representation of the structure of relationship between things (which can be referred to as relational representation or spatial representation). According to these two representations, spatial-structural thinking can be further divided into two categories: one is attribute representation as the objects of thinking, which may be called imagery thinking. The other is relational representation (or spatial imagery) as material of thoughts, which may be called intuitive thinking. In other words, basic forms of human thinking can be divided into three categories: imagery thinking, intuitive thinking, and temporal-logical thinking.

1.4.2

Processing of Spatial-Structural Thinking

The Processing of Imagery Thinking Imagery thinking has a variety of processes, including decomposition, composition, abstraction, generalization, association, and imagination. Decomposition: it is a complete representation of a thing that breaks down into the psychological operation of several components (each component is also an independent representation). Combination: to merge the appearance of the same kind of things, making it complete and more precise. Abstract: it refers to the nature of the same thing, and psychological operation of the non-essential properties. It is a great confusion that traditional concepts believed that only logical thinking can be abstracted in words of concept. Rudolf Arnheim has deeply criticized this view and pointed out that representations can also do different levels of abstraction

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and sometimes achieve the abstraction and effect that is not possible to achieve with general concepts. He lists the following examples: • When a baby discerns, from a complex external world, a milk bottle, it has the ability of a preliminary abstraction, because he has captured the nature of the milk bottle through visual imagery, otherwise it cannot be distinguished. • When extracting the simplified form that represents the essence of the object from external stimulus, it indicates that the abstraction has reached a higher level. For example, putting aside all the other specific features of body, face, and clothing, it is a typical example of abstracting a respectful a bowing servant from a curved bow. • A highly abstract example that can hardly expressed by language is the clocks displayed in the Nagasaki Museum, all of which, stopped at 11:02, damaged, has a powerful effect. Because time stops at this moment makes people immediately think of the terror of the atomic bomb and the terrible scenes of the time, and thus arouse the strong consciousness that we should maintain peace against wars. This is the essence of the display, and it is the significance of the museum’s desire to show to the audience about the atomic bomb explosion, and the appearance of the damaged clock is a great abstract object. Obviously, in this occasion, the abstract meaning and social effect of such a clock image cannot be equated with the long speech concept. Generalization: it is the psychological process of generalize the nature of an individual thing to other things. There are two forms, according to an influential psychological textbook; one form of generalization, based on the external features of things, and disregarding their differences, and summing up the common features among them, which is the perceptual and imagery phase of generalization, the primary form of generalization. The other form of generalization is to summarize according to the essence of an images or a series of objects and phenomena, which is a generalization on the level of thought, a high form of generalization. Along with this view, the spatial structure of an image as an object of psychological processing can only be summarized in the primary form, and only the logical thought can be summarized in advanced form. Rudolf Arnheim has given a very persuasive example of an advanced form of generalization, explicit representation of the above views. This example introduces the key role of the introduction of the theory of conical cutting. It is known that the three basic geometric graphics of circles, ellipses, and hyperbola have been independent existence since ancient times, but they are unrelated to each other. But by the new way of cone cutting, the essence of the three figures has common features—all of which are cut from the cone, the difference is only in the way of cutting (horizontal cutting into circles, oblique cutting into ellipse, and vertical cutting into hyperbola). In this way, the three geometric shapes, which are not related to each other, are now closely linked, by the theory of the cone cutting, and the geometry of a certain spatial structure is formed. The realization of this higher-level generalization is not based on the logical reasoning of concepts with language, but rather by the generalization of images, comparing the original three basic geometric shapes with the various cutting, and the common essence properties

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of the three geometric patterns can be generalized. Arnheim asked the question of how can this kind of representation of important theoretical findings be primary or lower level? Association refers to the psychological operation of thinking of one image to thinking of another image of thing. In the association process, the image of the original thing does not change. According to Aristotle’s law of association, we can do associations in three directions: Similar associations—association of images of things with another with similar properties, functions, structures, or shapes. Contrary association (contrastive association)—things that have contrast in nature, function, structure, or appearance. Associative—association of things that have some kind of relevance in nature, function, structure, or shape of the object. Imagination: it is a psychological operation process of integrating and reconstructing two or more images. In the process, all images involved in integration change the original composition, thus forming a new image. Because imagination is a transformation and integration of two or more images, it has a certain novelty and even creativity. According to its new degree of novelty, imagination can be divided into types: re-creative imagination and creative imagination. A re-creative imagination is an image generated by an image that other people describe as an unperceived thing (such as the Chinese myth: Chang E Flying to the Moon). Creative imagination is the image of something that has never been described but created new.

Processing of Intuitive Thinking The psychological processing of intuitive thinking has the following characteristics: first, the overall grasp from the whole—aside from nuances of things, a thought that is focused on the big picture. Second, in terms of intuitive perspective, spatial integration, and pattern matching—holistically grasping relationship between things, intuitive thinking only considers the relationship between things, and not consider specific properties of each thing (the analysis, synthesis, abstraction, generalization of the specific properties of things is the task of logical thinking and imagery thinking, not the task of intuitive thinking). To grasp the relationship between things, the psychological processing method of intuitive thinking is the intuitive perspective of the spatial integration and pattern matching, rather than the analysis and synthesis of logic to solve the problem. Third, rapid judgment—intuitive thinking is the matching and comparison of similar relational patterns stored in long-term memory through intuitive perspective and spatial integration. If they match, the current relationship is done in the empirical model, so it can be used to determine the spatial structure relationship at a moment, but it is a fast, jumping spatial thinking (and logical thinking is a linear, sequential, slow thinking) along a one-dimensional time line.

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1.5 Materials and Processing of Temporal-Logical Thinking 1.5.1

Processing Objects and Materials of Temporal-Logical Thinking—Concepts Based on Speech

Concept: It is the reflection of the nature of things, which is based on the various attributes of analysis and synthesis, and further abstraction and generalization. The wider the understanding of things, the richer, the more accurate the formed concept. The concept is both the summary of human understanding of objective world and the materials of thinking. In the course of the development of civilization for thousands of years, mankind has established a large conceptual system of different levels from philosophy, natural science, social science, specific disciplines, and the concepts of everyday life, which is the right way to reflect on the objective things.

1.5.2

Process of Temporal-Logical Thinking

Temporal-logical thinking processing includes analysis, synthesis, abstraction, generalization, judgment, and reasoning. Analysis: It is to break a concept down into several attributes (or into a number of components) and find the psychological processes of the nature and the relationship between them. Synthesis: It is a mental operation of combination of different properties (of different types and different properties) to make it a unified entity. Abstract: It is the psychological operation of abstracting attributes of things of the same nature and removing that of non-essential properties. Summary: It is the psychological operation of generalization of essential attributes of one thing to that of the others. Judgment: It is possible not only to decide on a certain thing (or certain things), but also to determine whether there is a certain internal connection between things. The judgment is made up with several concepts and is likely to be judged according to the actual conditions of actual situations. The actual conditions are complex and varied, and different conditions must have different results; the types of conditions can be divided into three categories, such as sufficient conditions, necessary conditions, and sufficient requirements. In order to reflect the condition of these different conditions, the three kinds of different judgment system: Sufficient condition hypothetical judgment (If condition A exists, the result B must exist. If condition A does not exist, the result B is not definite. For example: if you have pneumonia, you will cough. If you don’t have pneumonia, you can’t determine whether you cough.) Necessary condition hypothetical judgment (If condition A does not exist, B must not exist. If condition A exists, B is not sure.). For example, if the water is not enough, the rice must grow badly. If the water is sufficient, will be able to determine whether the rice grows well.

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Sufficient and necessary conditions hypothetical judgment (If conditional A exists, the result B will not exist). For example: (if internal triangles of a triangle are equal, the triangle will be an equilateral triangle). Reasoning is used to reflect more complex relations and interactions between things. Reasoning is based on of judgment, the premise of reasoning being categorical judgement, hypothetical judgment, disjunctive judgments (or hypothetical disjunctive inference); therefore, according to the premise of different judgment, reasoning can be divided into various kinds of categorical reasoning, hypothetical reasoning, and disjunctive judgments or hypothetical disjunctive inference. From the above analysis, concepts, judgment, and inference established on the basis of language can satisfy the requirements of generalization and indirect reflection of the intrinsic properties of things and the internal relationship of things. Because concept definition, the formal structure of judgment and reasoning is the contents of the study of logic; therefore, the use of concepts, judgments, and reasoning, based on language, is often called logical thinking.

2 Foothold of Creative Thinking: Interaction Between Conscious and Subconscious Because the formation of creative thinking (that is, the formation of inspiration or insight) is the result of interaction between conscious and subconscious, so to understand how inspiration and insight are formed, we need to know what is conscious and unconscious. To this end, we will discuss the following questions.

2.1 Definition of Consciousness 2.1.1

Definition of Consciousness by Foreign Scholars

Human consciousness is probably the last of unsolved mystery. To consciousness, we have been in the haze, and today consciousness is the only topic that often makes the most intelligent thinkers tongue-tied and confused, said the famous thinker D.C. Dennett. Consciousness is one of the most chaotic concepts in many concept systems and categories that humans have established. In William Calvin’s book How the Brain Thinks, eight different understandings of consciousness are listed. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

It is a personal feeling, such as feeling guilty; A symbol of ideas, intent, or sense of perception; The ability to perceive, understand, or to some extent control one’s own thinking; A mental function that is suppressed in sleep or coma; The consciousness as manifestation of a deliberate act; The meaning of the consciousness is similar to that of attention or consideration;

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7. 8.

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Consciousness manifests itself as a concern or interest in something; Consciousness is marked by strong emotional or explicit ideas.

All of these understandings are based on individual characteristics or external manifestations of consciousness, and the nature of consciousness is not grasped; namely that consciousness is still in the stage of perceptual cognition, and it has not yet been improved to the stage of rational cognition. Francis Crick’s book The Amazing Hypothesis, The Scientific Exploration Of The Soul also introduces three definitions of consciousness based on the black box method: 1. 2. 3.

The whole activity of the brain is not directly related to consciousness; The process of consciousness has attention and short-term memory; The information in consciousness can enter both long-term memory and the movement nervous system to control the casual movement.

These three definitions emphasize consciousness relating to the cognitive process of attention and memory, which involves certain essential characteristics of consciousness, but also has failed to give a comparatively scientific exposition of consciousness from the connotation or definition level. In his influential paper, The cognitive level of consciousness, William Hirst defines consciousness as the perception of psychological objects, such as perception, representation, or feeling. When he was using the word consciousness, he had the meaning of a speech report in mind. People don’t only know how they feel, what they feel, they know that they are feeling it, he said to the effect that they know they are looking, imagining, and feeling. Any conscious activity includes awareness of the outside world and perception psychological representation, and the self-awareness. In his, Consciousness Neurology—Philosophy and Theoretical Questions, I.B. Farberet discussed the concept of consciousness from three levels. The first level is conscious awareness. This includes four types, namely perceptual awareness (the perceived of external stimuli through perceptual channel), general awareness (the perception of the internal state of the body, such as fatigue, dizziness, anxiety, comfort, hunger), meta-perception (which means that all things that can be perceived in their cognitive scope, including current and past thinking activities), and conscious memories (the awareness of what happened in the past). What is perceived here is a sign of something that can be reported in words. This is easy to detect and can be excluded from animals that do not consciously recall capable articulators. The second level is the higher level of functions, which is not only the ability to passively perceive and detect information, but also have the high level of function such as action or control, which include attention, reasoning, and self-control (such as the suppression of the impulse of the urge to be rational or moral). The third level is the level of consciousness, which can be understood as an ongoing psychological activity of a person. Farberet’s first two levels of consciousness are illuminating, but the third level lacks substantive contents.

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2.1.2

Definitions of Consciousness by Chinese Scholars

There are various opinions about consciousness in the domestic academic community, and the main point of division is that consciousness refers only to human cognitive activities or other psychological activities. For example, a famous psychologist, Pan Shu, thinks that consciousness is the awareness of human’s cognitive activities. Another psychologist, Hu Jinan, said, the consciousness of a person is a unified psychological activity that is developed in social practice, based on thought and language as the core of cognition, including also both emotion and will. Despite these differences, in general, there is more consensus than in foreign countries. The idea of consciousness is the unity of knowledge, emotion, and will, which won broader support at present domestic academic community, not only in the realm of psychology but also in the philosophy of philosophy. Knowledge refers to the human knowledge and rational pursuit of the objective world, which is consistent with the meaning of cognition; Emotion refers to human feeling and evaluation of objective things, which manifests in feelings of love, hatred, and the psychological experience, and psychological activities of happiness, anger, sadness, and joy. Will means willpower, the determination, and perseverance to turn ideals or goals into action. Consciousness as the crystallization of knowledge, emotion, and will is not equal to cognition or cognitive process, different from other mental state, but is the psychological activity of the high degree of rationality (comprehensive psychological activity).

2.1.3

1.

2.

Major Differences Between Domestic and Foreign Understanding of Consciousness

The majority of scholars in the other countries view consciousness as an awareness of such mental process as imagination, memory (consistent with the definitions of Hilst and Farberet’s first level), and the higher level of consciousness not only makes a passive response to such psychological processes (perception or awareness), but also the ability to control or regulate these psychological processes. The definition of domestic consciousness includes emotions and will (although some scholars differ in this view, but not the mainstream), and definitions of consciousness of foreign countries include Farberet’s second definition, only involving cognitive categories.

2.1.4

Definition of Consciousness

By summarizing up the definitions of both internal and external research, we think that the definition of consciousness may comparatively more accurate as is defined as follows: Consciousness refers to the perception, regulation, or control of the mental processes of cognition, emotion, and will. The cognitive processes include attention,

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perception, memory, imagination, analysis, synthesis, abstraction, generalization, judgment, reasoning, and other psychological processes, which are spatial-structural thinking and temporal-logical thinking. In this way, we can transform the above definition into a more explicit statement below: In a narrow sense, consciousness refers to regulation or control of spatial-structural thinking (including imagery thinking and intuitive thinking); in a broad sense, such awareness, regulation, or control of objects can also include psychological processes such as emotion and will.

The main characteristic of this definition: 1. 2.

3.

The core of consciousness—cognitive process is thinking; Stressing that thinking not only includes temporal-logical but also spatialstructural thinking (rather than the logical thinking only, like many scholars in the fields of philosophy and psychology believe); Consciousness and cognition are different not confusing them, which makes the consciousness and the object of consciousness as one, thus losing the value of the category.

Since ancient times, many philosophers, sociologists, and psychologists have explored consciousness, but they failed to give a satisfying answer, and they left a variety of mysteries in the realm of consciousness, wrapping consciousness in a dense fog. It is high time to clear the fog, wash away its mysterious colors, and restore the plain and true nature of consciousness.

2.2 Conscious and Subconscious Thinking Having understood the essence of consciousness, it will not be difficult to understand what is conscious thinking and what is unconscious thinking. To determine whether consciousness happens, as mentioned above, in a narrow sense, consciousness is the awareness, regulation, or control of logical thinking and spatial-structural thinking (including imagery thinking and intuitive thinking). All thinking process, at least to have four components, namely objects of thinking (materials of thinking), processing methods (such as analysis, synthesis, abstraction, summary, judgment, reasoning, association, imagination), thought buffer cache area of processing (also called working memory), for temporary storage of thinking objects and results), and thinking processing mechanism. In other words, as long as there is any of them is missing, the process of thinking will be difficult and cannot be perceived. Therefore, it is much easier to identify whether consciousness or unconsciousness exists, as it is limited to thinking process; because to detect a certain kind of thinking process, there is no need to carefully analyze every element of the four; it is enough to just catch one of the simplest and the most directly relevant elements. This element is working memory (that is, the processing cache zone). This is because working memory is different from long-term memory, and contents

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in working memory do not stay long, and it only has a buffer effect: storage of processing objects and processing results, and then the contents will vanish. Therefore, we don’t have to think about the way we think, mechanism, and the objects of processing, just think about the contents in working memory (it doesn’t need to be considered the contents), and the length of working memory in order to perceive whether there is a thought process. Over the years, the progress of brain science research, since the beginning of the 1990s, has found that the process of thinking involves two kinds of working memory: one type is for storing language materials (concepts), which uses language encoding; another type is used to store visual or spatial materials (images), using graphical encoding. Further research shows that not only concepts and images have different types of working memory, but images also have two different working memory. This is because there are two types of images of things: one is the basic attributes of the matter, which is used to identify the nature of things, which is commonly referred to as attributive representation or object representation. The other is the representation of spatial-structural relationships (related to visual positioning), which is commonly referred to as spatial representation, or relationship representation. Spatial images do not contain the information of contents of objects, only the characteristic information required to determine the space location of the object and the spatial-structural relationship. In this way, we have three different working memories: The working memory of storing speech materials (speech working memory for short) applies to temporal-logic thinking; The memory storing images of the object (or object working memory) is applied to process the spatial structure of the object. The working memory that stores spatial image is applicable to spatial representation of space as a spatial structure of the processing object, which is commonly referred to as intuitive thinking; The findings of modern brain neuro-science research have shown that these three working memories and their respective processing mechanism can find their respective regions in the cortex (although some of working memory is not accurate). Blumstein of Brown University has shown that speech function may not locate in a small area, considering recent advances in brain science—as the traditional idea believed that speech function is only in the left brain’s Broca zone and Wernicke zone. But is widely distributed in the surrounding area of left hemisphere, intending to the posterior extension, including the Broca area, the lower lobe of the face motion cortex, and the left central center (but not the frontal and occipital). The loss of Broca area will affect the expression of speech, and the damage in Wernicke area will affect the function of speech comprehension. But the processing machine related to speech and expression is not limited to these two regions (and before that, it is believed that the two areas fully determine the traditional concepts of human speech function, and the principle of psychology held the view for more than a century). The working memory for temporary speech materials is generally thought to be in the left prefrontal lobe, but which location of the left prefrontal lobe is not yet accurately positioned.

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According to Petrides and others, they tend to be in the left prefrontal lobe of the left frontal lobe, Brodman 6. Compared with the language working memory, the location of the object working memory and space working memory is much more accurate. In 1993, J. Jonides of Department of Psychology, Michigan University, used advanced tools of brain science (positive electron, PET to give isotope as markers, which is introduced into a given area of the brain to participate in the known biochemical process, and then use computed tomography technique to express the metabolic rate of the markers in the form of stereoscopic imaging, so it has the advantages of positioning accuracy and damage to the brain, which is suitable for a large number of tests. Jonides and other found the following results of their test: The production and processing mechanism for the object image (i.e. attributive images) is set in the left hemisphere of the brain (focused in Brodmann Area 37, the three-dimensional orientation coordinate: −48, −58, −11), and the upper left parietal lobe (Brodmann Area 40, orientation coordinate: −48, −58, −11) and anterior cingulate cortex right hemisphere (Brodmann Area 37, orientation coordinate: −1, −14, −43); the object working memory was located in prefrontal cortex of the left hemisphere (Brodmann Area 6, orientation coordinate: −39, − 3, −29). The production and processing mechanism for the space image (relational image) is in occipital lobe, the right hemisphere of the brain (Brodmann Area 19, the three-dimensional orientation coordinate: −30, −76, 31; anterior parietal lobe (Brodmann Area 40, the three-dimensional orientation coordinate −42, −40, − 36); the pre-motor area (Brodman 6 Area, orientation coordinate: −34, −1, −45); and the space working memory is in the prefrontal cortex, the right hemisphere (Brodmann Area 47, orientation coordinate: −35, −19, −2). The above results show t the visual information processing mechanism related with object image identification (which is the processing mechanism of imagery thinking) is mainly in the left hemisphere (only anterior parietal lobe is not in the left hemisphere), and the object working memory is in the left hemisphere. Space image working memory and visual information processing mechanism (i.e., intuitive thinking mechanism), which includes spatial working memory, is all in the right hemisphere. It should be said that Jonides used a PET technology that is not harmful to the brain, which is not a brain impaired patient but a group of ordinary college students who are willing to participate in the test. The experiment records include six types of scans, each of which is conducted 20 trials. Each of the selected PET images is converted into a stereotactic coordinate, which requires the average of a given condition, and is standardized, and then uses the Bonferroni method to make multiple comparative corrections. So, the test results are more scientific and credible. In the second section of this chapter, temporal logic is based on the sequence of language symbols, so it has the characteristics of sequence and duration. In other words, when using the concept of language symbols to judge and reason, one can only follow step by step in the sequence of word symbol, duration is often longer,

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especially when analyzing the complex relationship between the processing of things. In short, in the case of logical thinking, the duration of their working memory is longer, plus a linear, sequential way of working, each step is clear cut. Therefore, this kind of thinking process is easy to detect and can be expressed by the thinking subject in each step of the thinking process—to make the implicit psychological operation into explicit speech activities. It is in this sense that the temporal logic is called conscious thinking. In other words, conscious thinking is that the process can be perceived and be described in words. Spatial-structural thinking is different. The material (processing object) of spatialstructural thinking is an image (not the speech concept), as mentioned above, the image of the object has two types: the image of attributes (the object) and the image of relations (spatial image), and the processing characteristics of the two representations are different. The processing of images of things (basic information about properties of things) usually uses methods of analysis, synthesis, abstraction, generalization, association, and imagination (creative imagination and re-creative imagination). In this case, the steps of each processing can be explained with language, but with spatial-structural thinking, materials are of complete images (rather than in a piecemeal manner), even though the process of analysis, synthesis, abstraction, association, and imagination (imagery thinking) is also carried out in sequence, but because of less processing units, step is simple, so the working memory is and the duration of working memory is often shorter, and the analysis and synthesis of images are also completed in an instant. Because this kind of thinking also divides the psychological operation into steps, it can also be described in words, so it has the characteristics of conscious thinking. In other words, in the spatial-structural thinking (imagery thinking), which is usually also a conscious thought, but there are two things that should be excluded. One is that in the absence of a short period of work memory (less than a second), without pre-assigned attention in principal nerve center, this transient thinking process may not be perceived, thereby becoming a subconscious (or unconscious) thought. Second, in the incubation stage of creative imagination, there is also a subconscious thinking process. Because of the difference creative imagination and recreative imagination, it has no ready-made image to use, something out of nothing, needing to create an unprecedented new image, so that there will be a gap in working memory before such a new image is conceived. This job memory during this blank time, and because of the lack of processing object, the general thought process will not be done and cannot be perceived. You can’t describe it in words, so it’s a real subconscious thinking process. However, if during this time, with temporal-logical cooperation, the thinking process can continue for creative imagination process complete. As for how temporal-logical and creative imagination cooperate, we will elaborate on the next section.

2 Foothold of Creative Thinking: Interaction Between Conscious and Subconscious

2.2.1

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Awareness and Subconscious Interaction Mechanism

For the processing of images of spatial relation (for spatial-visual positioning), there are many novel features compared with the processing of attributive images. In addition to the fact that it takes things as whole as processing materials, this is the same with attributive images processing, but all other aspects of processing are different from the attributive processing. It cannot make judgments by analysis, synthesis, abstraction, generalization, association, imagination, etc. It focuses on the relationship between things (spatial position, logical relationships, or other structural relationships, or even implicit relationships), not specific properties of each thing. In short, this is unlike temporal-logical thinking, and different from spatial-structural thinking, which takes attributes as processing objects. It is not a linear, sequential, slow-paced, but a quick intuitive judgment on the basis of integrative comprehensive view and intuitive insight. This is often called intuitive thinking, thinking with spatial relationships as processing materials. Intuitive thinking usually has two kinds: simple intuitive thinking and complex intuitive thinking. The processing objects of simple intuitive thinking is spatial-visual positioning (materials for processing). The processing objects of complex intuitive thinking is relation images, which is a subclass of spatial representation. Now it is customary to call spatial-structural positioning images as space images, and spatialstructural relation images as relation images, two sub-classes of space images. In the case of spatial-visual positioning (i.e., simple intuitive thinking process), in working memory there must have initial values of the object position, to determine the space position of the object based on these values. In the case of judgment of complex relationships (complex intuitive thinking), implicit complex relations between things need to be found, so there will be no initial value in working memory. This is a big difference between two intuitive thinking. In addition, it should be noted that there is no reason to take complex intuitive thinking as unreasonable, baseless thinking, or as a subjective assumption, but a quick thinking based on a solid theoretical basis, rich practice experience, in-depth research, and a keen observation and a high degree of generalization. This is because, without the conditions of theory, experience, research, observation, and generalization, it is impossible to see the whole situation or the internal connection between complex problems, grasping its nature in an instant, thus having the right answer for the situation, and make a quick and accurate judgment. Of course, intuitive judgment may not be comprehensive or may be wrong, because there is no rigorous logical analysis and reasoning, so it is best to use temporal-logical thinking to verify it to guarantee correctness. Based on the above analysis, the spatial-structural thinking (the intuitive thinking), which aims as spatial relation as the object of processing (particularly under complex intuitive thinking), is characterized by intuitive perspective, the spatial integration, the rapid judgment of the fast thinking (as opposed to the slow of nonlinear, sequential, and gradual analysis thinking). Its working memory is necessarily short, and therefore, the process of thinking is more difficult to detect. And it is difficult to describe the process of thinking it has no clear steps. In other words, this intuitive thinking is not

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so observant if it is not given enough attention, which is often shown as unconscious thinking. In complex intuitive thinking, it is difficult to grasp the complex internal and implicit relations between things, and even after a long time of thinking, we cannot find the relationship. This will occur and resemble creative imagination process—a period of blank in working memory. This differs from creative-imaginary process in that creating imagination is about construction of unprecedented new things, and while in complex intuitive judgments, it is to discover certain implicit relationship between things that others never revealed. Clearly both complex intuitive thinking and creative imagination are the real subconscious thinking—even if the nervous center is fully aware of (with expectation), it is unable to detect the process of thinking, and unable to describe the process in words. Through the above discussion, the following conclusions can be obtained from conscious thinking and subconscious thinking.

2.2.2

Relationship Between Conscious and Unconscious Thinking in Logical Thinking

Because logical thinking is the slow thinking in the one-dimensional time line, the process of thinking is easy to detect and can be described in words, so in any case, it is the conscious thought (that is, the unconditional sense of conscious thought).

2.2.3

Relationship Between Spatial-Structural Thinking and Conscious and Subconscious Thinking

Spatial-structural thinking has many differences from that of conscious and subconscious thinking. 1.

2.

3.

4.

When attributes are the objects processing (i.e. the image of the image), which can normally be perceived or described in words, it is also a conscious thinking (two exceptions: it is particularly transient and not heeded by working memory, or it is in the creative stage). Simple space position as object of processing (i.e. simple intuitive thinking), which is generally easy to detect and can be described in words, should be conscious thinking. Complex spatial-structural relation images as objects of processing (i.e., complex intuitive thinking) is difficult to detect (even if given full attention, still not helpful), nor can be described in words, so it is a real subconscious thinking; In the two exceptions of imagery thinking, the first is to be a subconscious thinking under certain conditions (that is, working memory, unmindful), and the second (creative imagination) is the unconditional real subconscious thinking. According to these different situations, the following conclusions can be drawn:

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1. 2. 3.

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The time logic thinking is unconditional sense of consciousness, and the image thinking is generally conscious thinking. Complex intuitive thinking and creative imagination are unconditional subconscious thinking; Image thinking can be a subconscious mind under certain conditions, and simple intuitive thinking is generally conscious thinking.

The creative activities of music, drawing, and writing are mainly a combination of creative imagination and temporal-logical thinking, based on the discovery of various rules of movement change in nature and human society (namely the theory of natural science and social science). This creative activity depends on the combination of complex intuitive thinking and temporal-logical thinking, while creating imaginary and complex intuitive thinking is an unconditional subconscious thinking, and temporal-logical thinking is an unconditional conscious and unconscious thinking. It is clear, for creative activities, that it is the unconditional consciousness and unconditional unconscious thinking. So, in the future, when we talk about conscious thinking and unconscious thinking, without special explanation, it is about the two conditions.

3 A Mental Processing Model of Creative Thinking—The DC Model In the second section, we divide basic forms of human thinking into thinking of spatial-structural and temporal-logical thinking. According to different processing materials of thoughts, the spatial-structural thinking can be further divided into two categories: attributive images is called imagery thinking. Another category is spatial relations, which is characterized by the spatial relationship of the object position or structure. In this way, the basic forms or types of human thinking can also be said to have three types of logical thinking, i.e., temporal-logical thinking, imagery thinking, and intuitive thinking. According to the traditional idea, these three forms of thinking are independent and not related, which makes the academic studies and research on how to develop thinking show a great deviation over years, either one-sided emphasis on logical thinking based on speech concepts ignores imagery thinking and intuitive thinking based on images. Or in reverse, one that emphasizes the latter and negates the former. In fact, these three basic forms of thinking are interrelated, mutually supportive, and mutually reinforcing. Instead of being unrelated, it’s not mutually exclusive and opposing. So, let’s discuss this point.

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3.1 Dependence of Logical Thinking and Imagery Thinking 3.1.1

Logical Thinking Based on Speech Concepts Is Inseparable From Images of Things

The images of things include types, visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, and kinesthetic. Especially enlightening is visual imagery, the results of experimental studies of Treicher, American experimental psychologists, show that 83% of human access to information comes from vision, and 11% come from hearing. The information obtained from the rest of the sensory channels adds up to less than 6%. The relation between logical thinking based on speech concepts and images of things can be seen in two ways.

3.1.2

The Formal Structure of Language Will Not Express Any Thought If Not Combined with Images

Language has changed in rhythm, sound, and length of sequence, but the change in language forms is very limited, and if it is not combined with images, the finite change of language itself will not be able to establish the complex semantic system. In this regard, there is a big difference between language and music. Words are simply linear in sentences, and the melody in music can be transformed by harmony, duet, multiple singing, and be coordinated various instruments and various music. Language concepts are essential processing materials of logical thinking, the reason is not the language form itself, but images of language concepts. The advantage of images, especially visual images, is that it can provide concrete, intuitive images for objects or events, and it has a clear and stable sense of significance. So, language is never out of the way, and language without images (whether speech or written form) is just a bunch of meaningless symbols.

3.1.3

Any Abstract Speech Concept Is From Concrete Images

Such as the word depth, which is an abstract noun of thought and theory, but the word deep theory and deep well are of the same word, whether in Chinese or in English. Profundity in English is depth, originally from Latin fundus (basement, bottom), and the depth of thought is invisible and unpredictable, and if it is not visually visible, it is impossible to imagine and understand. Arnheim cited many examples of this, an argument can be said to be harmonious or conflicting; a political atmosphere that can be tense, a regime can be corrupt and even issue a bad smell. In general, people can rely on their own feelings to provide its perception equivalents (isomeric) for all abstract concepts, because these ideas were first derived from the perceptual experience, all having support of relevant images.

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Not only are concrete concepts have images to support, but also the abstract concepts. The difference between them is that a concrete concept is supported by a single image, and the abstract concept tends to be supported by the combination of multiple images (such as morality), which has public morality, ethics, professional ethics, and each of which involves different comprehensive imagery.

3.2 Imagery Thinking Based on Attributive Images Inseparable from Speech Concept Although images of things have the above two advantages (concrete, intuitive image, and clear, stable meaning), but formation of scientific thinking is dependent on the help and support of speech concept.

3.2.1

The Concepts of Language Give Everything a Clear-Cut Symbol, Usually Unified

Continuous objective world, mainly in the visual world, has no clear boundaries for images. For example, animals can only perceive the overall image of a certain tree, while humans can further realize that it is made up of leaves, roots, and trunk of the tree, which is because humans have language, and animals do not have. The vagueness of images of things and the various processing of images (whether it is analysis, synthesis, abstraction, generalization) are not beneficial, and the rigorous scientific thinking requires a clear-cut classification of things, and the concepts of language are able to meet this requirement—providing a clear and definite symbol for every image. In such occasions, concepts of words are like a pointer, which is a sign pointing out the meaning of the mountain peaks along the horizon. Therefore, it is greatly beneficial to the distinction and recognition of images in the thinking process, and it is greatly beneficial to the processing of images. 1.

2.

The concept of speech can be used to represent different levels of abstraction of every image for which Anaheim once gave a vivid example: we can call the same creature an animal, a mammal, a cat, a domestic cat, or old Josie, etc. These levels of abstraction are not randomly selected; they depend on the level of abstraction required for a particular situation. For example, if there are mice in the house and a cat is needed to catch them, the cat in question is not a specific cat, but only a cat. But if you say, get old Josie the cat, it means no other cat. This means that representations alone cannot distinguish these different levels of abstraction, and only verbal concepts can be used as labels for certain levels of abstraction. The concepts of speech make it easy to represent relationships between images of things—people can form images of different things, but without the help of language, it is difficult to express the relationships between them. For example,

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we have images lion, which is related to the concepts of mammals, vertebrate, cat, feline, and mollusk. If you don’t use language, you can’t express whether there is a relationship between these representations. But sentences such as lions are cats or lions are mammals can help us to clearly reveal the relationship between them. Also, when it comes to John and Adam, we can arouse our appearance about the two characters, both of which are independent of each other, and we can’t see what they have to do with each other. But the sentence John is Adams’ teacher can clearly express their relationship between the teacher and student. These three facts indicate that the image of the physical image as the image of the thought material, if we want to reflect the nature of objective things more precisely and scientifically, rather than the simple and crude response, is dependent on the help and support of the concept of speech.

Interconnection and Mutual Support of Logical Thinking and Imagery Thinking From the above analysis, the processing materials of logical thinking and imagery thinking are mainly related to the processing materials of the other person: logical thinking of the concept of speech is the connotation of the physical images and visual images, so that the thought content is very substantial. The imagery thinking based on attributes of things is also supported by concepts of speech, which makes it easier to analyze, process, and have high ability of abstraction and generalizability to better reflect the nature of things. Therefore, these two ways of thinking are mutually reinforcing and inseparable. The ideal logical thinking should be a rational thought, perceptual, and vivid thought, rather than an abstract thought that is dry, pure, and independent, and completely unrelated to concrete things. The ideal imagery thinking should also be the advanced rational thinking, which has the abstract and generics, which can reflect the essence of things, rather than the traditional, which is only the low-level perceptual thinking of the nature and objects (but not abstraction and the generalization), which cannot reflect the essential characteristics of things. In other words, both logical thinking and imagery thinking collectively reflect the nature of things, so they are both rational thinking (not emotional thinking), which is of not advanced and low-level of thinking, but connected and mutually supported. Additionally, the differences are in their materials of processing and the way it the materials are processed. In fact, in addition to the purely imagery thinking that has not been involved in the concept of speech, logical thinking, and imagery thinking are often interwoven, it is difficult to separate; it is only fair to say that one of the thinking is relatively central, even if it is a professional artist (which is often more used to use imagery thinking) and scientists (often more using logical thinking).

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Dependence of Logical Thinking and Intuitive Thinking The processing material of intuitive thinking is the image of spatial relation (including spatial position and structural relation), and the spatial relational image and basic attributive images both belong to spatial perceptual images. Therefore, as long as the above attributive image is extended, so that it will include spatial relations, and then the first argument that logical thinking and imagery thinking is inseparable from images of things is still valid (in fact, there is no such as a limitation in terms of types of images in the argument above). With intuitive thinking, the second argument above, attributive images on images of things, is inseparable from the concept of speech. Clearly, in the case of imagery thinking, the three arguments proposed (concepts of speech can provide clear-cut symbols for images, which can depict the different levels of abstraction, and facilitate various complex relations between representations), and intuitive thinking is also true (just change attributive images into spatial relation images). In particular, in the situation of spatial complexity situation (such as the sub-relationship between relationships, or connections between relationships), the description of speech concepts is more important than irreplaceable.

3.3 Classification and Definition of Creative Thinking 3.3.1

The Classification of Creative Thinking

Creative thinking can be divided into two categories: random creative thinking and non-random creative thinking. 1.

2.

Random creative thinking—the characteristics of random creative thinking are that there is no clear goal of creation in advance, and there is no detailed plan and steps for the creation process, but the process of thinking is quite random. The results of the thoughts are different, so there is a novelty (the idea of a painter painting from life or a journalist who is inspired by the environment or the person interviewed, and it is such a random creation of creative thinking). The products of this kind of thinking do not necessarily have a direct relationship and impact on human civilization and progress, nor does it necessarily translate into a valuable spiritual or material products, but it may have certain positive meaning and value for the thinking itself (as for data preservation or for future work). Non-random creative thinking, which can create goals, and according to the results of the creative thinking. If great work, this kind of thinking results will have a greater positive meaning for human civilization and progress, and can be converted into spiritual products or material products with values. If small work, it can be divided into general creative thinking and high-level creative thinking. The results of these two creative thinking are different and unprecedented, so

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they are innovative. It is only that the processing mechanism is more complex and that the results of its thinking have greater significance of human civilization and progress, and, therefore, can be transformed into spiritual products or material products that are of greater value. In advanced creative thinking, some of the thinking results are unprecedented new things, some of which are new discoveries—the discovery of the inherent relationship between things that have never been revealed. 3.3.2

The Definition of Creative Thinking

As mentioned earlier, thinking is generally defined as the general and indirect reflection of the human brains toward the essence and inherent relations between objective things. Such a definition would cover the general form of human thinking, but not creative thinking. The purpose of creative thinking is to create unprecedented and valuable spiritual or material products. Since it is an unprecedented new thing or a new discovery, it cannot be created only by summarizing and indirectly reflecting the nature of the objective thing or the law of internal relations between things. Apart from generalization and indirect reflection, we should add a dynamic reflection to meet the requirements of creative thinking. This dynamic is embodied in that thinking should not be limited to what is the original things, thinking should not be merely the passive reflection of objective things; that is to say, it should also be active reaction on images of objective things, the mind operation, by means of representation, cause the integration, transformation, and reconstruction, to create a new attribute representation or find a brand new image, and on the basis of this it is likely to create unprecedented spiritual products and material products. Therefore, if thinking about creative thinking, it should be defined as the general, indirect and active reflection of the human brain to the essential attribute of objective things and the inner relation law between things.

3.4 A Mental Processing Model of Creative Thinking—The DC Model 3.4.1

Processing of Random Creative Thinking—Parallel Linear Processing

Random creative thinking and reinvention are similar and difficult to distinguish the difference between reinvention and creative thinking is that the results are the things that other people or people in the past have recognized and described, and the results of random creative thinking are novel and different. The process of thinking is also roughly the same—it is the idea of divergent thinking, the development of vision, rich processing materials, and the use of bold and reasonable imagination (that is,

3 A Mental Processing Model of Creative Thinking—The DC Model

Divergent

(a)

45

Re-creative

Association

Divergent

(b)

32 Association

Intuitive

Fig. 1 Two processes of random creative thinking

the combination of the various images (reorganization, integration, transformation, and reconstruction)), which is shown in Fig. 1a. There are other kinds of random creative thinking—the results of thinking are not the properties of new things (images of object), but rules of connections between spatial relations. At this point, the process of creative thinking is made up of three cycles, but the third is not reinvention but intuitive judgment as shown in Fig. 1b. From the above Fig. 1a, b, the two processes of random creative thinking seem to be serial linear processing, which is, in fact, untrue. The diagram a, b is simplified scheme that fails to fully reflect the specific process of thinking. For example, in association link, when we associate a familiar object, the representation of multiple properties, the object is often presented at the same time. It is associated with apple’s name, which often comes to the mind of apple’s shape, color (visual), and flavor (olfactory imagery). It is associated with the image of a bird—the bird’s age, often the same as the bird flying (visual) and its sounds (the auditory image). There is a variety of sensory pathways and processing. The term concurrent processing is used here without using the term parallel processing, which is to be able to include the interaction between processing pathways.

3.4.2

The Psychological Operation Model of Random Creative Thinking

In fact, there is also concurrent processing in the reconstructive imagination link, because the processing objects involved in these two links are the same as the association in the previous section, which is attributes of attributive images (in the case of Fig. 1a), or the relation images between things (in the case of Fig. 1b), only the ways of processing of the two are different. This shows that the two processes are actually serial processing: serial processing between the three links, and the two links (association and imagination, or association

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Fig. 2 Psychological operation model of random creative thinking

and intuition) are both concurrently processed, and in the actual thinking process, considering both of these situations at the same time, rather than considering them separately, you can get the mental operation model that is shown in Fig. 2. From the above analysis, we see random creative thinking is the lowest level and the easiest way to realize creative thinking, which is not very different from the idea of reproduction (but the depth of processing and the results are different). So, is this kind of thinking not important, not worth it? On the contrary, we believe that this feature of random creative thinking should triggered us to pay attention enough. This is because the study of random creative thinking has the following important meanings. First, it provides us with a natural bridge, from reconstructive thinking to creative thinking, which makes it clear that the natural connection, between creative thinking and general imagery thinking, helps to break away from the mystery of creative thinking. Second, the ability to random creative thinking is the foundation of higher creative thinking, without which higher creative thinking will be castle in the air. However, the mental operation model of random creative thinking can be realized, by following two kinds of processing methods and holding three links and linear process operation, and effectively create the foundation for the cultivation of advanced creative thinking ability. According to the processing mechanism of random creative thinking, it can find an effective way to cultivate students’ creative thinking in lower and middle grades of elementary schools, and the two groups of linear and concurrent processing, shown above, are both the direct view of creative thinking mechanism and specific explanation of the operation process of creative thinking.

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Regrettably, over the years, our education community has brought a lot of blindness to the teaching work, and even a large bias, because of the lack of the correct theory for guidance in elementary and middle grades. For example: Don’t know how to cultivate random creative thinking in adolescent students. To linear and concurrent processing mechanism adopts an isolated and fragmented attitude—only to separately emphasize the internal connection between students’ divergent thinking, association, or imagination. As mentioned above, the three links in the process of coexisting processing are not unrelated; they are mutually related and closely matched, which need divergent thinking to open the idea and expand the field of vision. And it needs rich processing materials. In the end, it is necessary to use bold and reasonable imagination to further restructure, integrate, transform, and reconstruct various representations to form or even rebuild an innovative representation of the property, or to discover the hidden images of the inner relationship.

3.5 Processing of Non-random Creative Thinking and Mental Operation Models 3.5.1

Process of Non-random Creative Thinking

There are two different points that are not non-random creative thinking and random creative thinking; for one it is non-random, and it has a clear goal, and more detailed plan and preparation in advance. Second, the results are highly creative, and it is only possible to complete the process with complex mental processes (usually involving three basic forms of thinking at the same time). In order to achieve creative thinking, two key links (see Fig. 3) are inevitable: create imaginary thinking (Ring B) and complex intuitive thinking (Ring C). The

Ring A

Temporal

Ring B

Ring C

Creative imaginary Complex

Fig. 3 Process of non-random creative thinking

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former is used to create unprecedented new things or to discover the essential properties of new things. The latter is used to discover rules of inner connections between things that have not yet been known. Because of the relationship between temporal-logical (Ring A) and spatialstructural thinking (that is, temporal-logical thinking and imagery thinking, and intuitive thinking) are mutually dependent, and creative-imaginary thinking (Ring B) and complex intuitive thinking (Ring C) are the advanced stages of imagery thinking and intuitive thinking, so between these two stages and temporal-logical thinking, there should meet the requirements of this interdependence. In addition, creative-imaginary thinking (Ring B) and complex intuitive thinking (Ring C) are also spatial- structural thinking, and therefore, there is a similar relationship between them. This shows that the mental processing of non-random creative thinking should be in the circular nonlinear structure shown in Fig. 3. The different direction arrows have two meanings: one is to reflect the mutual support and interdependence between temporal-logical and imagery thinking as well as between temporal-logical thinking and intuition thinking. The second is that representational temporal-logical thinking can guide, regulate, and control the direction and process of creative imagination and complex intuitive thinking, and prove and test the results of creative imagination and complex intuitive thinking.

3.5.2

Psychological Operation Model of Non-random Creative Thinking

The mental processing of non-random creative thinking (see Fig. 3) consists of seven steps: Step 1: use temporal-logical thinking to make analysis of the goals of non-random creative thinking, and solve the goals of each key issues, each of which is called a topic, by using symbols T1 T2 … Tn. Store these topics in the theme table, take the first topics from the theme table as the current topic, and then turn to Step 2. Step 2: Send the current topic, as processing instruction, to Ring B or Ring C. If the current topic is related to the nature of exploration of new things, then move into Ring B of imaginary thinking, from which turn to Step 3. If the current theme is related to the inner connection between things, it is transferred to Ring C of complex intuitive thinking, from which turn to Step 4. Step 3: This step is mainly to creative-imaginary thinking activities in Ring B, and the operation and processes are shown in Fig. 4. After the instruction of Ring A is sent to Ring B, it is easier to implement the requirements of the current instruction (e.g., the discovery of Archimedes’ law is a typical—it is to judge whether the crown is made of pure gold, which is an issue of the nature of the matter, and should be solved by imagery thinking, but eventually Archimedes found the way, through intuition, to solve the problem.). If there is a possible transfer of the command to Ring C, this will be the same as Step 4. Otherwise, it is processed by Ring B, which is transferred to the random creative

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Fig. 4 Processes in Ring B

thinking module in Ring B, which is linear-concurrent thinking processing, diversification, association, imagination, and so on. Since there are directives of guide, regulation, and control effect from Ring A, this process reflects the processing mechanism of random creative thinking, although it is not arbitrary in essence, but purposeful with clear goals, which are reflected by the instruction. It is this non-random or directive regulation that plays a critical role in creative imagination process. This is because the current goal is to create new things (or discover the essential attributes of new things), and the material that is obtained by association is images of the known thing, and cannot be relevant to new images (that is, images of the nature of new things). It is obvious that only by using simple associations of the existing representations, it is impossible to achieve the requirements of creation of new things, and it is possible only by reforming or reconstructing the original images. So, how to transform and reconstruct the original images? The checkup of Ring A and the new instructions from the inspection are decisive in the role of the transformation and reconstruction of the target and the direction of the reconstruction, thereby avoiding the blindness of the process. Creating new things is not easy, especially when the nature of things is very complex. In the beginning of processing, this is often the case; after processing instruction is made, because the association cannot associate the image of the

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requirements as the material of the transformation and reconstruction, the random creative thinking module will not be able to process the new image that meets the requirements (or approaching requirements). At this time, there will be a blank phenomenon in the working memory area of imagery thinking; that is, there is no information feedback to Ring A, and the thinking process will be interrupted—this is the so-called subconscious discovery status of the state. This state is called subconscious rather than unconscious, because at this time, there is no real blank in the working memory of Ring A (logical thinking area), and it still maintains a topic related to the creative thinking goal, i.e., the current processing instruction. And the instruction continues to act on the input of Ring B, thereby constantly stimulating the random creative thinking module in Ring B. Each triggers divergent thinking, association, and reinvention. It is because the working memory in Ring A does not appear blank, so that the input of Ring B has constant incentive to make subconscious search. As mentioned above, every input cycle can cause a cycle of incentive exploration through the three links of divergent, reinvention, imagination, which is called the cycle of subconscious exploration. With the increase of the number of explorations, the ideas from divergent thinking are becoming more and more, and the vision is getting wider and wider. The image processing becomes more and more complete and rich. In the future, there is a potential for success—the new representation that is processed will meet or approach the requirements of the current directive. Because this new image is done in imagination process, it is inevitable that it will remain in the working memory of imagery thinking (the cache area is no longer a blank) and is returned to Loop A. Since there has been a long period of time Ring A fails to get feedback from the output of Ring B. Ring A has repeatedly sent instructions (that is, many of the subconscious mind) without response, and now suddenly the information that meets the topic requirements is received, and the problem is solved. This is the equivalent of inspiration or insight. Step 3 is complete, and then step 5. Step 4: This step is mainly in Ring C for complex intuitive thinking, shown in Fig. 5 As can be seen from Fig. 5, the processing of this step is basically the same as in Step 3. After the processing instruction from Ring A to Ring C, the input part will check to see whether it can pass imagery thinking (discussing nature of things), easier to achieve the requirements of the current instruction (e.g., the discovery of Faraday’s law of electromagnetic induction is a typical example— originally Faraday was to discuss how magnetic to produce electricity, which belongs to the problem of relation between two things, and this should be resolved by intuitive thinking, but eventually Faraday through the nature of the wire, the nature of things, namely imagery thinking, found a solution to the problem. If this is possible, the instruction is forwarded to Ring B, which is equivalent to turning to Step 3 for processing. Otherwise, entering random creative thinking module, the cycles like divergent, association, intuitive judgment, to process, according to current instruction, in

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Fig. 5 Processing of Ring C

linear-concurrent processing. Since there is currently a guide, regulation, and control from Ring A instruction, this process, though used in the process of random creative thinking, is not random, but with a clear purpose. Since the current non-arbitrary creative thinking goal is to discover the inner associations what people have not known and not described, the spatial relations images of this unknown pattern are reflected; and it cannot be found in relations image subsystems of the long-term memory. There will be a period as Step 3, which makes the working memory area blank, and there will be unconscious thinking and subconscious discovery. The current subconscious exploration is also inspired by the processing instructions of Loop A, but the process is made up of three stages, such as divergent, intuitive, association. During subconscious exploration, the role of divergent thinking function as mind opener and vision expander; and the role of association is to, as much as possible, associate the images with current topic requirements or like the current theme with various ways of associations of different dimensions, such as similar, opposite, as well as function, structure, nature, image, etc., from the spatial relation image subsystem of long-term memory. At the beginning, such efforts often fail to work—unable to find the right relation image, or what is found is negated by intuitive judgment, so there is no thinking product in the working memory that can be feedback to Ring A. Until the subconscious exploration has been carried out many times, the understanding of the internal links between things becomes closer and closer to the objective

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reality, and it suddenly shows inspiration or insight (the relationship between the current theme and images). After realizing the insight of the current theme, this Step 4 is declared complete, and the following will be transferred to step 5. Step 5: This step is completed in Ring A, as shown in Fig. 6. In Ring A, the results of inspiration or insight (results from Step 3 or Step 4) are demonstrated and tested by logical analysis and reasoning. If the test is passed, then turn to Step 6; otherwise, return to Step 3 or Step 4, according to the requirements of the original theme, to further explore the images of new things through subconsciousness and rediscover the unknown (at this point, the instructions for Ring A resend to Ring B or Ring C will be properly modified according to the results of the test). Step 6 (see Fig. 6): take up the next topic from the theme table (at the same time, the original topic is deleted), and if the theme is empty, it indicates that the process of the whole non-arbitrary creative thinking has been completed and can be transferred to Step 7; otherwise, turn to Step 2 to continue to handle the next topic.

Fig. 6 Process of Ring A

3 A Mental Processing Model of Creative Thinking—The DC Model

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Fig. 7 The mental operation model of non-random creative thinking

Step 7: End. According to the above analysis, the mental operation of steps 1, 5, 5, 6, etc., is of temporal-logical thinking category and carried out in Ring A. Step 3 is done in Ring B; Step 4 in Ring C. On this basis, you can derive the complete diagram of the non-random mental operation model, as shown in Fig. 7. The processing path in the closed loop is not the only form A → B → A (or A → B → C → A), but there are several possible options: A→B→A (outer circulation)

| A→B→C→A

(outer circulation)

A→C→A (outer circulation)

| A→C→B→A

(outer circulation)

A→B…… Enter subconscious state (internal loop) | A→B→C…… Enter the subconscious state (internal loop) A→C… Enter subconscious state (internal loop)

| A→C→B…… Enter subconscious state (internal loop)

DC model (Double Circulation model)

It is composed of the above, external, and internal double circulation. The dotted line (……) shows that the thinking process in Ring B or Ring C has not yet been able to produce expected results (the working memory area of the thinking process is temporary in blank state), so there is no output information returned to Ring A. In other words, the thinking process in Ring B or Ring C will interrupt— this is called subconscious state. Every time A → B…… (or A → C……, or A → B → C……, or A → C → B……) is to complete a subconscious discovery. Since Loop B has the function of Loop A instructions, this subconscious discovery will

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not last forever, but after a period, the thinking process in Ring B or Ring C will be able to produce the desired results of the thought, namely the emergence of inspiration or insight (which shows that this creative thinking process has been completed).

4 On the Cultivation of Innovative Talents 4.1 Core of the Cultivation of Innovative Talents: Cultivating Creative Thinking The innovation process is the process of creating products, mental and materials, for human society and social progress. The process of innovation is the process of creative work. It is necessary to make creative work because the production tools are created to make humans out of animal kingdom, and because the creation of language makes the ignorance of human beings from the primitive people gradually become the highly intelligent modern people. Every victory of man and nature is inseparable from innovation. Innovative talents—refers to human beings that have innovative consciousness, innovative thinking (namely creative thinking), and innovative ability. In the trilateral quality of the innovative material, the core quality is innovative thinking (creative thinking). This is because: Innovative awareness refers to the great aspirations and the strong desire to create inventions for the civilization and progress of human being, the noble spirit of dedication to the development of science and technology. Creative thinking (innovative thinking) is a kind of advanced complex cognitive ability that can form innovative ideas, theoretical methods, or product design. Innovative ability refers to the ability to translate the ideas, theories, or product designs, spiritual products, or material products, which are valuable, unprecedented. Innovative awareness mainly solves the question of motivation: why innovates and who innovates, and innovative awareness should be established through long-term, persistent outlook on life and values. Creative thinking and innovative ability solve the question of how to innovate. Creative thinking solves how to form idea, theory, method, and design of innovation; Innovative ability is to solve how to translate the idea, theory, method, and design of innovation into practical mental or material products (that is, written literature, music, form painting, or manufacture of various patent products). Therefore, innovative awareness is the goal and motivation of creation and invention, which is of great significance to the cultivation of innovative talents; this is one aspect of the issue. Another aspect of the issue is that innovation and invention have to be based on creative thinking, without creative thinking, and innovative awareness will be impractical. Taking away creative thinking, mental or material products will

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be water without a source, and a tree without roots, and the so-called innovative ability is just do more with less, even senseless, and futile. So, in this sense, creative thinking is an important foundation and prerequisite for innovative awareness and innovative ability.

4.2 The Five Myths of the Current Creative Thinking At present, there are five myths about the existence of creative thinking in academic circles at home and abroad (including philosophy, psychology, education, and information).

4.2.1

Belief That Divergent Thinking Is the Same as Creative Thinking

There is a popular point of view at home and abroad: in speaking of creative thinking, nothing but just divergent thinking is core; that is divergent thinking is the equivalent of creative thinking. Now there is a series of guidance books on the market for a very influential examination, and the title of divergent thinking in mathematics, divergent thinking in physics, divergent thinking in chemistry, divergent thinking in Chinese…. That is a typical reflection of this idea. In fact, divergent thinking is an important component of the structure of creative thinking, which also has an irreplaceable role in creative thinking activities—to indicate the direction of thinking activities; that is, to think in the opposite direction of traditional ideas, views, and theories, aiming to breakthrough traditional ideas, views, and theories. The role of divergent thinking is important, but should not be exaggerated, and it is important to see it as only playing one role (the role of mental orientation). Divergent thinking is not the core of creative thinking, nor the whole contents of creative thinking. Considering of divergent thinking is the focus of creative thinking, even the same as creative thinking, which is the basic idea of Guildford, in the 1970s, which is that the creative thinking is divergent thinking (his divergent thinking scale is an example), and many scholars in China still use this one-sided view as a fashion.

4.2.2

Confusion of Intuitive Thinking with Imagery Thinking, Denying the Former Is a Basic Human Thinking

Intuitive thinking is not yet been studied thoroughly in psychology, so it is not very clear about the nature of its mental processing and its characteristics. Because of this, not only in the general public, but also in some academia, intuitive thinking is mixed with imagery thinking, or considering intuitive thinking as a kind of imagery thinking. Intuition is the sixth sense, one of the popular beliefs. What is sixth sense? It is a kind of unspeakable, inexplicable feeling. Intuition seems to be a groundless,

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subjective assumption that seems to have come out of thin air. This understanding of intuition is incorrect (as described in Sect. 2 of this chapter), which is another important basic form of thinking (which is as equally important as imagery thinking, temporal-logical thinking), and not the sixth sense of perception beyond the five senses generated by five senses. The sixth sense of perception does exist, but it is not intuitive, it is the sense of language—semantic perception (see Chapter 7 of this book). As mentioned earlier, intuitive thinking has the basic characteristics of the following three: One, the overall grasp—aside from the nuances of things, from the whole to the whole—is a thought that is focused on the big picture and the overall thinking. Second, intuitive thinking is intuitive insight, spatial integration, and pattern matching. Third, spatial thinking—intuitive thinking requires a moment to make a judgment on spatial structure, so it is a fast, jumping, spatial thinking (and logical thinking is a slow, sequential thinking) in a one-dimensional time line). Some literature now refers to intuitive thinking as direct perceptual thinking, and equate it with imagery thinking, which is regarded as the same thinking; and some literature considers that intuition is a kind of observation ability of imagery thinking, which is to think of intuition as a kind of human thinking. In short, they all use the basic characteristics of intuitive thinking, denying that intuitive thinking is a form of basic and independence human thinking. The consequences of this weaken and even eliminate the training and training of intuitive thinking for teenagers.

4.2.3

To Over-Stress Role of Logical Thinking, Juxtaposing Logical-Imagery Thinking and Intuitive Thinking

There is an opposition between logical thinking and imagery thinking (or logical and intuitive thinking), and there is also the other side of mutual support and interdependence, so the isolation and fragmentation of the three forms of thinking are inappropriate, laying the levels of the three-basic thinking on different levels. Originally, imagery thinking, intuitive thinking, and logical thinking are all indispensable basic forms of thinking, and there is no difference between the material and the processes of thinking. But for a long time, in many textbooks and monographs of philosophy and psychology, an idea has been endorsed that only logical thinking can reveal the inherent association between things, and that our understanding of objective things increases from perception to reason, advanced stages of thinking. But imagery thinking and intuitive thinking can only enable us to obtain the intuitive images of objective things, and it is difficult to reveal the essence and laws of things, and the implied meaning of it is they are of lower level of thinking. Under this view, it is necessary to focus on logical thinking and despise imagery thinking and intuitive thinking. Because there is mutual support and interdependence between these three kinds of thinking, the view is the result of one-sided emphasis on logical thinking, not only imagery thinking and intuitive thinking are weakened,

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but logical thinking itself is not healthy. The result of this must be that every forms of thinking cannot establish an effective training methods; in other words, the ability of three kinds of thinking, for teenagers, cannot be most effectively trained.

4.2.4

Overemphasis on Imagery Thinking and Developing the Right Brain Is to Develop Creative Thinking

The process of logical thinking is based on logical analysis and reasoning of known knowledge and concepts, which cannot be able to achieve jumping or mutation of the thinking process, so it is often thought that logical thinking is not as direct as intuitive thinking and insight, which is the direct formation of inspiration or insight (that is, the creative breakthrough); in other words, the realization of creative breakthrough is mainly based on imagery thinking and intuitive thinking. In addition, academic community tends to mix intuitive thinking with imagery thinking, and according to the right brain tendency, proposed by Sperry in the 1970s, the right brain tends to stimulate the idea of the right brain, which also has the advantage of imagery thinking and intuitive thinking, and concludes that the right brain must be developed to achieve creative breakthrough. For a long period of time, even till now, developing the right brain became a synonym for developing creative thinking. In fact, as a result of limits of technological development of the 1970s, Sperry was able to experiment with only a handful of brain impaired “Split brain people,” and the conclusion made was inevitable partial. And by the time of the twentieth century, because of the presence of positive electronic tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), scientists had been able to accurately test brain waves of people in different thinking states and confirmed that the processing mechanism of imagery thinking and working memory were mainly in the left brain, not the right brain (only the processing mechanism and working memory of intuitive thinking were primarily in the right brain). Therefore, it is a misleading idea to develop the right brain to develop creative thinking. In fact, as mentioned above, logical thinking based on speech concept and imagery thinking and intuitive thinking based on images are mutually dependent and mutually complementary, and creative thinking is the result of the common effect of the left and right side of the brain, rather than simply right brain.

4.2.5

Ignoring the Important Role of Dialectical Thinking

Dialectical thinking is one of the elements of the overall structure of creative thinking, but the present articles and the papers on dialectical thinking, both at home and broad, in psychology circles are very rare, and rigorous studies are rare to see. It seems that dialectical thinking is purely a philosophical question, and only philosophers can deal with it; current study of dialectical logical thinking can only be found in philosophical books). We believe that is partial in that the fact that the study of creative thinking is reflected in the allegory of Cao Chong weighing an elephant, is that dialectical

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thinking has a typical example showing the important role in the creative process, so it is a good idea for psychologists to focus on and seriously study the problem in this area (without the guidance of dialectical thinking, that human thinking is problematic to reach a comprehensive, profound level, and not to mention insight).

4.3 The Six Elements of Creative Thinking The scientific research shows that General Structure of Creative Thinking is composed of six elements, i.e., divergent thinking, logical thinking, imagery thinking, intuitive thinking, dialectical thinking, and transverse and longitudinal thinking. Divergent thinking—guiding the direction of thinking. Its essence is break away the limitations of traditional ideas, views, theories, and methods, rather than the four characteristics defined by Guilford and Torrance et al. “smoothness, flexibility, originality and delicateness.” Intuitive thinking, imagery thinking, logical thinking—the main body and core of creative thinking. Dialectical thinking and transverse and longitudinal thinking provide philosophy in macro-manner and micro-mental processing strategies in micro-manner. The whole structure of the so-called creative thinking is the organic whole of six elements of divergent thinking, logical thinking, image thinking, intuitive thinking, dialectical thinking and transverse, and longitudinal thinking.

4.4 Five Stages of Cultivating Creative Thinking As one of the six elements, transverse and longitudinal thinking provides mental processing strategies for solving complex problems (i.e., inspiration and insight), which has more close relations with scientific discovery, technical invention, and by the support of complexity theory to understand (see Section 4, Chapter 6 of this book Subconscious Exploration and Complexity Theory), so, in the creative thinking cultivation in elementary and secondary schools, this element may not be considered for the time being. Here are the discussion five elements to the development of creative thinking, which is that usually five concerns in developing creative thinking.

4.4.1

Pay Attention to the Cultivation of Divergent Thinking (Seeking Differences in Similarity, Seeking Positive in Negative, and Radiating in Multiple Directions)

Convergent thinking (also known as concentrated thinking) requires that the contents and results of thinking should be concentrated and unified to traditional concepts or original concepts, so its advantages are conducive to the imparts and learning of

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subject knowledge and the mastery of previous knowledge and experience. Its disadvantage is easy to cause students to think what is in the book, what the teacher says, what the authority is the classic, the truth without any suspicion or doubt. Therefore, only by focusing on convergent thinking, we can only keep our understanding at the level of our predecessors, and it is impossible to generate new theories and new ideas. In order to innovate, divergent thinking must be emphasized. Without divergent thinking (also known as divergent thinking, reverse thinking, different thinking, or multidimensional thinking), there will not be any creative germination and creative results. It can be said that all creation originates from divergent thinking, and there are numerous examples of this: Finally, the hypothesis was verified by experiments, and the law of electromagnetic induction was found that the magnitude of induced electromotive force is proportional to the rate of change of magnetic flux.

Example 1: The Law of Electromagnetic Induction It was discovered in Faraday. In 1820, Auster, Denmark, has found that electric wires can deflect the magnetic needle next to it, indicating that the magnetic field can be produced around the electricity wire (electricity can produce a magnetic). In the same year, the French Ampere also found that two electric wires had an interaction—the current was in the same direction, and the other was in the opposite direction. Faraday knew the news immediately thought, since electricity can produce magnetism, then the magnetism should also produce electrical effects. This is the reverse thinking and the choice of different thinking, which guided his thoughts, and through 11 years of hard work, Faraday proved the hypothesis, and found the law of electromagnetic induction of the magnitude of the induced emf and the rate of flux conversion. Not only is the budding of this creative discovery coming from reverse thinking, the discovery product also relies on divergent thinking or reverse thinking. Although he always convinced that he had made several experiments, Faraday did the experiments along the traditional idea: that the current always moves along the straight wire, so the experiment always used magnetic field of various changes to the straight wire (seeking convergent thinking), and then to see if there was a current on the wire, and this always resulted in failure. It was only later that he thought that the current could flow in any direction, and that the conductor of the current carrier could be any shape, so he bent the wire into a circular (divergent thinking), and then made the form of a spiral tube, and then put the permanent magnet in and out (to change the volume of magnetic flow), which was the experimental basis of the law of electromagnetic induction.

Example 2: De Broglie: The Wave Theory of Light In 1905, Einstein had proposed that light had particle properties, and every photon (also called light quantum) had speed and mass (zero) of light quantum, and not long

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after, Compton confirmed this particle (Compton effect). So, in the early twentieth century, light was a particle doubtless, only few people doubted it. In the opposite direction, it can also be demonstrated by the idea of the wave theory (both volatile and particle features) and under this thought, which was proposed in 1924, and was confirmed by the electronic diffraction experiment of Davidson, which is the essence of the wave theory, which is the theoretical theory of the wave particle duality in physics, a major correction and development of Einstein’s definitive conclusion.

Example 3: The Great Innovation of Bill Gates In January 1975, Bill Gates was a second-year law school student at Harvard University, and one day he saw the first personal computer photo of MITS. The computer used Intel 8080 CPU chips (8 bit), and he immediately realized that personal computer was small in size and low in price, and could enter into families, even owned by everyone; so it could lead to a profound revolution—a revolution not only in the computer world, but also a revolution in the way the human lives and works. He realized that this was a rare opportunity, and he was determined to seize the opportunity. The idea of Bill Gates was unusual at the time, in the opposite direction of the mainstream idea of the computer world. At the time, IBM, which ruled the computer kingdom, believed that personal computers were just a small thing, used only for playing games, simple APPS, not a something you can be proud of, and while the development of a computer that leads computers development relies on mainframes and mainframe computers. It was Bill Gates’s divergent thinking, and the courage to challenge the tradition and authority that led to his great success. He said to himself, he must seize this rare opportunity, and he did, and he wrote to MITS company’s boss that he would like to write his personal computer program with BASIC language. He had been able to complete the service in five weeks and had made a major contribution to the spread of personal computers. He knew that it was not easy for users to master the computer program language, and the personal computer was difficult to spread, and with the help of his friend Alan, he had done it for five weeks. Then he dropped out of Harvard and started his own company, Microsoft, with Allen, which is now a famous brand. In addition, helicopter was invented (which is from ways of propellers fixation), aircraft carrier was invented (originated from divergent thinking—the fantasy of reinforced concrete runway can be flexible to move), and the emergence of a new generation of cancer drugs (which began with the reverse thinking of the traditional idea—not by using radiation to kill cancer or negative drugs to destroy cancer cells from invasion of healthy cells, but to turn the cancer cells into a normal cell). All these inventions show the role of reverse thinking, divergent thinking, and multiple direction thinking. It is obvious that divergent thinking can be decisive in creative activities, although it is only for directions of thinking (not with specific thinking).

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Development of Intuitive Thinking (Looking at Big Pictures, Overall Perspective, Only Interrelations)—Sructuring Knowledge, Graphics, Encouraging Speculation, and Using Software Tools for Modeling Tools

A famous example of the theoretical breakthrough in the scientific field is the discovery of the Archimedes principle, which is inspired by intuitive thinking and insight. It was through moments of intuitive thinking that he, in the bathtub, suddenly realized that the volume of water in the tub was likely to be equal to the volume of the body immersed in the water. The volume of the water surface and the volume of the body immersed in the water seemed irrelevant, but Archimedes’ method of intuitive perspective and overall grasp, however, found, in a moment, the inner connection between the two (the implicit relationship)—the same amount (the method of measuring irregular volume) of the crown. The moon revolves around the earth, and this is two entirely different things, but Newton has learned that the moon has fallen to the horizon, and the moon has always been moving around the earth and the solar system, which has been in the depths of the universe, because of the gravity of the earth, which is the inner connection of the fact that the two seemingly irrelevant facts had an inner connection (the implicit relations), which is a very high level of intuitive thinking ability. To see the implicit relations that the average person can’t see, it depends on that ability.

4.4.3

Emphasis on Imagery Thinking (Be Observant, Accumulation of Facts, Inspire Inspiration, Bold Imagination)—Develop Imagery and Intuitive Thinking Combining with Logical Thinking (Not to Isolate Them)

Example 1: The Proposal of Continental Drift (From Imagination) At the beginning of the twentieth century, some geologists found that the external outline of the mainland of South America was so similar to that of the African continent (a continent that was raised out of a continent and the other large gulf), which had originated a wonderful imagination—the continent had been a whole in the past few hundred million years ago and then gradually divided by the change in geological structure. Under this kind of imagination, the study of paleontological fossils, such as the ancient glaciers and the geological structures of the oceans and the elements of rocks, was combined with the data reasoning and the argument of logical thinking, and finally in 1915, the continental shift was proposed in modern geology (this theory was further confirmed by the British physicist’s geomagnetic measurement results in the 1950s). This example shows that the idea of continental drift is inseparable from the wonderful imagination.

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Example 2: The Invention of Infrared Tracking Technology (Out of Association) Biologists know that a rattlesnake eyesight is very poor, and the things that are close to a few centimeters can’t be seen, but in the dark, they can accurately catch more than 10 m of voles, and the secret lies in the cheeks between the eyes and the nose. This area has a bio-infrared sensor, which can feel micro-infrared rays emitted by heat from distant animal activities; thereby realizing thermal positioning. American missile experts have produced a similar electronic infrared sensor, which is like the electronic infrared sensor, which is used to receive the infrared of the aircraft because the engine is running in heat, and that it is just this to achieve the automatic tracking of the target through thermal positioning. The so-called infrared tracking rattlesnake missile is designed based on this association.

Example 3: Creation of Conical Cutting Theory Through Analysis, Synthesis, Abstraction, and Generalization of Images In imagery thinking, inspiration or insight can be produced not only by association or imagination, but also through analysis, synthesis, abstraction, and generalization of attributes of images. The creation of conical cutting theory is a good example. Early in Aristotelian era, people were already concerned about geometric concepts of circles, ellipses, and hyperbola, but at that time, these concepts were isolated and unrelated to each other. The results of analysis and synthesis of various cross-section shapes formed by the shape of conical cutting, such as the Kepler scope, Desargues and Poncelet found that there were only three types of cross section: round, elliptical, and hyperbola. On this basis, further abstraction and generalization is the essential feature of the three kinds of images—all cut by the cone, and the difference is only in the different ways of cutting (horizontal cutting is round, vertical cutting is hyperbolic, and the oblique cutting is elliptical). In this way, the three geometric shapes that are not relevant to each other are linked by the theory of conic cutting, which is a geometric system with a rigorous structure relationship.

4.4.4

Importance of Cultivation of Logical Thinking (Analysis, Synthesis, Generalization, Reasoning)

Logical thinking itself is not likely to form inspiration or insight like imagery thinking and intuitive thinking. However, temporal-logical thinking is also an indispensable element in the process of creative thinking, because for imagery thinking or intuitive thinking, the ultimate realization of its creative goals cannot be achieved without the guidance, regulation, and control of temporal-logical thinking. The continental drift mentioned above, for example, is rooted in the observation and imagination of the world map, but in the early twentieth century, Germany’s Wagner was not the only person who observed and imagined, and Taylor and Beck of the United

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States had done the same observations and imagination, and they had the idea of continental drifting, but they failed to form a complete theory like Wagner. The reason is that, after this new idea, it has been strongly opposed by the traditional idea, which believed that position of the sea and land is fixed). Taylor and Beck, lack of a robust belief in logical analysis, did not continue to explore this direction, so they ended up in the original imagination. Using the knowledge of meteorology (Wagner was a meteorologist), he carried out research on the phenomenon of the ancient climate and ancient glaciers, and the geological and paleontologist fossils of the oceans, and conducted for several years of field investigation and research, and finally published the famous monograph Origin of the Mainland and the Sea in 1915, and fully proved the theory of continental drift with many evidence. It is true that the implicit relationship between the surface of the water and the volume of his body’s immersion into the bath water is not an insight of intuitive thinking, but this insight does not come out of thin air. This is because of logical analysis and inference of the pure gold crown, which is known to be easily calculated in the size of a volume, and can determine whether the crown is made of pure gold compared with the weight of the crown. In other words, if you can measure the volume of the weight, you can calculate the weight of the gold, and decide whether there is pure or not, and the key to the problem is to measure becomes how to measure the irregular volume of the crown. It is with the guidance of this logical thinking, Archimedes was able to measure the crown volume, which was possible to make an insight in the process of the bath. Before that, although Archimedes had seen the same phenomenon in hundreds of baths, there was no such thing as logical thinking to guide. The above facts suggest that logical thinking cannot directly produce inspiration or insight (inspiration or insight always come from imagery thinking or intuitive thinking), but the implementation of creative goals has the role of guiding and regulating, without the role of logical thinking, and the creative activities that are not possible by imagery thinking and intuitive thinking. Taylor and Baker and others have had the same observation and imagination, but ultimately, they remain in the original imagination, unable to achieve theoretical innovation, and the reason is just this.

4.4.5

Cultivation of Dialectical Thinking (Investigation and Research, Seeking Truth from Facts, Unity of Opposites)

Dialectical thinking refers to the ability to observe and analyze things with dialectical materialism—to respect objective laws, to attach importance to investigation and research, and to start with the facts and to be realistic. It is possible to see the opposite of things and to see the unity between things and the transformation of things in certain conditions; both to see the positive of things, to see the opposite, to see the adverse factors in the favorable factors, and to see the beneficial factors in the absence of the benefits, and to be good at the nature of the phenomenon. In short, it’s the doctrine that everything has two aspects.

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In the excellent cultural heritage of ancient China, examples of dialectical thinking are everywhere, and some have become household names and deep in peoples’ hearts. For example, dismember an ox as skillfully as a butcher, Cao Gui controversy, Cao Chong Weighs the Elephant, Zou Ji persuaded king of Qi to accept criticism and Liu Yuxi’s poems, which contain, both allegories and poems, profound dialectical logic. Most of them have been enrolled in the Chinese or historical textbooks of primary and secondary schools, and if they can be used well, they will play an important role in the cultivation of creative thinking ability in our country. Cao Chong Weighs the Elephant is one of excellent examples for the young people to develop dialectical thinking ability. The story of the Cao Chong Weighs the Elephant is familiar to everyone. The story is like this: one day Cao Cao got an elephant, and he wanted to weigh elephant and asked his ministers how to do it (in the Three Kingdom of about 1800 years ago, it was a big problem). One minister said that he could cut a big tree, and make a big scale. Cao Cao shook his head—if he could have afforded to make a big scale, who could bring the elephant up? Another minister said, it was easy to say that the elephant could be slaughtered and cut into pieces. Cao Cao disagreed—he wanted to see the living elephant. This time, the seven-year-old Cao Chong came out a good idea—to bring the elephant to the boat, note the waterline on the side of the boat, and put the elephant out, and put in stones into the boat, and then the stones were unloaded, and weigh the stones up, and the weight of the elephant was obtained. It is not vital that Cao Chong should be wise at the age of seven. The important thing is the dialectical logic of the story—the ability to absorb reasonable factors from the wrong opinions. The idea of the first minister seems impractical, because no one could lift such a big scale, but it contains a reasonable factor that requires a scale that can withstand the weight of an elephant to solve the problem. The idea of the second minister was even more ridiculous, but in this seemingly absurd opinion, there is a very valuable thought of breaking up the whole into parts. Cao Chong absorbed the reasonable factors in the wrong opinion of two ministers—trying to find a scale that could withstand the weight of the elephant and not to be carried out by hands, and according to the daily experience of life, the ship was able to meet this requirement. Then he thought of using stones instead of elephants to achieve it. It is this dialectical thinking that combines living experience and acute observation, which makes Cao Chong creative to solve the problems that the people of his time could not solve. Dialectic materialism is a Marxist philosophy of cosmology and methodology, which is the fundamental guarantee of comprehensive, profound, and insightful human thinking. Therefore, it is possible to use dialectic materialism, as a guide, in the whole process of thinking, and it is possible to make human basic thinking form (any form) the most effective requirement for meeting innovative goals. In conclusion, we should take the dialectical thinking through the whole creative thinking process, so that the contents and results of thinking are more comprehensive, deeper and more insightful, and we can really realize creative breakthroughs.

Reference

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Reference 1. He, K. (2017). A theory of creative thinking: Construction and verification of the double circulation model. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5053-4

Chapter 3

Supportive Integration of Information Technology and Subject Teaching: Neo-Constructivism

Abstract In the field of research and application of learning theory in the 1980s, stress on stimulus–response, and the learner as a passive respondent to external stimuli (as a receiver of knowledge transmission), has given way to cognitive, highlighting the internal psychological process of individuals, and seeing the learners as the subject of information processing.

1 Origin and Main Contents of Western Constructionism 1.1 Origin and Main Contents of Western Constructionism [1–3] In the field of research and application of learning theory in the 1980s, stress on stimulus–response, and the learner as a passive respondent to external stimuli (as a receiver of knowledge transmission), has given way to cognitive, highlighting the internal psychological process of individuals, and seeing the learners as the subject of information processing. With the deepening of psychological research on cognition of human learning process, constructionist learning theory, a central branch of cognitive learning theory, has gradually become popular in the west since the 1990s. The multimedia computer and network communication technology based on the Internet has many features, which are particularly suited to realize constructionist learning environment; in other words, multimedia computer and network communication technology can be used as an ideal tool of constructionist learning environment, effectively promoting learners’ cognitive development. With the rapid development of computer and educational application of Internet, constructivist learning theory shows more and more powerful vitality, and its influence in the world is expanding day by day. The earliest proponents of constructionism in the west can be traced back to Switzerland’s J. Piaget, one of the most influential psychologists in the field of cognitive science. Piaget’s theory is full of materialist dialectics, and he insists on

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 K. He, Innovative Education Informatization with Chinese Characteristics, Bridging Human and Machine: Future Education with Intelligence, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0622-0_3

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studying child cognitive development from the perspective of the interaction between internal and external causes. We believed that in the process of interacting with the surrounding environment, children gradually construct knowledge about the outside world, so that their own cognitive structure gradually forms and develops. The interaction between children and the environment involves two basic processes: assimilation and adaptation. Assimilation refers to the process of absorbing relevant information from the external environment and combining it into the existing cognitive structure of children (also known as “schema”). Adaptation denotes the process of reorganization and transformation of child cognitive structure caused by changes in the external environment and the failure of the original cognitive structure to assimilate the information provided by the new environment; that is, the process of individual cognitive structure changes due to the influence of external stimuli. It can be seen that assimilation is the expansion of cognitive structure (schema expansion), while adaptation is the change of cognitive structure (schema change). The cognitive individual (child) achieves the balance with the surrounding environment through assimilation and adaptation; when the child can assimilate new information with the existing schema, he is in a balanced cognitive state; when the existing schema cannot assimilate the new information, the balance is destroyed, and the process of modifying or creating the new schema (namely adaptation) is the process of finding the new balance. The cognitive structure of the child is gradually constructed through the process of assimilation and adaptation, and continuously enriched, improved, and developed in the cycle of balance-imbalance—new balance. This is Piaget’s basic view of constructionists. On the basis of Piaget’s theory, Kohlberg further researched on the nature of cognitive structure and development conditions of cognitive structure. Sternberg and Katz stressed the key role of individual initiative in the process of constructing cognitive structure and explored how to give play to individual initiative in the process of cognition. Vygotsky, of the former Soviet Union, founded the theory of cultural-historic development, which underlines the cognitive process of learners in the role of social, cultural, historic background, on the basis of this, led by Vygotsky, school of Verrelu school (Vygotsky, Lebedev, Luria), studied intensely the role of “activity” and “social interaction” in the development of advanced human psychological functions. All these studies have further enriched and improved the theory of constructionism and created conditions for its practical application in the teaching process. After more than half a century of research and exploration, constructionist view has formed a complete theoretical system including “individual construction” and “social construction.” The representative of the school of individual construction is Piaget, and the representative of social constructionist views is Vygotsky of the former Soviet Union. Prior to the 1990s, constructionism was basically a pure “theory of learning” conducted by psychologists in university research institutes or in laboratories. Constructionism stepped out of the “ivory tower” (beyond the scope of pure theoretical research) and began to enter the classrooms of primary and secondary schools only after the 1990s. This is because the technology of multimedia computer and

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communication network can provide strong technical support for the learning environment advocated by constructionists. However, constructionist views can provide the most effective theoretical guidance for multimedia teaching and network teaching (i.e., the integration of information technology and curriculum). With the growing popularity of constructionism in schools at all levels (especially in primary and secondary schools), not only the original learning theory has been developed and expanded, but also on the basis of extensive teaching practice, a set of instructional theories and teaching design methods suitable for constructionist learning milieu has been gradually formed. Therefore, since the mid-1990s, some scholars in the world believe that constructionism is both a new learning theory and a new instructional theory in the information age. But the mainstream of the academic world (especially in psychology, constructionism is still primarily a theory of learning).

1.2 The Main Contents of Western Constructionist Views As mentioned above, constructionist view is originally derived from theory of children’s cognitive development, due to the individual’s cognitive development closely related to the learning process, so the use of constructionism is better at explaining human cognitive the learning processes, which can well explain how learning occurs, how to construct meaning, concept formation, and what the main factors the ideal learning environment should include, and so on. In short, under the guidance of constructionism, a new set of effective cognitive learning theories can be formed, and on this basis, an ideal constructionist learning environment can be realized. Next, we shall briefly explain the main contents of constructionism from three aspects: “what is learning” (i.e., “about the meaning of learning”), “how to learn” (i.e., “about the method of learning”), and teaching strategies.

1.2.1

About the Meaning of Learning [1, 4, 5]

Constructionists hold that learning is the process of acquiring knowledge, but knowledge is not taught by teachers, but acquired by learners with the help of others (including teachers and learning partners) in a certain social and cultural context and by means of meaning construction. Because learning happens in a certain situation, with the help of others or through collaboration between people, dialog, which is the meaning construction process; therefore, the “situation,” “collaboration,” “dialog,” and “meaning construction” are the four elements of learning or four attributes of constructionist learning theory. “Situation” in the learning environment must be conducive to students’ meaning construction of the content of knowledge. This puts forward new requirements for teaching design; that is to say, in the constructionist learning environment, teaching design should consider not only the analysis of teaching objectives, but also the

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situation creation which is conducive to students’ construction of meaning, and regard the situation creation as one of the most important contents of teaching design. “Collaboration” occurs throughout learning process. Collaboration plays an important role in the collection and analysis of learning materials, the proposal and verification of hypotheses, the evaluation of learning outcomes, and the final construction of meaning. Dialog is an indispensable link in the process of collaboration. The study group members must discuss how to complete the prescribed study plan through dialog. In addition, collaborative learning is also a process of communication through dialog. In this process, the thinking achievements (wisdom) of each learner are shared by the whole learning group; so a dialog is one of the important means to achieve the meaning construction. “Meaning construction” is the ultimate goal of the whole learning process. The meaning to be constructed refers to the nature and law of things and the internal relation between things. To help students construct meaning in the learning process is to help them, in the current learning contents, develop a deeper understanding of nature and laws of the things and their internal relations between them. The longterm storage of the understanding in the brain is a “schema,” which is the cognitive structure of what is being learned. From the connotation of “learning” mentioned above, it can be seen that the quality of learning is a function of learners’ ability to construct meaning, rather than a function of learners’ ability to reproduce teachers’ thinking. In other words, the amount of knowledge acquired depends on learners’ ability to construct the meaning of relevant knowledge based on their own experience, rather than on their ability to memorize what the teacher has taught.

1.2.2

Learning Methods [6–8]

Constructionists advocate learner-centered learning, emphasizing that learners are subjects of cognitive process, of information processing, and of active constructors of meaning, rather than passive recipients of external stimuli and objects of indoctrination. To be an active constructor of meaning, students are required to show their initiative and enthusiasm in the learning process from the following aspects: 1. 2.

3.

to use the method of inquiry, discovery to construct the meaning of knowledge; in the process of constructing meaning, students are required to take the initiative to collect relevant information and materials and analyze them; and make assumptions, trying to test them; to connect the current learning contents with what they already know, and consider their relationship.

“Connection” and “thinking” are key to the construction of meaning. If the process of connection and thinking can be combined with the process of negotiation in cooperative learning (that is, the process of communication and discussion), students will construct meaning more efficiently and with better quality. There are two types of negotiation: “self-negotiation” and “mutual negotiation” (also called “internal

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negotiation” and “social negotiation”). Mutual negotiation refers to the discussion and debate among study groups.

1.2.3

Teaching Strategy of Constructionists

Since the 1990s, with many years of teaching practice relatively mature strategies of teaching in constructionist view include mainly scaffolding, anchoring, and random entry teaching strategies. The following is a brief introduction to their basic contents and implementation.

Scaffolding Instruction Strategy [1, 6, 9] According to the European Council’s relevant documents of “distance education and training of project” (DGX III), scaffolding is defined as provision of conceptual framework for learners to construct understanding of knowledge. The concepts in this framework are needed to develop learner’s further understanding of the problem. To this end, complex learning tasks are broken down, in advance, in order to gradually lead learner’s understanding to a higher level. Obviously, this idea is derived from the “zone of proximal development,” of famous psychologist Vygotsky of the former Soviet Union. Vygotsky believes that in child’s cognitive activities, there may be a difference between the problem to be solved and the original ability. Through teaching, children can eliminate this difference with the help of teachers. In other words, the zone of proximal development is defined as the distance between the actual level of development (the first level of development) of the child, solving the problem independently and the potential level of development (the second level of development); i.e., the child solving the problem under the guidance of the teacher. It can be seen that the state between the first and second child development level is determined by teaching; that is, teaching can create the zone of proximal development. Therefore, instruction should not passively adapt to the existing level of child’s cognitive development, but go beyond, continually leading child’s cognition from one level to a new and higher level. Starting from Vygotsky’s idea, constructionism borrowed the term “scaffolding,” originally used in the construction industry as a figurative metaphor of the above conceptual framework, whose essence is to use the above conceptual framework as scaffolding for learners in the process of learning. As mentioned above, the concept of the framework is to develop students further understanding of the problem; that is, the framework should be in accordance with the cognition of students to build the zone of proximal development, which can be supported by scaffolding (or “support function”) the child’ cognition, continually from one level to another new and higher level teaching. The implementation of scaffolding strategy in instruction consists of the following steps: • Scaffolding—build a conceptual framework around the current learning theme and in accordance with the requirements of the zone of proximal development.

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• Enter the situation—introduce students into a certain problem situation (a node in the conceptual framework). • Independent inquiry—let students conduct independent inquiry (including identifying various attributes related to a given concept and arranging them in order of importance). • Collaborative learning—group negotiation and discussion (achieve a comprehensive and correct understanding of the current concepts on the basis of sharing the results of collective thinking; that is, finally complete the meaning construction of the learned knowledge). • Effectiveness evaluation—the evaluation of learning effect includes student’s selfevaluation and evaluation of the learning group. The evaluation involves the following three aspects: self-learning ability, the contribution to the collaborative learning of the group, and the completion of the meaning construction of the learned knowledge. Anchored Instruction [1, 10] Anchored instruction requires that it be grounded on real events or real problems that are contagious. The process of determining such a real event or problem is figuratively referred to as anchoring, because once such an event or problem is identified, the entire teaching contents and process are anchored as you anchor a ship. Constructionists think that for learners to complete the meaning of knowledge construction, which aligns the knowledge with the nature of things, law; i.e., the correct understanding of links between things, the best way is to make learners feel and experience the reality of the real-world environment (that is, by obtaining direct experience to learn), rather than just to listen to others (e.g., teachers) introduction and explanation about experiences. Because anchored teaching is based on real cases or problems (as anchors of boats), it is sometimes referred to as case teaching or problem-based teaching. The implementation of anchored teaching strategy consists of the following steps: • Set up the situation—to create learning situation the same or similar as the reality. • Identify the problem (anchor)—in the above situation, choose the real event or problem closely related to the current study topic as the central content of the study (let student face a real problem that needs to be solved immediately). The selected event or problem is the anchor, and the function of this link is to drop anchor. • Autonomous learning—special attention should be paid to developing students’ autonomous learning ability, which includes the following three aspects: first, the ability to determine the learning content table, referring to the list of knowledge required to complete the learning task related to a given problem; second, the ability to obtain relevant information and data, knowing where to obtain information and how to obtain the required information and data); third, the ability to utilize and evaluate relevant information and data.

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• Collaborative learning—carry out group discussions and exchanges to supplement, revise and deepen students’ understanding of current problems through the exchange of views. • Effectiveness evaluation—because anchored teaching requires students to solve practical problems; therefore, the learning process is the process of solving problems—the process can directly reflect the students’ learning. Hence, the evaluation of this form of teaching does not often require special tests, independent of the teaching process, but needs only to observe and record students’ performance at any time during the learning process. Random Access Instruction Strategy [10, 11] Because of the complexity of things and the multifaceted problems, it is very hard to fully understand and grasp the essential properties, rules, and internal relations between things; that is, to truly achieve the correct and comprehensive meaning construction of knowledge. Diverse conclusions can often be drawn from different perspectives. In order to overcome this problem, attention should be paid to the same teaching content in different situations, for different purposes, with different ways to present. In other words, learners should be able to enter the same teaching contents freely through different ways and methods to learn, so as to gain knowledge and understanding of the same thing in many aspects. This is random-access teaching). Apparently, learners can achieve a comprehensive and in-depth understanding and mastery of knowledge by entering the same contents for many times. This multiple entry is by no means a simple repetition to consolidate common knowledge and skills as in traditional instruction. Each entry here has a different learning purpose and a focus. Therefore, the result of multiple entries is not only a simple repetition and consolidation of the same contents, but also a leap in understanding and cognition of entire things. The basic idea of random-access instruction originates from a new branch of constructionist learning theory—cognitive flexibility theory. The aim of this theory is to improve learners’ comprehension ability and transfer knowledge (i.e., the ability to flexibly use the knowledge learned). It is not hard to see that the requirements of random entry instruction for the same instructional contents to be presented in different situations, for different purposes and in different ways, proposed to promote and develop learners’ understanding and transfer ability of knowledge; that is, according to the requirements of elastic cognitive theory. The implementation of random-access instruction consists of the following steps: • Presentation of basic situations—the presentation of learning topic in the basic contexts of the current topic of learning. • Randomly entry of learning—according to the contents selected by students random entry learning (with one segment of contents of the current learning topic), adjusts the present situation to enable the current student’s selection to be associated with its characteristics.

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• Thinking development—because random entry learning is often more complex, the problem of the study is often involved in many aspects, so in the use of this kind of instructional strategy, the ability to think in particular should be paid special attention to. The implementation should focus on three aspects: one, the interaction between teachers and students should be carried out on the metacognitive level (that is, the question of the teacher’s advice to the students should be conducive to the development of the students cognitive ability, not the pure intellectual question). Two, awareness of learners’ characteristics (that is, to understand students’ characteristics of knowledge, skills, and cognition). Third, attention to the divergent thinking of students. • Collaborative learning—students will discuss in groups or class around different aspects of the situation that shows different aspects. In the discussion, each student’s views are examined and commented in a social consultative environment (this social negotiation environment is created by students and teachers). At the same time, each student also thinks and responds to other some else opinions. • Evaluation of learning effect—including self-evaluation and group evaluation, which is the same as scaffolding. Although there are many different forms of teaching strategy, which include creation of learning environment and collaboration; of course, in the discussion and communication process, there is also dialogue based on meaning construction of knowledge by the learner themselves. This is determined by the constructionist learning environment. As mentioned above, the connotation of constructionism includes four elements such as situation, collaboration, dialog, and meaning construction. Since all these teaching strategies are guided by constructionist views of learning, they are naturally restricted by these.

2 Rise of New Constructionist Views—Reflection of the Western Constructionism The theoretical basis of constructionism is generally believed to have been laid out by scholars such as Piaget and Vygotsky half a century ago, but the theory has begun to be prevalent in the world and had an increasing impact, after the twentieth century. And it is generally accepted that constructionism is closely related to the rapid popularization of multimedia and the Internet technology, especially internetbased. It is the multimedia and network technology that provides strong material support for constructionism, which makes it possible to make constructionist theory out of the Ivory Tower of the psychologists, and commences to enter the classroom of various schools at all levels, becoming an important theoretical basis for multimedia and network in teaching and information technology in discipline teaching. It is said that constructionism is the result of today’s brilliance, dependent on the support of multimedia and the Internet technology (especially the Internet). In turn, the current web-based education and integration of information technology and curriculum are of such a huge impact on the global education, as well

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as the guidance of constructionist theory. Especially in the teaching environment with information technology, namely, with the support of multimedia or network technology, through the guidance of constructionism, one can effectively cultivate innovative spirits, innovation ability and cooperation and cooperative ability in the youth. And the innovation spirit, innovative ability and cooperation spirit and cooperation ability are the most important qualities that people in the twenty-first century should have, which has become the basic consensus of the current international education community. Because of this, therefore, in the late nine years and in the late ninth decade of the generation, the rise of constructionism to its heyday. The western scholars, together with some of the Chinese scholars, are actively advocating, praising, and supporting constructionism. It should be said that this attitude is not incorrect; at least the starting point is to make innovative talent more and more effective. But with the transformation of the idea of education technology and the new meaning of the new meaning of the blending learning [12]. In the west, especially in the United States, a voice was heard, from executives of Ministry of Education to scholars and teachers, of the idea of constructionism, which is often a word of praise, but now a little bit of a different opinion or a few words of increasingly sharp criticism. For this change, Chinese scholars have quickly reacted to this: some for the idea, some against it, and some confused. And more scholars take the opportunity to think more calmly and further about the development of education technology in the last decade, both at home and abroad. We believe that this latter attitude is more reasonable, and we should really use the time of the change in recent years to reform ideas of education, and to link reality with theories of education and the, and to make a serious reflection on constructionism. In order to be consciousminded, clear-headed, and update knowledge, we will be more consciously engaged in the practice of reform at all levels of education, and to actively push forward processes of education informationization in China. In order to reflect on constructionism, at least three aspects should be taken into consideration: the ideological education thought is student-centered or teacherstudent centered? Is the epistemology of constructionism being subjective or subjective–objective? And should constructionism be the main theoretical base for guiding education to deepen reform? We will discuss the three issues.

2.1 Is the Idea of Constructionism, Student-Centered or Teacher-Student Centered? The western constructionists consistently claimed teaching as student-centered, compatible with the education thought of Dewey. In traditional teaching, the teacher plays a leading role while neglecting students as the cognitive entity; and the more the teacher’s role, the more passive the students are. This is teacher-centered thought of education. Western constructionism is just the opposite—focusing on students as the center, often ignoring the dominant role of the

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teacher, moving toward another extreme. The idea of constructionist teaching should be a combination of the two, which is not the teacher-centered nor student-centered, but both to plays the leading role, the teacher and students, stressing students’ cognitive status of in the course of learning; namely, the teacher is combined with the students. In fact, when we introduced western constructionist views, we did not blindly copy, but with consideration of the development and application of national conditions. In 2000, I visited a few local good schools in California, USA. I audited classes of four arithmetic operation, the second grade of a primary school, where the teacher did not say anything, mainly let the students themselves work on MAC computers, the MAC had a lot of exercises in four arithmetic operations. The teacher sat on the side doing his own things. I do not think this model of instruction is most beneficial for students, because in this type of student-centeredness, the teacher did not play a key role. I have pointed out numerous times that constructionism has two main parts of designs: one is the design of learning environment, and the other is the design of autonomous learning strategy. The design of the environment is actually a requirement to provide a good atmosphere for students to construct knowledge independently, such as creating a context related to learning topics, providing the necessary information resources, and organizing cooperation, and so on. It is evident that the learning environment is an external condition that promotes learning. On the other hand, because the core of the constructionism is the students’ self-construction, the students should be highly motivated and motivated. How to mobilize this initiative? This is to rely on the independent learning strategy, including the strategies of scaffolding, anchor, random entry, the heuristics, and others. These autonomous learning strategies can effectively stimulate students’ initiative and motivation, which is the internal cause of students self-learning and self-construction. Constructionist teaching design (also known as the students-centered or learningdesigned) teaching design. Simply said, to hold on to the internal and external causes of the two parts, which in fact, cannot be implemented without the teacher. For example, learning environment design usually includes creation of situation, provision of information resources, and organization of cooperative learning. Take poetry teaching as an example, the teacher expects the students to grasp the connotation and artistic conception of the poem, which requires creation of situation and atmosphere of the poem, and let the students feel as if in the situation, and communicate with the author. Who will create the situation? It is impossible for students to create such a situation, but the teacher can. The same is true of information resources, and the information on the Internet is so varied that there is a lot of garbage, and low materials. If a teacher doesn’t, in advance, select the, it will waste a lot of time, but students will not learn much. As well as in cooperative learning (constructionists look up highly cooperation learning), there are many ways, such as discussion, debate, competition, role play, etc. In the case of discussion, how to ask the initial question, how to put forward the follow-up questions, so that the discussion will be led to depth, and not to waste time on inconsequential questions, which needs to be designed by the teacher, a central role of the teacher.

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As for learning strategies, the strategy must be suitable for students’ cognition, original knowledge base and level; that is, it should consider teaching according to students’ aptitude, so it is inseparable from the leading role of the teacher. In addition, the focus of the current academic debate is whether to consider the analysis of teaching objectives and learner features in the instructional design of constructionism. The western constructionist view has always denied the necessity of these two kinds of analysis. In their instructional design, they never analyze the teaching objectives and learner features. We believe that no analysis of teaching objectives cannot guarantee the completion of curriculum standards. Without the analysis of learner features, it is impossible to teach students according to their aptitude. So, it is not in accordance with the law of teaching. Both of them (i.e., teaching objective analysis and learner characteristic analysis) cannot be separated from the teacher’s leading role. It can be seen that although the western constructionists boast of studentcenteredness, every step of constructionist teaching design cannot be realized without the leading role of the teacher. In fact, the display of the leading role of teachers and the embodiment of students’ cognition are contradictory to what is advocated by David Jonassen, representative of the western radical constructionist views. However, we can completely merge the two in the constructionist learning environment, which is exactly the educational thought of teacher-student combination that we advocate. Under the guidance of this educational thought, how does the leading role of the teacher plays, how well it plays, and how to test it? It all depends on the role of students, because now the teacher’s leading role is not only determination of the teaching objectives analysis, learner characteristics analysis, and the interpretation of contents and motivation, but it also includes creation of situation, provision of information resources, cooperative learning groups and exploration of instruction, of inquiry learning and autonomous learning strategy design, etc.; so, in this case, if the teacher’s leading role is given full play, which also reflects the cognitive level of students, the students’ role will be given full play. The two do not oppose each other, but complement each other. This is exactly the ideal thought of teacher’s role-students’ role combined that we want to pursue.

2.2 Constructionist View: Subjectivism or Unity of Subjectivity and Objectivity For the sake of novelty, the western constructionists have always claimed that their epistemology is purely subjectivism. Because as you know, cognitive learning theory holds that people’s cognition is not simply the product of external stimuli, but the result of the interaction between external stimuli and internal psychological processes. The internal psychological process refers to the interest, hobby, attitude, need, and the original cognitive structure of the person. It can be seen that epistemology of cognitive emphasizes the unity of subjectivity (internal psychological

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Motor skill learning Behaviorism

Cognitive tools Cognitivism

Program teaching

Intelligent auxiliary teaching system

Objective

Fig. 1 Two-dimensional figure [13]

process) and objectivity (external stimulus). In order to distinguish constructionist learning theory from cognitive learning theory in order to develop their own school, the western constructionists explicitly declare that their epistemology belongs to subjectivism. For example, in 1991, David Jonassen, the main representative of contemporary constructionism, drew the two-dimensional figure shown in Fig. 1 [13] to illustrate the different learning theories supporting various teaching or learning methods and the epistemology based on the philosophical height. The horizontal axis in Fig. 1 shows the learning theory, while cognitivism and behaviorism represent the two extremes of learning theory (one emphasizes the study of internal psychological processes, the other emphasizes the study of explicit behavior). The vertical axis represents epistemology, while constructionism and objective views represent the two extremes of epistemology. According to Jonathan’s view [1], reality is just something in people’s minds. It is the learner who constructs the reality or at least explicates the reality according to his/her own experience. Learners’ world is constructed by learners themselves. There is no question of whose world is more real. People’s thinking is just a tool, whose basic function is to explain things and events, and these explanations constitute different knowledge bases of cognitive individuals. In other words, knowledge is independently constructed by individual experience in the process of interaction between learners and the environment. It is purely subjectivism and cannot be taught by teachers. Therefore, students must be at the center of the learning process. Jonathan believes that this is the basic connotation of constructionist epistemology, which develops in a direction opposite to objectivism[1, 13]. As we all know, objective is the basic category of epistemology in philosophy. Objective views hold that the world is real, has structure, and the structure can be known by people, so there is a reliable knowledge about the objective world. The function of human thinking is to reflect the objective reality and its structure, so the meaning (that is, knowledge) obtained is relatively stable, and there are objective criteria to judge the truth of knowledge. Because of this, knowledge can be transferred to students through teachers’ teaching. Since teachers are masters of knowledge and transmitters

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of knowledge in the teaching process, objectivism believes that the teacher should be at the center of the teaching process. Jonathan used the two-dimensional diagram in Fig. 1 to illustrate that the epistemology of program teaching is objective, while the learning theory is behaviorism. The epistemology of intelligent assisted teaching is objectivism based on cognitive learning theory is. Epistemology and learning theory of motor skill learning are constructionist views and behaviorism. The learning using cognitive tools is constructionist views and cognitivism. By two-dimensional graphics as shown in Fig. 1 (constructionist and objective views in the two extremes), combining basic connotation of objective epistemology and this idea of Jonathan himself of, it can be seen clearly that the so-called epistemology of constructionism is pure subjective epistemology (the reason is that it is pure because it is in the other extreme and to objectivism). Objectivism is the epistemology basis of all teacher-centered teaching methods, while constructionism is the epistemology basis of all student-centered teaching methods. Represented by Jonathan, manifested by a two-dimensional graphic shown in Fig. 1 the western view of constructionism, in the 1990s was first proposed, once very popular in the world, has a great influence in China also; student-centeredness became the most advanced among international and domestic educational circles, a most fashionable slogan. Because the student is the main part of the cognitive process, the purpose of teaching is to promote learning; the teacher should be organizer and director of the teaching process, significance helper of students’ independent construction, and facilitator. Teachers should not lead the students by the nose, and should inspire and guide them to autonomous learning, make them become the master of their study, rather than passive recipients of the external stimulation. In this sense, there is nothing wrong with the emphasis on student-centeredness. However, from the two-dimensional figure shown in Fig. 1 and the above analysis, it can be seen that the western constructionists, represented by Jonathan, do not emphasize studentcenteredness in the above sense. As mentioned above, their taking students as the center is based on pure subjective epistemology, that knowledge is learners’ interaction with the environment dependent on personal experiences in the process of meaning construction; the pure subjectivism varies from person to person, unable to be obtained by teachers’ imparting knowledge, so high school students in the learning process must be in the center position. Because this subjective epistemology completely denies the objectivity of knowledge and the impenetrability of knowledge, it completely denies the role of the teacher— not only the leading role in the teaching process; and even the denial of most basic functions of propagating doctrines of the ancient sages, imparting knowledge, and solving problems. But, as demonstrated by the previous section, even instructional design advocated by constructionist (also student-centered teaching design) itself, including every step of the implementation is inseparable from the teacher’s leading role (or the teaching design will become meaningless), not to mention propagating doctrines of the ancient sages, imparting knowledge, and solving problems—the most basic function of teaching.

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In fact, constructionism is a branch of cognitivism, and its philosophical basis should be the same as cognitivism—both emphasize the combination of subjective (internal psychological process) and objective (external stimulus); that is, the epistemology of unity of subjectivism and objectivism. Internal psychological processing and original cognitive structure are important and vary from person to person; however, existence determines consciousness, because external stimulus is the source of knowledge, leaving the purely subjective construction of objective things to fall into the mire of idealism and agnosticism. Of course, there are differences between constructionism and cognitivism, which are mainly reflected in the way of psychological processing. Cognitivism emphasizes the information processing, which compares the cognitive process with information processing process of the computer, but does not ignore the role of the original cognitive structure. Constructionism, on the other hand, emphasizes meaning construction, emphasizing more on the role of independent inquiry and discovery in the cognitive process. The understanding of the meaning of objective things (i.e., personal knowledge) is related to personal experience and original cognitive structure, it is subjectivism, but the meaning of things refers to the nature of things and the internal relations between things, which is objective. Therefore, the construction of western subjective epistemology, and render it into the essence of constructionism, which draws a distinction with cognitive, is completely wrong—not only do not conform to the objective facts, but also lead constructionists to the road of denying basic teaching processes as teaching, testing; and even leading to weaken or even ramp up of the role of teachers, which is very dangerous! Because the quality of basic education and even the entire quality of education greatly decreased! This is not making sensationalist claims. In the United States in the late 1990s and early twenty-first century, under the premise of the rapid realization of the process of education informationization, the quality of basic education did not improve, and the senior executives of education department admitted that the quality of education had been greatly weakened. Why is that? The reasons are many, but I think the American education held the thought of people, such as Jonathan, whose subjective epistemology stayed as the philosophical foundation of constructionist views, such an extreme thought (Jonathan since the eighties, has been the federal Ministry of Education chief adviser and experts in the field of information technology). Not only in the United States but it spreads widely all over the world. Today, with the shift of concept in international education and technology, constructionism also comes to a time for assessment—abandon pure subjectivism, adhere to the unification of subjectivism and objectivism as the philosophical foundation (in fact, also provides philosophical basis for the combination of teacher role-student role). Our conclusion is that the only way out for healthy development of constructionism, adhering to teacher’s leading-students role combined, adhering to the unity of objective and subjective epistemology, which Chinese scholars advocated as the core of the new constructionist theory, and the essential difference between western constructionism.

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2.3 Constructionism as Main Theoretical Basis to Guide Current Educational Reform Education reform needs advanced education theory for guidance, and education theory involves learning theory, teaching theory, educational psychology, educational evaluation, educational measurement, educational communication, teaching design, and so on. Of course, learning theory and teaching theory play a major role. However, in terms of learning theory and teaching theory, there are also a variety of different schools, and each school has its own strengths and weaknesses, suitable for application of special field and scope. There is no universally applicable theory in the science of education. Therefore, generally speaking, there should be not only one theory to guide the reform of education, but many; that is, the theoretical basis of education reform should be diversified rather than unified. Yet in a certain historical period, the educational problems existing in a country or a region are different— there are different problems in different periods. In other words, education reform in different stages aims at different goals, and in order to achieve this goal more effectively, theories directly related to the goal are often adopted. As a result of this factor, the theoretical basis guiding educational reform in practice is often unified rather than diversified. In addition to the problems in the field of education in different periods, the problems in different countries at the same time are also different. Because of differences in sociocultural backgrounds and ideologies, the principal issues facing education and the problems to be solved in different countries (or nations) are certainly not the same, and the solutions cannot be the same—the same theory that works so well in one country may not work in another. This demonstrates that when applying educational theories to guide the practice of educational reform, we should consider not only the common problems faced by various countries, but also consider the differences in national conditions. In other words, we should consider not only the commonality, but also the individuality or particularity. It can be seen that the question of whether constructionism should be taken as the main theoretical basis to guide the current education reform (which is a focal issue that has caused a lot of controversy in the current education circle) essentially involves the correct understanding of the following two relations: the theoretical basis guiding the educational reform is not only pluralistic but also unitary (that is to say, pluralistic and unitary combined). When using constructionist to guide the practice of educational reform, we should consider both commonality and particularity (i.e., the combination of commonness and individuality). For the treatment of the first relationship, as mentioned above, major issues in the field of education in different historical periods should be considered. As far as China’s current historical stage is concerned, the main issue in the field of education is that a large number of talents cultivated in the field of education over the years are mainly pragmatic talents rather than innovative talents. This situation forms a difference of level with the strong demand for innovative talents in the twenty-first century due to the increasingly intensified international competition. Without innovation, a

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country cannot develop or even survive. It is because of this sharp contrast that the third congress of education in 1999 formed a new guideline on quality education in China; quality education should focus on cultivating students’ innovative spirit and practical ability. Because in many education theories, only constructionism is primarily a learning theory, but it also contains some new advances in the contents of teaching theory), with particular emphasis on the learner’s independent construction, independent exploration, discovery, demanding this autonomous learning and collaborative learning based on the situation, combined with inquiry learning and based on problem-solving, so benefiting students innovative consciousness, innovative thinking, and innovative ability cultivation; While other educational theories (especially the traditional educational theories) have many valuable features, most of them focus on how to understand and master systematic scientific knowledge. Of course, this education theory is vital for the cultivation of innovative talents also, so in order to better implement and express the innovative talent training goals, the current education reform in our country, especially basic education, is taking great efforts in promoting the new curriculum reform in encouraging the use of a variety of advanced education theory to guide at the same time, with particular emphasis on the guidance of constructionist theory (of course refers to the neoconstructionism), which embodies the combination of diversity and unitary, which is completely necessary and correct. This does not mean that constructionism is the most perfect and ideal learning theory at present, but that it is particularly targeted to solve the fundamental problems existing in the field of education in China. For the treatment of the second relationship, as mentioned above, national conditions of different countries (especially the differences in social and cultural backgrounds) should be considered. This is of particular interest to us. In America, for example, their education ideology has a tendency toward student-centeredness, from the beginning of the twentieth century, Dewey is strongly advocated child-centered, activity-centered, in the 50s, 60s of the twentieth centuries, Bruner’s discovery learning is the core idea that encourages students’ autonomous learning, independent inquiry. Thus, it further consolidated and strengthened the dominant position of the student-centered educational thought in American education circle. This characteristic can be seen from the organization of American classroom, preferring to a circle of the teacher and students discussing, expressing opinions freely, encouraging divergent thinking, critical thinking, etc.). This educational thought and teaching environment provide students with a good space for free development, which is undoubtedly beneficial to the cultivation of students’ innovative spirit and ability. The disadvantage is that the United States has never emphasized the leading role of the teacher. In their concepts, playing the leading role of teachers and promoting students’ independent learning seem to be contradictory—the latter must be abandoned. The direct result of neglecting the leading role of the teacher is the weakening of students’ basic knowledge. Since 1990s, as mentioned above, represented by Jonathan, advocating subjective epistemology as the philosophical basis of radical constructionists in the United States (and even the entire west), while weakening or even disproving the

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premise of the teacher’s chief role as the center, which makes light of teaching to reinforce more on learning. The result is that under the condition of rapid realization of education informationization, the teaching quality of primary and secondary schools in the United States has not improved, but declined considerably (this is confirmed by the senior education administrators in the United States). The good news is that American educators are wakening up, and there are even calls to learn from China’s basic education—to learn from China’s leadership of teachers to compensate for America’s longstanding shortcomings. I think this is very insightful and wise to be able to choose according to the cultural background and the national conditions of the United States to select a theory as the guidance for educational reform. In China, the situation is quite different. Our educational thought always tends to take the teacher as the center; the teacher’s dignity, imparting knowledge, dispel doubts, respect the teacher, which is the fine tradition left since ancient times, reflecting the idea that the teacher plays a central role in the traditional education. The advantage of the thought is that it is beneficial for the teacher to play the chief role and to monitor the whole process of teaching activities, for the imparting of systematic scientific knowledge, and for completing teaching objectives. In a word, this educational thought, for the knowledge and skills to be learned and mastered, for laying a good foundation in all subjects is advantageous; the deficit is that for a long time, teaching is more important than learning, ignoring students’ independent learning and independent exploration, which is likely to lead to students’ over-reliant on the teacher, books, and authority, and lack in divergent thinking, critical thinking, and rich imagination. In this way, most of the cultivated talents are applied talents rather than innovative talents. This is the Achilles’ heel of our current education, but also the crux of the problem. As mentioned above, the treatment of the second relationship considers both commonality and particularity. The commonality, here rather than in other countries (including the United States) is through education reform to achieve the common goal, to make the education system effectively cultivate a large number of creative talents (rather than few individuals), which meets the need of twenty-first century. It is undoubtedly correct to consider the commonality, and use new constructionism as the main basis; particularity relates to national conditions, especially the cultural background, and the differences between China and the United States, in terms of cultural background in the field of education, makes the education ideas of different: the United States has long orientation that advocated student-centeredness, while China has long orientation that advocates teacher-centeredness, stressing more of the teaching and making light of learning. This on the one hand stresses the teachers’ chief role, and on the other hand, overlooks students’ autonomous learning; the serious consequences were described as above. In other words, due to different national conditions, the current educational reform in the United States should not emphasize too much constructionism (instead, it should emphasize more traditional educational theories); while in China, by contrast, in view of the Chinese situation, for a period of time in future, constructionism is necessary, but not as advocated by Jonathan that based on subjectivist epistemology

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and one-sided student-centered radical constructionism, but based on the subjectivism and objectivism unified epistemology and the combination of teacher rolelearner role combined neo-constructionism. Because such a constructionist learning theory is based on dialectical materialism philosophy and scientific educational ideology, it can truly become a learning theory that can effectively support the integration of information technology and subject teaching.

3 Cultural Origin of Neo-Constructionism Confucius’ Heuristics and Teaching by Aptitude As mentioned above, constructionism was originally just a learning theory, but since the 1990s, with the wide popularity of constructionism in various schools, it has gradually formed a distinctive teaching theory. The core of the western constructionist theory is to underscore that students are the agent of cognitive processes and the active constructors of the meaning of knowledge, rather than the receiver of knowledge instilled by the teacher. Therefore, it is necessary to highlight students’ status as cognitive agents in the teaching process and let students take the initiative to learn, explore, and discover independently. It is not hard to see that this learning-oriented constructionism has a lot in common with the heuristic method of teaching proposed by Confucius in our traditional culture, or the earliest gene of constructionism can be found here. Mentioned so far, in fact, in the international academia, the teaching idea of independent meaning construction and priority to learn, generally trace back to Piaget (because in the 1930s his work on assimilation and accommodation, laid the foundation for the individual construction of meaning of constructionism). At best, it goes back to Dewey, who first proposed student-centeredness and activity-centeredness in his book School and Society, published in 1900. Piaget and Dewey are modern and outstanding educational psychologists. They have indeed made outstanding contributions to the establishment of the school self-construction and learning-oriented teaching theory. However, it is unfair and against the objective reality to completely eliminate the important role-played by Chinese sage Confucius in this regard. In fact, in the heuristic method of teaching first proposed by Confucius two thousand years ago includes the thoughts of autonomous learning, autonomous inquiry, and autonomous construction. To this end, we might as well review our heuristic teaching contents and compare with Greek Socrates heuristic teaching. On the basis of this, it is possible to make a more objective, fair conclusion. In our opinion, few people can match Confucius’ teaching methods and his art of teaching. Take the famous heuristic teaching as an example. Many (some of the famous scholars) think that this is the initiative of Socrates. In fact, Confucius not had always adhered to the heuristic, and it is Confucius who was the first to put forward the term of heuristic. Confucius was 82 years older than Socrates, who was born 10 years after Confucius died [14]. Therefore, Confucius is the true and worthy

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founder of heuristic teaching. In addition, the content of the heuristic created by Confucius is richer and more advanced than that of Socrates’ midwife method. To illustrate this point, we may wish to compare Socratic heuristic method of dialogue, known as midwifery with Confucius’ heuristic method of teaching. There was a young man named Oedipus who wanted to be a politician. In order to help the young man to understand the problem of justice and injustice, Socrates used his midwife heuristic method to have the following dialogue with the young man [15, 16]: Q: A: Q: A: Q: A: Q: A: Socrates:

A: Q:

A:

What category should hypocrisy fall into? It should be classified as injustice. Where do stealing, cheating, slavery, etc. fall into? Injustice. Is it unjust for a general to punish and enslave enemies who have done great harm to his country’s interests? No. What if he stole the enemy’s property or cheated the enemy in battle? That’s true, but I mean cheating. Well, we’re going to talk about friends and relatives. If a general’s army was surrounded by enemies, he had lost his morale and his spirit was collapsing, and he deceived himself to take the army, saying that the reinforcements were coming, and that he was inspired to win. How do you understand this behavior? It is just. If a child is ill and refuses to take medicine, the father lied to him that the medicine is not bitter, very delicious, and coaxes him to eat it down; as a result it cured the disease. Where does this fall into? It should belong to justice kind.

Socrates still refused to give up and asked: if a man is mad and his friends are afraid that he will commit suicide and steal his knives and sharp weapons, is such a theft or justice? A: Q: Oedipus:

Yes, they should also fall into justice category. Don’t you think you can’t cheat between friends? Allow me to take back what I have just said.

From this vivid dialogue, the characteristics of Socratic heuristic teaching are grasping the contradictions in students’ thinking process, inspiring, and inducing, constantly asking questions, step by step, and finally deriving at the correct conclusion. The following is the view of Confucius heuristic teaching; it is expressed in only eight words (不愤不启, 不悱不发. Do not try to enlighten him to the extent that he is unable to understand; do not enlighten him until he knows it in his heart but cannot express it perfectly.). In the interpretation of Zhu Xi of the Song dynasty of China, the word “愤” meaning a state of being wants to understand, the word “悱” meaning

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a state of being unable to explain oneself; the word (启) meaning to tell, to instruct [17]. It can be seen that “愤” (indecision) means a state that students are thinking actively about a problem and are eager to solve it, but they have not yet quite understood the nature of the issue. It is a state of ambivalence. At this time, the teacher should timely offer guidance to students; thinking about a way to “open their minds” (开其意); this is “启” “to inspire.” “悱”indicates another state that students have had spent some time pondering the problem, but have not thought it through clearly, and have not quite grasped the point in a way to say it out or to express it clearly. At the state of ambivalence, the teachers should help students move from perceptual knowledge to rational knowledge, so that they know what it is and also why it is; that is, help them be clear about the essential attributes of things, and then it is possible to use more accurate language to express it (达其辞), which is to express (发) [17]. Although Confucius’ heuristic teaching only has eight characters, it vividly shows the complete process of Confucius’ heuristic teaching, and also profoundly reveals the two ambivalent, psychological states that will appear in sequence when encountering difficult problems in the learning process, and the correct treatment of these two ambivalent, psychological states. And this compares with Socrates’ dialogue, what the two have in common is that each attaches great importance to students’ thinking in the process of conflict, but the ways both deal with contradictions of thinking are completely different. Socrates is through continuous questions forcing students into a contradictory state, thus the students understanding gradually moved toward depth and finally solved the problem. Confucius’ method is, through questioning by the teacher or students, to push forward the questions, for the student to think, until the student is in a anger state; that is, encounter, in the thinking process of the first kind, a contradiction, which cannot be resolved. The teacher wise up tips; then let the students continue to think, to explore, until they came into a delicate psychological state; that is, the students encounter a second contradiction, which cannot be solved. The teacher again gives directions, so that the students become enlightened. By the above analysis, Socrates’ method of dialogue is actually the teacher as the center, the student is completely led by the teacher, although this heuristic can make students impressed, but due to the students’ initiative is not fully played, understanding of the complicated problem, which involves the advanced cognitive ability, the difficult problem may not be understood very deeply. However, the heuristic method of Confucius is to make students take the initiative in the learning process from beginning to end—let students ask questions and analyze problems by themselves, and let students take the initiative to discover and explore, while the teacher just helps them from the side to play a role of guidance and promotion. Let us take a look: this practice of Confucius 2000 years ago and the independent meaning construction advocated by modern western constructionism, are they two practices that lead to the same destination and basically the same? The difference between the two lies in the difference in the depth of meaning construction in the end, which is exactly why we Chinese scholars believe that Confucius’ heuristic method is the scientific base for the earliest origin of constructionism. It can be seen that the

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real origin of constructionism should come from Confucius, not Piaget, let alone Dewey; that is, the origin of constructionism (or its gene) is closely related to the traditional Chinese culture. For this reason, some Hong Kong scholars call the neoconstructionism we advocate as Chinese constructionist views with good reason, not out of thin air. Through the above comparison of Confucius’ heuristic and Socrates’ midwife method, it is not hard to see, the two kinds of heuristic are both very effective in teaching, both can promote the development of students’ thinking; however, Confucius’ heuristic has a more of psychological base or even it can be said that initial thought of individual meaning construction, and also more accords with the cognitive law of students. So, our conclusion is that Confucius is the real founder of heuristic teaching in the world. Confucius eight term(“不愤不启、不悱不发”)tells us that if a person is not in an animated state, do not instruct; if a person is not in a hesitant state, do not enlighten him. This is the accurate summary of the process of heuristic teaching, and it is also the most scientific expression so far. In terms of the method of teaching according to one’s ability, Confucius was unique, which is unmatched among all the educators at home and abroad. In Analects of Confucius, there are many vivid examples to show that Confucius had completely different teaching methods for different students on the same issue. For example, according to an account in Analects of Confucius, Fan Chi, Sima Niu, Zhong Gong, and Yan Yuan all asked Confucius about the meaning of benevolence, and Confucius gave four very different answers to the same question: Fan Chi asked about benevolence, the master said, love. Sima Niu asked about benevolence. The master said, a benevolent person has a distinguished tongue. Zhong Gong asked about benevolence. The master said, if you go out, you will see a great guest, and you will make the people like great sacrifices. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. No complaints in the state, no complaints at home. Yan Yuan asked benevolence. The master said, to abase oneself and to restore propriety is benevolence. Once abase oneself and restore propriety, which is benevolence. –– If not propriety, it is not to see; if not propriety, it is not to hear; If not propriety, it is not to say; if not propriety, it is not to act.

The reason why he would give several different answers to the same question is that Confucius considered the fact that the four students had great differences in their aptitude, personality, character, and virtue. Fan Chi’s is blunt, to him one can only speak of the most basic concept of benevolence—love; Sima Niu’s was talkative and impetuous. Confucius warned him to be a benevolent person, one should be careful what he says and not be in a hurry to make a statement (his words are also lofty). Zhong Gong was not humble enough to be considerate of others. Confucius taught him the principle of loyalty and forgiveness. Yan Yuan was the first disciple of Confucius. He was already highly virtuous. Therefore, Confucius required him to observe, listen, speak, and act in accordance with the highest standards of benevolence.

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In a word, Confucius gave four answers to the same question according to the differences in the basic personality and attainments of each student, which not only met the reality of each student’s mind, but also met the basic concept of benevolence. Confucius was able to do this because he often understood and analyzed the different characteristics of each student. For example, he said: You is decisive, referring to Zi Lu; Confucius considered Zi Lu resolute, Ci referring to Zi Gong, Confucius think Zi Gong is open-minded, magnanimous; Ran Qiu is versatile. Chai is dupe (Gao Chai is relatively slow; and Cen, who has a quick temper); Shi is excitable (Zi Zhang is impulsive) ….[18] This enabled Confucius to make accurate judgments about the talents and features of each student. Confucius could teach according to people and their aptitude, and teach also according to time, place, and environment. There are many examples of this kind in Analects of Confucius. In addition, what is more surprising is that Confucius could teach different students according to people and their aptitude; the same student can also be taught according to the different characteristics of his mental state and thinking process, which really changes infinitely. Although the concept of teaching students with their ability was not put forward by Confucius himself, it was concluded by Zhu Xi, a scholar in the Song Dynasty, when he summarized the teaching methods of Confucius [19]. However, judging from the educational practice of Confucius’s life, he was indeed the earliest educator in the world who applied the teaching methods of teaching according to one’s ability in the most thorough and complete way. The above cases about Confucius’ heuristic teaching show that Confucius was indeed the earliest initiator of autonomous learning, autonomous exploration, autonomous discovery, and even autonomous meaning construction. However, while paying great attention to students’ active thinking and exploration, Confucius did not ignore (and attached great importance to) the leading role of teachers in the teaching process, as illustrated by the above vivid examples of how Confucius taught students in accordance with their ability. This shows that Confucius paid great attention to both learning and teaching, which is the fundamental difference between Confucius and contemporary western radical constructionists. Also, Confucius is far more brilliant than the contemporary western radical constructionists (who, while learningoriented or student-centered, always reject and deny the leading role of teachers). Chinese scholars since the 1990s, vigorously promoted and advocated the combination of teacher role and student role—a new type of constructionism in education as one of the core theories of educational thoughts and the twenty-first century, especially in the last ten years, the growing international B-Learning, i.e., hybrid education thoughts, share the same view, with its cultural origin (or its gene) from the educational thoughts of Confucius.

4 Instructional Philosophy of New Constructionism The concept of teaching of neo-constructionism involves the following six aspects:

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4.1 Students’ Cognitive Subject Status in the Learning Process Should Be Highlighted [8] Recognizing the students’ role as a cognitive process, it is necessary to highlight the status of students in the process, which has vital significance to the teaching design, because whether it is from the perspective of priority to learning or priority to teaching and or priority to both learning and teaching, it will result in totally different design. As Neo-Constructivism follows equal emphasis on teacher-learner, so in Chapter 5 we will see, it is underlined from the perspective of teaching and learning for the whole class, and even the whole course of teaching design. As for how to highlight the students’ cognitive status, Neo-Constructivism believes that efforts can be made from the following three aspects: 1. 2. 3.

to give full play to students’ initiative, enthusiasm, and creativity in the learning process, so as to reflect students’ initiative; to give students multiple opportunities to apply what they have learned in different situations (externalizing knowledge); (students) to form an understanding and a solution to practical problems according to the feedback of their own actions (that is, striving to achieve self-feedback).

The three points above, namely, giving play to initiative, externalizing knowledge, and realizing self-feedback, can be said to be the three elements that highlight students’ cognitive subject status.

4.2 Focus on the Important Role of Situation in Meaning Construction [1, 4] Social constructionism (constructionism is divided into schools of thoughts: individual constructionist and social constructionist) believes that learning is always associated with certain social culture background. In the actual situation to learn, one can enable learners to use their experience to assimilate and guide related cognitive structure of the current study to the new knowledge and to give new knowledge new meaning. If the original experience cannot assimilate new knowledge, the process of accommodation should be initiated; that is, the transformation and reorganization of the original cognitive structure. In a word, through assimilation and accommodation, it can truly achieve meaning construction of new knowledge. In the traditional classroom teaching, it will make it difficult for learners to construct meaning of knowledge, because it cannot provide the vividness and richness of actual situation.

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4.3 Stress the Key Role of Collaborative Learning in Meaning Construction [1, 5, 8] New constructionists believe that the interaction between learners and the surrounding environment plays a key role in in-depth understanding of learning contents (that is, the deep processing and construction of meaning). This is another core concept of social constructionism. Students are organized and guided by teachers to discuss and communicate with each other, to establish and become a member of the learning community. In such a group, theories, ideas, beliefs, and hypotheses are critically examined together, negotiated, and debated. First consult internally (that is, to argue with yourself about which point of view is correct), and then consult with each other (that is, present your own views, arguments, and relevant materials on the current issue, and analyze and comment on the views of others). Through such a collaborative learning environment, the thinking and wisdom of the learning group (including teachers and each student) can be shared by the whole group; that is, the whole learning group completes the meaning construction of the learned knowledge together, instead of one or several students completing the meaning construction.

4.4 Emphasis on Both Teaching Environment Design and Learning Environment Design [2] According to new constructionism, learning environment is a place where learners can explore and learn independently. In this environment, students use a variety of tools and information resources (such as text materials, books, audio and video materials, CAI and multimedia course-ware and information on the Internet, etc.) to achieve their learning objectives. In this process, students can get the guidance and help from teachers, but also can cooperate and support each other. In accordance with this requirement, learning should be promoted and supported rather than strictly controlled and controlled—a learning environment is a place that supports and promotes learning. Instructional design, under the guidance of new constructionism learning theory, should be designed for both the teaching and learning environment. This is because teaching means more monitoring and control, while learning means more initiative and freedom. But it must be clear that here using the media and information is not only used to assist teacher’s explanation and demonstration, but also to support the students’ autonomous learning and collaborative inquiry (i.e., for the learners of teaching media, information, software, effective cognitive exploration tools, and tools for collaboration, communication and emotional experience and internalization). Therefore, there will be a new way to deal with the selection and design of teaching media in traditional teaching design. For example, in traditional teaching design, the presentation of media should be carefully designed according to students’ cognitive psychology and age characteristics. When the choice, use, and control of media are

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given to students, the design considerations are quite different. For example, how and where information resources should be obtained, and how to use them effectively, may now become an urgent need for teachers to provide help in the process of active inquiry. Obviously, these problems are not encountered in the traditional teaching design or rarely encountered, but in the constructionist learning environment, they become urgent to solve the universal problems.

4.5 Vigorously Using Various Information Resources to Support Teaching and Learning [3] In order to support learners to actively explore and complete meaning construction, learners should be provided with various information resources and cognitive tools (including various teaching media and learning materials) during the learning process. But it must be clear: here using the media and the information is not only for assistance to teachers’ explanation and demonstration, but also be used to support the students’ autonomous learning and collaborative inquiry (i.e., for the learners of teaching media, information, software, cognitive exploration tools, collaboration, communication, and the role of emotional experience and internalization tools). Therefore, there will be a new way to deal with the selection and design of teaching media in traditional teaching design. For example, in traditional teaching design, media presentation should be carefully designed according to students’ cognitive psychology and age characteristics. When the choice, use, and control of media are given to students, the design considerations are very different. For example, how and where information resources should be obtained, as well as how to use them effectively, are now likely to become an urgent need for teachers to provide help in the process of active exploration. Obviously, these problems are not encountered in traditional teaching design or rarely encountered, but in the constructionist learning environment, they become urgent to solve the universal problem.

4.6 Stressing Teaching Objectives and Focusing on the Construction of Deep Meaning [9, 12] While stressing that the teaching process is ultimately to achieve teaching objectives, we should also pay close attention to the deep meaning construction, but do not put the cart before the horse by only focusing on meaning construction and ignoring the analysis and realization of the teaching objectives. According to the requirements of the curriculum standards, the teaching objective is above all else, which is not only the starting point of the teaching process, but also the endpoint of the teaching process. Through the analysis of teaching objectives, necessary teaching contents (i.e., relevant knowledge points) and the order

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of arrangement in contents can be determined. The teaching objective is also the basis of checking the final effect and evaluation. At the same time, in the learning environment advocated by neo-constructionism, students’ meaning construction of knowledge is regarded as one of the important links in the whole learning process, because students are the cognitive entity and active constructors of meaning. In such a learning environment, in addition to alerting teaching objectives analysis in instructional design, we also want to consider how to create a conducive to situation for students’ meaning construction, whether students’ independent inquiry and cooperative learning or mentoring; in short, all activities in the learning process should consider this factor of meaning construction; namely to be conducive to the requirements in the meaning construction of knowledge. It is undoubtedly correct to emphasize the meaning construction of knowledge in the process of learning. However, in current instructional design of western constructionist learning environment, such expression as teaching objectives analysis is not often to be seen, and teaching objective is completely replaced by meaning construction. It seems that there is no need to carry out teaching objectives analysis in a constructionist learning environment. This view is one-sided and incorrect, and the two should not be set against each other. Because meaning construction refers to the construction of the meaning of current knowledge, and the concept of current knowledge is vague and general. The content of a certain section of the text is obviously the current knowledge to be learned, but a unit is always composed of a number of knowledge points, and the importance of each unit is not the same: some of the basic concepts, basic principles (is the teaching objectives that must be mastered). Others are general factual knowledge or knowledge that only needs to be known and not yet mastered at the current stage of learning (the teaching objectives for this kind of knowledge only require knowing). Therefore, it is not proper to complete the meaning construction (that is, to achieve a deeper understanding and mastery) without distinguishing current contents. The correct approach should be to select basic concepts, principles, methods, and processes of current knowledge as the emphasis (or main contents) of the current knowledge based on the analysis of teaching objectives, and then construct meaning around these main contents. The meaning constructed in this way is truly valuable and conforms to the requirements of teaching objectives.

5 Teaching Model Advocated by New Constructionism 5.1 Teaching Models Although the concept of teaching model existed for a long time, however, teaching model has really become an independent category in educational research, which is generally believed to have started from the studies of Joyce and Weil, et al. (Joyce, Weil & Calhoun, 1999). There are many definitions of teaching model (sometimes

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called educational model). For example, Joyce, Weil et al., in their monograph models of Teaching, give the definition as follows: the Teaching model is a plan or paradigm that constitutes the curriculum, the selection of materials, and the instruction of Teaching activities in the classroom and other environments. [20]

According to Ye Lan, professor at East China Normal University, the teaching model is commonly known as the big method. It is not only a means of teaching, but also a whole and systematic operating style from teaching principle, contents, objectives and tasks, process to forms of organization, this operating style is theoretical [21]. The definition given by Professor Zhu Xiaoman of the National Institute Of Education as: education model is a special theoretical notion formed by certain abstract and structured educational experience, gradually formed in the educational practice, which is relatively stable and has typical significance under the control of certain educational concepts [22]. Professor Zhang Wusheng concluded that the teaching model has at least the following characteristics [23], certain theoretical guidance; required teaching objectives and contents; showing a certain sequence of teaching activities and its methods and strategies. On the basis of the above viewpoints and our in-depth research on teaching model in teaching reform practice over the years, here we would like to put forward our views on the definition (or connotation) of teaching model—teaching model belongs to the category of teaching method and teaching strategy, but it is not the same as teaching method or teaching strategy. Teaching method or teaching strategy generally refers to a single method or strategy adopted in the teaching process, while teaching model refers to the stable combination and application of two or more methods or strategies in the teaching process. In the process of teaching, in order to achieve certain desired effects or goals, it is often necessary to comprehensively use a variety of different methods and strategies. When the combination of these teaching methods and strategies can always achieve desired effects or goals, it becomes an effective teaching model.

5.2 Sorting of Teaching Models of Information Technology and Curriculum Integration The types of teaching models are varied and hierarchical. The teaching model of information technology and curriculum integration is no exception. As integration of information technology and curriculum is essentially integration of information technology and subject teaching, the subject teaching process involves three stages: first, the in-class stage directly related to classroom teaching (For primary schools, this stage is usually 40 min; For middle school, this stage is usually 45 min), the other two are stage before class and stage after class (class and after the two stage

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can also be known as an extracurricular phase), so from the highest level, information technology and curriculum integration teaching model only two—that is, according to the teaching stages involved to differentiate within the integration teaching model and integrating extracurricular teaching model. At present, western developed countries pay more attention to the integration of information technology with the teaching process of before class and after class (i.e., extracurricular integration model). Over the years, they have made a lot of research and exploration in this field and obtained many successful experiences. Among them, WebQuest and just-in-time Teaching (JiTT) are the most influential and effective integrated extracurricular teaching models. It is also quite popular in China. Since classroom teaching involves many factors such as different subjects, different teaching strategies, and different technical support environments, the classification of implementing integrated teaching models in class is very much complicated. For the subject teachers, the integration teaching model involving various subjects is obviously relatively simple; integrated in-class teaching models that involve dissimilar technical support environments and different teaching strategies are much more complex. Depending on the technical support environment, the inclass integrated teaching model can be divided into multimedia, network-based, software-based or experiment simulation-based, and other types of teaching models. In view of the actual situation in China, multimedia demonstration and network classroom are the most commonly used technology supporting environment in primary and secondary schools. According to the selection of different teaching strategies, inclass integrated teaching model can be divided into independent inquiry, collaborative learning, demonstration, teaching, discussion, debate, role play, and other different types of teaching models. The teaching model which can realize the deep integration of information technology and subject teaching is also called deep integration model.

5.3 Two Most Popular and Effective Integration Models Advocated by New Constructionism 5.3.1

To Realize the Teaching Model of Deep Integration In-Class-Inquiry Model Under the Guidance of Teachers, Inquiry Under the Guidance-of-Teachers Model of Teaching

Teaching process of the teaching model of inquiry-under-leadership is shown in Fig. 2.

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Fig. 2 Model of inquiry-under-leadership

The Connotation of the Teaching Model of Inquiry-Under-Guidance-of-Teachers The inquiry-under-guidance-of-teachers’ model in the process of teaching students in under the guidance of teachers, through with autonomous, inquiry, and cooperation for the main points in the current teaching contents and self-learning and in-depth group cooperation and communication, so as to better achieve curriculum standards of cognitive goals and emotional goals and objectives of a kind of teaching model. In the process of implementing the in-depth integration of information technology and curriculum, the cultivation of knowledge and ability of various subjects (such as reading, writing, calculation, graph reading, graph reading, experiment, and computer operation), as well as the cultivation of good sentiment, correct values, and excellent ideological morality, can be implemented through this teaching model.

Characteristics of the Teaching Model of Inquiry-Under-Guidance of Teachers This model can also be summarized with one sentence: the combination of teacher and student. Specific performance in the following two aspects: on the one hand, it attaches great importance to the leading role of teachers in the teaching process. • The inquiry-based teaching model gives full play to the leading role of teachers through the following four steps. • At present, the theme of inquiry learning should be determined by the teacher— Explore the pieces before illuminating question to put forward by the teacher. • The theme of the study is determined, in order for the inquiry-based learning to be successful, enlightening questions need to be put forward to the class, causing students to think deeply, and relating closely to the current learning objects (so that the whole class explore these issues). This part is very important; whether

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the questions raised are enlightening and causing students to think deeply is the key to the success or failure of inquiry-based learning. • In the process of exploring the teacher provides various help and guidance, with the problems in the process to explore. It is the students, individual or group, who complete the exploratory process, and in this process the teacher should provide relevant inquiry tools (such as geometry sketchpad, modeling software, simulation experiment system, AR and VR software, etc.) and relate learning resources, learning tools and learning support, as well as the methods and strategies of inquiry-based learning for the necessary guidance. • In the end of exploration process the teacher helps with summary and progress— through an inquiry-based learning although students can obtain a lot, but they, after all, are beginners, so it was hard to sum up what they learn, either onesided or incorrect; communication through the class discussion, brainstorming, complement each other, to a certain extent, can overcome the bias and incorrectness; however, if the students want to achieve a deeper understanding and grasp of the current learning objectives—that is, the current learning rises from perceptual knowledge to rational knowledge; from knowing how to knowing why, this needs the teacher’s help and the enhancement. On the other hand, it highlights the cognitive status of students in the learning process. The inquiry-based teaching model adopts the learning model of autonomy, inquiry, and cooperation, so it emphasizes students’ independent learning and independent inquiry in the teaching process, as well as cooperative learning activities. The teaching objectives of a lesson are mainly completed by students’ independent inquiry and cooperative learning activities in the study group. Because in this process, the students’ initiative, enthusiasm, and creativity can generally get more fully played; therefore this kind of teaching model can achieve more in-depth understanding of knowledge and mastery of skills, more conducive to the formation and development of innovative thinking and innovative ability, which is conducive to the cultivation of innovative talents.

Steps of Teaching Model of Inquiry-Under-Guidance of Teachers Inquiry model of teaching under-the-guidance-of-teachers includes the following five steps. Setting up a situation Setting up situations is not only the need of introduction of teaching topic, but also the need of stimulating students’ learning motivation and self-exploration motivation. Teachers varied ways of establishment of situations: they can set a question for further research, which need to use the knowledge they learned; they can also play a video, closely related to the current theme of study; or they can recite a poem, play a piece of music, tell a little story, a typical case, presentations, especially with course-ware, and a lively, interesting role play. Of course, all of these activities should have a

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prerequisite—they must be closely related to the current topic of study or they will not serve the purpose of creating the situation. Inspiring thinking After the situation is created and learning interest is stimulated, the students are psychological ready for learning, the teacher should timely put forward a number of enlightening questions, which can cover the current teaching knowledge points (do not put forward question with easy answers or display questions). Let students take these questions to learn and explore relevant knowledge and skills—this process engages the students in the process of actively and efficiently learning tasks. In the problem thinking stage, the teacher should give specific suggestions and guidance on how students should solve the problems, what cognitive tools or learning resources should be used to solve the problems, and how to use these tools and resources, including how to deal with new problems encountered in the process of exploration. The students should seriously consider the questions raised by the teacher, identify the learning tasks they need to complete, and form preliminary exploration plans through comprehensive analysis. Self-study and self-exploration Here the autonomous learning and autonomous inquiry activities include that students use relevant cognitive tools (different cognitive tools required by different disciplines) to collect various information related to current knowledge points; students take the initiative to analyze, process, and evaluate the obtained information, and students’ knowledge and understanding of the current knowledge formed on the basis of analysis, processing, and evaluation (that is, students complete the independent meaning construction of the current knowledge). In the process of autonomous learning and autonomous inquiry, the teacher should pay close attention to the process of learning and inquiry, and timely provide students with guidance on how to effectively acquire and use cognitive tools, learning resources, and relevant learning methods and strategies. Collaborative sharing In order to further deepen current knowledge in meaning construction, the students should, on the basis of the independent inquiry, organize discussion within the group or class of collaboration and sharing—by sharing learning resources and learning achievement, further deepen the process of collaboration and communication of the current knowledge construction. In this process, the teacher should provide students with tools for collaborative sharing, timely guidance on collaborative learning strategies such as how to carry out group discussion and how to face differences among group members. Summary and Improvement In the process of implementing this step, students’ activities include discussion, reflection, self-evaluation, and mutual evaluation, while teachers’ activities include commenting on students’ learning, asking questions related to transfer and expansion, creating relevant situations, and summarizing the contents of current knowledge (to

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help students understand the internal relationship between current knowledge and other relevant knowledge).

5.3.2

To Realize the Teaching Model of Deep Integration After Class—Research-Based Learning Model

The teaching process is shown in Flowchart of research-based learning model of teaching, Fig. 3.

Connotation of Research-Based Learning Model Research-based learning refers to a learning method in which students choose a real problem from the natural world or social life as a topic for research by themselves or under the guidance of teachers. Students are required to actively acquire knowledge in the research process and apply the knowledge to solve the selected practical problems. Research-based learning is a part of normal school teaching, rather than students’ spontaneous and individual inquiry activities. Teachers should be the organizers, instructors, and promoters of students’ research-based learning. Students are participants in exploratory learning and are the main actor of the learning process. Student Subject area

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Fig. 3 Research-based learning model of teaching

and guidance

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Choosing a real problem from the natural world or social life as a topic explains the subject of research learning and contents and scope of such learning. Conduct research shows that the main learning method of research-based learning is to combine actual scientific research activities to learn—this means that the learning process is a process of exploration and creation, and a process of using the known and exploring the known and to create discover. Active acquiring knowledge and applying the knowledge to solve the selected practical problems shows that the purpose of research-based learning is to enable students to actively acquire and master knowledge and skills in the practice of scientific research and in the process of solving practical problems. In other words, the purpose of research-based learning is not only to enable students to recognize and understand the knowledge and skills they have learned, but also to truly master them—that is, to use the knowledge and skills they have learned to solve practical problems.

Characteristics of Research-Based Learning Model Exploratory learning has the basic characteristics are embodied in the following five aspects: Emphasizing the research nature of learning Research-based learning emphasizes the selection of real problems in the natural world or social life as the subject of learning and research; that is, taking problems as the carrier of research-based learning. Students’ knowledge acquisition and ability cultivation are completed in the process of studying the objective laws of nature and society and solving practical problems.

Emphasizing the practicality of learning Research-based learning emphasizes the close relationship between theoretical knowledge and natural world and social reality. It emphasizes that the subject of study and research must have practical meaning and practical value. Therefore, researchbased learning pays special attention to environmental issues, ecological issues, and the harmonious coexistence between human beings and nature. It also pays special attention to social realities, international hot issues, and the significant impact of modern science and technology on human life and social development. Emphasizing placed on experiential learning The reason why research-oriented learning pays special attention to students’ real feelings and experiences is that perceptual knowledge is the basis of all human cognition. All human knowledge comes from perceptual knowledge; however, perceptual knowledge should be improved to rational knowledge and reapplied to revolutionary practice so as to realize the complete process of understanding of objective things. That is, human cognition must complete three stages and two leaps in order to be able to realize the understanding and mastering of the law of objective things. This is the

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theoretical basis for research-based learning to attach importance to rational knowledge (such as the understanding of concepts and principles) and also to perceptual knowledge (that is, real feelings and experiences) and practical application. Emphasizing the autonomy of learning Research-based learning emphasizes the autonomy of learning. The subject of study can be determined by the instructor or selected by students according to the current course contents and their own interests and hobbies. From the beginning of the selection of topics, collection of materials, writing of research reports, to the results of the presentation and defense, sharing, summary of the whole process, are the students independent learning, independent exploration, independent discovery process, which can be completed by students (individual or group) independently. In this process, the teacher plays the role of organizers, instructors and helpers and promoters of students’ independent meaning construction. Emphasizing the openness of learning Research-based learning emphasizes the openness of learning. The theme of research-oriented learning and the learning contents is not established knowledge system, and there are no special textbooks for research-oriented learning of related subjects. The themes and contents of research-oriented learning are real problems derived from the natural world or social life. Therefore, as mentioned above, researchoriented learning pays special attention to real problems in nature and human society, as well as international hot issues. Obviously, these are the open questions that keep pace with the times, involving a wide range of fields.

Implementation Steps of Research-Based Learning Model This teaching model usually consists of the following five implementation steps:

Asking questions In this step, the teacher stimulates students’ interest in learning and research by creating problem situations, and then introduces the theme of current researchoriented learning—a real problem to be solved in nature or society. In the initial stage of research-oriented learning, it is more appropriate for the teacher to ask questions to students in this way, so as to determine the topic for the current research-oriented learning. With the development of inquiry learning, the students’ understanding of the inquiry learning ability gradually increased, the teachers should help students to learn to ask questions by myself, through careful observation, think hard, dig deep, let the students learn how to find problems from nature or society, and then on this basis further screening, then it puts forward a meaningful and valuable real problems as the theme of the current investigative study (the key to implement this step is to observe and think seriously about).

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Analysis of problems In this part, the teacher should first introduce the methods to students as to how to analyze problems (such as, seeing from the outside to inside, from the shallow to deep, from the near to far, to see the phenomenon for its essence, focus on the roots of a problem, using reverse thinking, using two points rather than one point, see things both side of an issue, both see favorable and unfavorable factors, and so on). Then according to the nature of the issue and the needs of the research, students are taught relevant research methods (such as questionnaire survey, interview, literature research, case collection, experiment, action research, data statistical analysis, etc.). The teacher also offers some suggestions and guidance on the strategies of researchoriented learning. Students use the above methods to analyze the problem, combine the current knowledge of the subject and the knowledge and experience in the past, analyze deeply the current problem, determine the basic nature of the problem and the key to solve the problem. Since the object of research-based learning is a real problem in nature or society, which is generally more complex, it should also be broken down into several relatively simple sub-problems (sub-tasks), and the basic nature of each sub-problem should be determined as well as the key to solving the sub-problem. The key to implementing this step is to master the method of analyzing the problem. Developing a solution to the problem This step usually consists of two sub-steps: proposing a preliminary solution to the problem and optimizing the solution. The content of the solution mainly involves two aspects: one is to clarify what the problem is (the basic nature of the problem and the key point to solve the problem); the other is to explain clearly how to solve the problem. As mentioned above, it is generally necessary to decompose the current learning topic into several sub-topics, and then to give feasible solutions for each sub-problem. In order to find an effective solution, in addition to learning relevant knowledge and skills, it is also necessary to conduct extensive and in-depth investigation and research (in addition to collecting relevant information online, individual interviews, questionnaires, and actual measurements are also required) to obtain relevant information and materials and to master scientific research methods. The researchers in researchbased learning can be either individual learners or study groups. If the researcher of the study is a learner (that is, an individual learner), the first sub-step (putting forward a preliminary solution to the problem) should be completed by the learner on the basis of in-depth analysis of the problem. The next sub-step (optimization solution to the problem) is completed by the learning team, in the form of study group activities putting forward the preliminary plan to solve the problem, from the scientific nature, validity, feasibility review, modify opinions, to gradually improve and optimize. If the subject of the study is a study group, then the previous step (putting forward a preliminary solution to the problem) shall be completed by each study group on the basis of in-depth analysis of the problem. The latter part shall be completed by the

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whole class. The preliminary solutions proposed by each learning group in the class shall be examined and verified in the form of class discussion from the aspects of scientific nature, effectiveness and feasibility, and suggestions for modification shall be put forward to gradually improve and optimize them. Study group activities may be presided over by the group leader, while class activities may be presided over by the monitor or a representative selected temporarily. Whether researcher is a person or a group, the teacher will help organize discussion activities, monitors the contents of discussion activities, progress, and effect, to groups or individuals, when they are in need of help in a timely manner to provide guidance on the resource, technology and method, which should not be done to replace learners (the key to implement this step is to grasp the relevant research methods and organize group or a whole class discussion activities, make the optimized solution to the problem). Implementing the problem-solving plan If the subject of the study is an individual learner, this step is completely implemented by the individual learner. If the researcher of the study is a study group, then the implementation of the plan should be done by the study group. In order to avoid detour and reduce the waste of manpower, material resources, and time, whether the researcher is an individual or a group, in the process of implementing the problem solution, it is necessary to pay attention to formative evaluation, collect feedback information at any time, and reflect frequently. The solution to the problem, if possible, can be necessary to modify or adjust, so as not to rework or even to start over. In the process of student implementation (whether individual or group), the main activities of the teacher are to provide students with independent inquiry tools, problem-solving tools, collaborative, sharing tools, and other support. At the same time, the teachers will give students problem-solving and collaborative learning strategies to guide (the researcher is personal occasions, learners cannot be ruled out, even advocating collaboration and sharing between learners and other individual learners), the purpose is to make research-based study carry out more effectively, so as to achieve better learning effect. The key to implement this step is to prepare formative assessment, attention to collect feedback information, and where possible, to make appropriate adjustments) for solution to the problem. Summary and improvement The summary of research-based learning includes individual self-summary, group summary and teacher summary. Moreover, the group summary should be based on the individual summary, and the teacher summary should be based on the individual summary and the group summary. Both individual and group summaries should combine reporting and presentation of research results with written summaries (research results may be research reports, statistical analysis of important data, some kind of application software, some kind of instrument, some kind of product prototype, some kind of solution…). The summary should include the background (current research status at home and abroad), significance, objectives, main research contents,

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main research achievements and innovations, as well as the direction of efforts (or shortcomings), etc. The teacher’s summary is not to replace the students’ individual or group summary, but to help them make their original summary more comprehensive and deeper; especially to help them understand the objective things rising from perceptual to rational, make their understanding of scientific concepts and principles and understanding by the partial, fragmentary, local transition to comprehensive, system, complete, try to make it possible for every student not to know but to know why. The key to implement this step is to first make personal self-summary and team concluded; at the same time, also one should not ignore the teacher role in this elevation and upgrading.

References 1. Jonassen, D., Davidson, M., Collins, M., Campbell, J., & Haag, B. B. (1995). Constructionist and computer-mediated communication in distance education. The American Journal of Distance Education, 9(2), 7–26. 2. Peng, D. (1990). Cognitive psychology. Heilongjiang Education Press (彭聃龄, “认知心理 学”, 黑龙江教育出版社, 1990年). 3. Koya, Y. (1986). The psychology of learning and teaching. Educational Science Press. May 1997 ([日]山内光哉 编著, “学习与教学心理学”, 教育科学出版社, 1986年). 4. Wilson, B. G. (1995, September–October). Metaphors for instruction: Why we talk about learning environments. Educational Technology, 35(5), 25–30. 5. Dede, C. (1995, September–October). The evolution of constructionist learning environments: Immersion in distributed virtual worlds. Educational Technology, 35(5), 46–52. 6. Griffiths, D. (1997). Environmental challenges: Making a difference in the classroom. Proceedings of CAL, 97, 95–99. 7. Calza, R. E., & Meade, J. T. (1997). Gen technique: Learning molecular biology with in a networked environment. Proceeding of CAL, 97, 165–168. 8. He, K. (1996). Constructionist learning theory and constructionist learning environment. Educational Communication and Technology, (3) (何克抗, “建构主义学习理论与建构主义 学习环境”, 教育传播与技术, 1996年第三期(总第12期)). 9. Zhu, Z., & Lin, C. (1986). Developmental psychology of thinking. Beijing Normal University Press (朱智贤、林崇德, “思维发展心理学”, 北京师范大学出版社, 1986年). 10. Zhang, J., & Chen, Q. (1996). From cognitivism to constructionism. Journal of Beijing Normal University (Social Science Edition), (4) (张建伟、陈琦, “从认知主义到建构主义”, 北京师 范大学学报 (社会科学版),1996年, 第4期). 11. Spiro, R. J., Feltovich, P. J., Jacobson, M. J., & Coulson, R. L. (1991). Cognitive flexibility, constructionism, and hypertext: Random access instruction for advanced knowledge acquisition for ill-structured domain. In T.M. Duffy & D.H. Jonassen (Eds.), Constructionism and technology of instruction: A conversation (pp. 57–75). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. 12. He, K. (2004). Viewing the new development of educational technology theory from the perspective of blending learning. Chinese Audio-Visual Education, (3 and 4) (何克抗, 从Blending Learning看教育技术理论的新发展, 中国电化教育, 2004年第3、4期连载). 13. Jonassen, D. H. (1991). Objectivist versus constructionism: Do we need a new philosophical paradigm? ETR & D, 39(3), 5–14. 14. Tian, B. (Ed.). (1994). History of foreign teaching ideas. People’s Education Press (田本娜主 编, 外国教学思想史, 人民教育出版社,1994.5.). 15. Xenophon. (1984). Recalling Socrates. Commercial Press (色诺芬, 回忆苏格拉底, 商务印书 馆, 1984.).

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16. Dai, B. (1989). History of foreign education (I). People’s Education Press (戴本博主编, 外国 教育史 (上), 人民教育出版社, 1989. 5.). 17. Guo, Q. (1987). History of Chinese educational thought. Educational Science Press (郭齐家, 中国教育思想史, 教育科学出版社, 1987. 6.). 18. Sun, P., & Li, G. (Ed.). (1995). History of Chinese educational thought (Vol. 1). East China Normal University Press (孙培青, 李国钧主编. 中国教育思想史(第一卷). 上海: 华东师范 大学出版社, 1995.). 19. Mao, L., & Shen, L. (Ed.). (1985). General History of Chinese Education (Vol. 1). Shandong Education Press, 4 (毛礼锐、沈灌群主编, 中国教育通史(第一卷), 山东教育出版社, 1985. 4.). 20. Joyce, B., Weil, M., & Calhoun, E. (1999). Models of teaching. Allyn and Bacon. 21. Ye, L. (Ed.). (1993). A new pedagogy curriculum. East China Normal University Press (叶澜 主编, 新编教育学教程, 上海: 华东师范大学出版社, 1993.). 22. Zhu, X. (1999). Practice of quality education in primary schools: Model construction and theoretical reflection. Nanjing Normal University Press (朱小蔓. 《小学素质教育实践: 模式 建构与理论反思》 , 南京: 南京师大出版社, 1999.). 23. Zhang, W. (1988). On teaching model. Educational Research (张武升, 关于教学模式的探讨, 教育研究, 1988. 5.).

Chapter 4

Theory of Deep Integration of Information Technology and Integrated Subjects Teaching

Abstract Early 1960s to the mid-1980s is the period when computer was used mainly to help teachers solve some difficulties in instruction by using the demonstrative functions of fast computing, such as graphic animation and simulation. This was the first development stage of application of information technology in education.

1 Introduction [1] 1.1 Overview: Development of Applications of Information Technology in Education Since the first computer assisted instruction system (CAI system) was developed by IBM in 1959, the application of information technology in education in developed countries has undergone three development stages:

1.1.1

CAI (Computer Assisted Instruction) Stage

Early 1960s to the mid-1980s is the period when computer was used mainly to help teachers solve some difficulties in instruction by using the demonstrative functions of fast computing, such as graphic animation and simulation. This was the first development stage of application of information technology in education. At this stage, only computer education (or computer culture) concept was generally used, but the concept of information technology of education has not been put forward yet.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 K. He, Innovative Education Informatization with Chinese Characteristics, Bridging Human and Machine: Future Education with Intelligence, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0622-0_4

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CAL (Computer Assisted Learning) Stage

Mid-80 s to mid-90 s is the stage, when the educational applications of computer gradually transformed from auxiliary teaching to auxiliary learning. In other words, computers were used as tools to assist students in autonomous learning, for example, in such tasks as collecting information, helping answering questions, taking self-tests, and assisting to arrange study plans. That is, not only it was emphasized teaching with a computer, but also learning with it. This was the second development stage of the applications of information technology in education, in which the concepts of “computer education” and “information technology education” coexisted. Due to the late start of the application of information technology in education in China (early 1980s), the experimental research on computer-assisted instruction was 20 years behind the United States (only in 1982 four middle schools became the first to take part in related experiments). In addition to the fact that education in China has always been giving priority to traditional teacher-centered approach, too much attention is constantly being paid to teachers’ role while the importance of students’ autonomous learning is neglected. While international information technology education experienced the transition from CAI mode to CAL, China did not seem to feel the change. The situation is alike nowadays too, most of the schools in our country stay at the stage of CAI mode.

1.1.3

IITC (Integrating Information Technology into the Curriculum) Stage

Since the mid-90s, the information technology and curriculum integration have been a very important and highly concerned research hot spot, as well as the major mode of instructional process. At this stage, the original concept of computer education and computer culture has been completely replaced by the concept of information technology education and information technology culture.

1.2 The Core Content of Information Technology and Curriculum Integration Although information technology and curriculum integration have been held in China and abroad for years, there are still various biased and even wrong understandings about it among most teachers (however, this problem also exists in the international education sector). To sum up, these erroneous or one-sided perceptions involve the following three aspects: – Unclear on the goal (meaning) of integration of information technology and curriculum; i.e., not clear why integration is needed;

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– Lack of understanding of the connotation (essence) of integration of information technology and curriculum; i.e., not sure what integration is; – Not mastered the approach (method) of information technology and curriculum integration; i.e., not sure how to implement the integration effectively. Any theory regarding the integration of information technology and curriculum must be able to analyze and answer these three basic questions, and the answers should be able to pass the test of instructional practice in various schools and at all levels. The research on these basic questions and their findings are the core content of the theory of integration of information technology and curriculum.

2 Information Technology and Curriculum Integration in the US: Research and Application Since the 1990s, all countries in the world (both developed and developing) have highlighted that education modernization should be driven by education computerization and promoted education standardization as a major strategic initiative to foster the reform and development of education at all educational levels. Education informationization (EI) needs substantial capital investment, and the result must be reflected in the significant improvement of the quality of discipline teaching and students’ all-around ability (otherwise education informationization does not make any sense). This requires the right application of information technology in order to improve the instructional process in terms of maximum instructional effect, efficiency, and effectiveness. Obviously, this way of education informationization should involve hundreds of thousands or even millions of teachers taking part in related classroom practices, and teachers should be able to effectively integrate the information technology with various instructional disciplines (to achieve the maximum effect of information technology and curriculum integration), and this is only possible with the proper and effective scientific theoretical guidance. It is not hard to see that whether or not the big investments can get a reasonable return, whether or not a great number of teachers achieve success in their work, the overall success is determined by the proper theoretical guidance for the process of information technology and curriculum integration, and the importance of this guidance is huge. The United States is the world’s most advanced country in information technology, it is also the first country to propose and start using it in all kinds of schools and at all educational levels. So this section first briefly reviews American theoretical research and practice related to “integration,” than compares it with China’s national conditions, at last, implementing the results of years of research and practice in the area of the integration of informational technology within primary as well as secondary schools curricula, introduces the scientific theory with Chinese characteristics of deep integration of information technology and school curriculum.

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2.1 US Theoretical Research on Information Technology and Curriculum Integration Literature research reveals that among many works on the integration of information technology and curriculum in the United States there is a plenty of scientific publications that fully and systematically explain the issues of “why integration is needed,” “what is integration” and “how to achieve effective results in integration.” These works can be presented as follows: – The 3rd annual report (2000) of the American CEO Forum on Education and Technology; – “Integration of Educational Technology and Teaching” monograph by Roblyer, M.D. (Published in 2003); – The National Educational Technology Standard (third Edition) revised for the USA by The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). The above literature is not only quite representative and authoritative, but also presents rather comprehensive theoretical framework. In China, Roblyer’s monograph (published in 2005) has a very significant role in the process of regulation of the work of relevant colleges and universities. In the following section, the three papers are chosen as representative samples for analysis and investigation.

2.1.1

The 3rd Annual Report (2000) of American CEO Forum on Education and Technology

The report states that “at the core of digital learning is a gradual increase of the scope of digital content and curriculum integration, where the final spot is determined by the integration of technology into each school subject and actual use of the approach in classrooms. When qualified, well-trained teachers with clear educational objectives apply dynamic digital contents to teaching, students’ level of exploration and research can be improved, thus making it possible to achieve the goal of digital learning. In order to create a vivid digital learning environment and foster competences for the twenty-first century, schools must integrate digital contents into the curriculum.” The goal of integration that the report identifies is “to rise up creative people possessing twenty-first century competences;” the meaning of integration is “to create a vivid digital learning environment.” The above statements indicate that the author has a scientific and objective understanding of the goal of the integration. It is also very correct and valuable to define the integration in terms of creating a digital learning environment. It is well known that in the early 90s of the last century, a famous computer education scholar Robert Taylor has summarized the education application in three basic forms: Tutor (computer as a tutor), Tutee (to tutor the computer), and Tool (computer as a tool); hereinafter referred to as 3 T model.

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In the early 1980s, computer programming language was promoted as the second language and second culture of human beings, so the Tutee model was dominant at that time. However, as the application of computer education deepened, the view that programming languages were overly exaggerated was rejected, and the main mode of computer education application turned to Tutor and Tool modes. In the 1990s, with the popularization of multimedia computer technology and network communication technology, the traditional concept of “computer education” was gradually replaced by the broader one—information technology in education, while the concept application of computer in education was substituted by application of information technology in education. Since the 1990s, tutors and tools have been widely used as the basic forms of information technology in education, with special emphasis on information technology as a cognitive tool for learners to learn and explore autonomously. In other words, the basic form of information technology and subject teaching integration (the core content of integration) was discussed by the most scholars from the point of view of “tool theory” rather than “environmentalism” (using information technology to create a digital learning environment or digital teaching environment). The theoretical basis of Roblyer’s monograph is also to describe the functions and processes of information technology and subject teaching integration, which is as a form of the Tool mode. However, the third annual report of the US Educational Technology CEO Forum is the first to define the meaning of curriculum integration from the perspective of the creation of a digital learning environment, which is truly remarkable (reflecting the spirit of innovation against the trend). Since the notion of environment has a broader meaning, and all human and nonhuman factors are parts of the environment, the connotation of the integration defined in this annual report is obviously deeper and wider than the traditional concept of information technology as a tool, and its practical significance is much higher. Nevertheless, the annual report’s discussion of the meaning of integration is rather general and has not yet been fully developed. However, the report is worthwhile. In order to help teacher, address the issue of effective integration of information technology with subject matter, this annual report provides a prescription and suggests the following steps: Step 1: Identify educational goals and link digital content to these goals; Step 2: Determine the results and criteria that curriculum integration should achieve and that can be measured and evaluated; Step 3: To carry out the measurements and evaluation according to criteria identified in Step 2, and then adjust the integration approach according to the evaluation results in order to meet the objectives more effectively. As can be seen from the above introduction, the 3rd annual report of the CEO Forum on Education Technology of America has made clear answers to the three major questions faced by the theory of information technology and curriculum integration.

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As can be observed, this annual report provides clear answers to the three major questions facing the theory of IT and curriculum integration. The answer to the first question (integration goals) is quite relevant, even to the point. The second question (the meaning of integration) is new but relatively general. The answer to the third question (ways and methods of integration) seems to possess lack of indepth research, which is regrettable because the given integration steps and methods do not involve neither the guiding ideology and theoretical basis of “integration,” nor the teaching and learning mode of integration, as well as the teaching design and teaching materials, but only contain discussions, which are not very helpful for teachers.

2.1.2

Integration of Educational Technology and Teaching by Robleyer, M.D. 2003

In addition to the prescriptions given in the annual reports above, the understanding of scholars in Western nations on the “ways and means” of IT and curriculum integration has increased to a larger extent since the twenty-first century, with the growth of information technology in education. The main features are: they have begun to pay attention to the guidance, theoretical foundation, the teaching and learning design of integrated lessons, and the application and development of related software and tools, rather than just the specific steps prescribed in the above annual reports. For example, on how to implement effective integration of IT and curriculum, Roblyer considers several aspects to be relevant: first, he emphasizes the significance and the role of various teaching and learning theories relevant to the integration of IT and curriculum instruction in various disciplines; then, he introduces and analyzes the three main integration models guided by different educational philosophies in terms of principles and strategies. These three main integration models are as follows: – The teacher-led model, which is mainly based on the teacher’s lecturing; – The constructionist model, in which students conduct their own investigations; – The mixed model that integrates teacher instruction and student inquiry. At last, specific examples of how different disciplines have used various principles and strategies to implement an effective integration are given. Although the title of Roblyer’s book is Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching, it is more accurate to change the title to Integrating Information Technologies into Teaching and Learning from the perspective of the content of the book. Although substantial progress has been made in Robleyer’s research on approaches and methods of information technology and curriculum integration, there are still three problems: – The implementation principles and strategies designed specifically for the teachercentered integration model in Robleyer’s monograph have big defects (lack of Ausubel’s theory of learning and teaching)

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When highlighting the significance and usefulness of various teaching and learning theories for the integration of IT with various subjects, Roblyer cites the theories that support teacher-delivered teaching and learning, for example: – Dewey’s educational ideas that emphasize close connection between schools and community and education and life; – Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligence; – Skinner’s behaviorist theory of learning; – The information processing theory, which is a part of cognitive psychology; – Gagne’s theory of teaching and learning based on behaviorist and information processing theories; – Systems approach and instructional design theories. Teaching and learning theory that supports a focus on student-directed inquiry is also cited, for example: – – – – – –

Constructionist theory; Vygotsky’s “theory of the zone of proximal development;” Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development; Bruner’s theory of discovery learning; Seymour Pepat’s LOGO language; Contextual cognition of Vanderbilt University and other learning and teaching theories.

Although on the surface these seem to be comprehensive theories, a careful analysis reveals an important omission: among the many supporting “teacher-delivered” theories of learning and teaching, the author omits one of the most important ones— Ausubel’s learning and teaching theory. It is widely accepted that Ausubel’s “meaningful learning theory,” motivation theory, and advance organizer strategy are among the most significant theories of teaching and learning. Scholars have acknowledged that Ausubel’s meaningful receptive learning theory, motivation theory, and prior organizer strategies provide powerful support for a teacher-delivered approach that involves both cognition and affect, and that examines both learning and teaching theory and provides actionable teaching strategies. It is rare to see an educator who has studied all four aspects of cognition (emotion, learning and instructional theory and instructional strategies) as deeply as Ausubel. Of course, Gagne’s behaviorist and information-processing-based teaching theories also play an important role in supporting a lecture-based approach to learning and teaching. However, no one in the international educational field can compete Ausubel’s in-depth research with the important areas of motivation theory and the nature of intentional receptive learning, which is based on the idea that motivation is comprised of three internal drives: cognitive motivation, subsidiary motivation, and self-improvement motivation. Ausubel also makes an unprecedented statement: the key to meaningful learning is to establish a non-arbitrary substantive connection between the new concepts, knowledge, and the learners’ previously acquired cognitive structures; as long as this connection can be made, the transfer-receive teaching method can achieve the

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purpose of meaningful learning. On the other hand, if such a connection cannot be established, not only is the transfer-receive teaching method is meaningless, the discovery learning itself is meaningless. Many teaching practices have proved that, no matter what the subject is, and whether the traditional teaching environment or the information-based teaching environment is implemented, the teacher-driven instruction without the guidance of Ausubel’s teaching and learning theory is impractical and makes it difficult to achieve the desired results. It can be concluded that without the guidance and support of Ausubel’s learning and teaching theory, the principles and strategies designed in Roblyer’s monograph for the teacher-driven model of integration must be flawed and will not achieve the desired results. • The second problem is that the implementation principles and strategies of the integration model under the guidance of constructionist instruction, which is based on students’ independent inquiry, are obviously insufficient and lack the support of relevant instructional design methods.

Instructional design is one of the core subjects in educational technology since it is a bridge between teaching–learning theories and teaching practice. In order to provide teachers with a set of effective and operational teaching models and methods, we use systematic design of instruction to design and plan each teaching process (analysis of teaching goals, analysis of learner characteristics, formulation of teaching strategies, selection of media, formative evaluation, etc.). Therefore, in the process of IT with academic subjects’ integration, the implementation principles and strategies provided for different types of integration models must include guidance on how to carry out instructional design. Regrettably, in his book, only the teacher-led model involves an instructional design approach among the presented in the monograph principles and strategies provided for the three major integration models. The book gives a model of the instructional design process for teacher instruction proposed by Bradens in 1996. The other two integration models (constructionism and hybrid) do not offer a model of the instructional design process or an instructional design approach. In Roblyer’s monograph, the original emphasis is on the students’ independent inquiry-based integration model within constructionist paradigm, and the learning and teaching theories listed in the book are focused on supporting this integration model, but because the implementation principles and strategies designed for this model do not include the instructional design methods of the corresponding integration model, it is difficult for teachers to translate the learning and teaching theories that support the constructionist model into effective and efficient teaching methods. However, the principles and strategies designed for the implementation of this integrated model do not include instructional design approaches for the corresponding integrated model, making it difficult for teachers to translate learning and teaching theories that support the constructive integration model into an effective and operational teaching approach.

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National Educational Technology Standards (3rd Edition) Revised by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) for the US

From the above analysis, there are still some shortcomings in the discourse of the two above-mentioned pieces of literature on the connotation and method of integration. Then, is there any more authoritative academic organization that can give a profound discussion on the connotation and methods of integration? Yes, but the discourse on integration is not profound. For example, the International Association for Technology in Education (ISTE) is highly regarded academic organization, but in its revision of the National (American) Standards for Technology in Education (3rd Edition) in 2000, it refers to information technology and curriculum integration as: Curriculum integration is the integration of technology into the curriculum as a tool to facilitate the learning of a range of knowledge or a multidisciplinary area. Technology allows students to learn in ways that have never been done before. Integration of technology and curriculum is effective only when students can choose tools to help them acquire information in a timely manner, analyze integrated information, and express it correctly. Technology should be an intrinsic part of the classroom, as well as other classroom tools that may be obtained.

This definition stresses the need to integrate technology into the curriculum as a tool. Yet it remains a tool or teaching aid, and it does not address the deeper issues of creating an ideal learning environment (or teaching environment). Compared with the third annual report of the Educational Technology CEO Forum, this statement is not deeper, but more superficial and regressive.

2.2 Effect of Information Technology Applications in the United States at All Educational Levels The above analysis indicates that no proper ways and means have yet been found for how to effectively integrate IT with curriculum in Western countries. Neither the prescriptions made in the 3rd annual report of the CEO Forum nor the principles and strategies proposed in Roblyer’s monograph for the various integration models have been able to solve this problem effectively. In fact, we do not need our teachers to try out the above prescriptions and various application principles and strategies. We just need to explore the actual situation and effects of information technology and curriculum integration in the US. Here are some facts:

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The Mainstream View of Scholars in the United States and Western Countries

That has been that “the application of information technology in teaching mainly happens before and after class, including information search and communication between students and teachers; the classroom teaching process of dozens of minutes is generally considered that it is hard for information technology to play a role – mainly relying on teachers to teach by example.” (Cited in China Computer Education News, August 16, 2004). Under the guidance of this mainstream concept, for many years, the American and even the western education have been focusing on the integration of information technology and curriculum before and after class, rather than seriously exploring it in the classroom. In China, on the contrary, we consider classroom teaching to be the main front, so we have always attached more importance to the efficient use of information technology in the classroom.

2.2.2

The Guidance of the Above Theoretical Viewpoints

WebQuest and Just in time Teaching are the major models for information technology and curriculum integration in the United States (most of the top ten educational technology application projects in the United States selected by Teaching & Learning journal in 2003 all belong to WebQuest model). The other models, such as problembased learning, project-based learning, and resources based learning, are the same as WebQuest in terms of their quality.

2.2.3

The 2004 Educational Technology Report

It was released by the American Educational Communications and Technology Association (AECTA) found that for the vast majority of teachers, IT was used only as a tool for finding materials to prepare lesson plans (before class applications), for communicating with colleagues and teachers, and for record-keeping (post-class applications), and was rarely used directly or integrated into the classroom. For the few teachers who can integrate information technology into classroom instruction, the two most used ways are: first, using technology to improve students’ computer skills and use games as a reward; second, use technology for consolidation drills, exercises, and word processing. This report also confirms that the current information technology and curriculum integration in the United States is mainly focused on before curricular and post-curricular activities.

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A Study in the First Half of 2006

It was published by educational experts from the Asia Society (whose purpose is to study US–Asia relations) on the learning of US secondary school students in mathematics and science from 2001 to 2005, it was found that US students’ performance in mathematics and in science lagged significantly behind the students in major countries in the Asia–Pacific region (e.g., South Korea and Singapore). As a result, there is deep concern in the United States about the level of education in mathematics and science in US secondary schools.

2.2.5

A Sample Test in April 2009

The US Department of Education released the results of conducted by its assessment agency on 21,000 middle school students from all over the United States. It was discouraging to find that there is no significant difference between the reading ability and calculation ability of current middle school students than that of 30 years ago. In 1979, when information technology was in its infancy, there is no way to compare it to the Internet Plus era 30 years later.

2.2.6

The 2010 PISA Report

Released on December 7 by the International OECD, which is conducted every three years. In the latest report, 470,000 15-year-old middle school students in 65 developed countries and regions were tested. The results showed that: the United States is in the middle of the global educational rank—14th in reading, 17th in science, and 25th in mathematics. The PISA report, published three years later in December 2013, was similar, but ranked much lower, with reading and science scores failing to reach the top 20, and math falling to 29th place. The above examples show that although the United States has long established a good information technology environment in the elementary and secondary schools (for example, 1999 was the Network Year when the elementary and secondary schools in the United States were basically networked; by 2001, 99% of the elementary and secondary schools in the United States had access to the Internet; in 2003 the ratio of students to computers in US elementary and secondary school reached 5:1, creating very favorable conditions for the integration of information technology and subject instruction), the basic quality of its education has not improved significantly. This proves the argument—Western IT-curriculum integration theory is deficient and cannot effectively solve practical problems.

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3 Core Contents of Information Technology and Curriculum Integration in China By carefully analyzing the theories and experiences of information technology and curriculum integration in the United States, and reflecting deeply on them in the context of China’s national conditions, particularly in light of our own theoretical and practical explorations of information technology and curriculum integration at all levels and in all types of schools over the years, we finally formed a new understanding of the integration of information technology and curriculum and constructed a set of relatively systematic and comprehensive theories and methods of deep-leveled integration with Chinese characteristics. We have built a relatively systematic and complete set of deep integration concepts and methods with Chinese characteristics. This philosophy tries to answer three basic questions about the information technology and curriculum integration in a comprehensive and scientific way. The answer to the first question (the goal of integration) is based on the third annual report of the CEO Forum on Educational Technology in the United States, while the answers to the second question (the connotation of integration) and the third question (the method of integration) are developed by learning from the views of the annual report and taking into account the experience and lessons of Robleyer’s monograph, as well as China’s national conditions and practical experience of integration over the years.

3.1 Goals of Information Technology and Curriculum Integration In 1999, the Third National Education Work Meeting clearly put forth that we must carry out “quality education with emphasis on cultivating students’ innovative spirit and practical ability.” This indicates that the objective of quality educational is to train young people to become innovative talents, i.e., talents with creative consciousness, creative thinking, and creative ability, which is also the objective to be reached by the integration of information technology and curriculum. The western countries, especially the United States, regard the integration of information technology and curriculum as a fundamental measure to cultivate talents in the twenty-first century, and their core quality are the innovation spirit and innovation ability as well as the cooperation spirit and cooperation ability. This shows that both in China and in the developed countries in the West, the integration of information technology and curriculum is considered as an important way or even a basic measure to cultivate innovative talents. From a global perspective, the goal to be achieved by the integration of information technology and curriculum is to implement the cultivation of many innovative talents. This is not only the goal of quality education in China, but also the main goal of the new round of educational reform in the world today, which is the reason why the developed countries in the West strongly promote the

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integration of information technology and curriculum. Only from such a high level can we understand the goal of information technology and curriculum integration. Instead of looking at “integration” only from the angle of improving teaching means or methods, this way can allow us to deeply appreciate the great significance and far-reaching impact of information technology and curriculum integration, and truly figure out why we need to carry out the integration of information technology and subject instruction.

3.2 Connotation of Integration of Information Technology and Curriculum At present, there are a lot of articles and works on the integration of information technology and curriculum, but the definition and connotation of the integration of information technology and curriculum have been lacking of in-depth research, so there is no recognized authority in this area. Since the integration of information technology and curriculum involves the teaching practice of thousands of teachers, they may be at a loss as to how to know and understand the integration of information technology and subject instruction. There is still a lack of understanding of the essence of the integration, and how to find an effective way to implement the integration (not to mention the deep integration). The serious results of this can be seen. In order to end this situation as soon as possible, it is obviously necessary to have a scientific understanding of the integration of information technology and curriculum (i.e., the integration of information technology and subject instruction). After careful research, we express the definition as: the integration of information technology and curriculum (or information technology and subject instruction), is about creating an information-based teaching environment by effectively incorporating information technology into the teaching and learning process of various subjects, and realizing a teaching and learning system characterized by ‘autonomy, inquiry and cooperation’ that can both give full play to the leading role of teachers as well as highlight the main position of students’ cognition. The teaching and learning methods characterized by ‘autonomy, inquiry and cooperation’ can bring students’ initiative, enthusiasm and creativity to full play, so that the classroom teaching structure, which is centered on the teacher, can be changed fundamentally to a classroom teaching structure that combines “dominant and main subjects”.

This definition contains three basic attributes: creating an information-based teaching environment, realizing a new teaching–learning mode, and reforming the traditional classroom teaching structure. Only by grasping the above three basic attributes can we understand the connotation and essence of the deep integration of information technology and curriculum. This is because these three attributes are not parallel, but are gradually and progressively related. Creating an information-based teaching environment is the basic content of the integration of Information Technology and curriculum. The information-based teaching environment refers to the new teaching and learning style that can support

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the creation of real contexts, inspiring thinking, information access, resource share, multiple interactions, independent investigation, collaborative learning, and other demands. The implementation of new ways of teaching and learning in the classroom is the specific measure taken in each lesson within the process of deep integration of information technology and curricular. The goal of IT and curriculum integration is to change the traditional classroom teaching structure in the school education system, i.e., to change the teacher-centered classroom instruction structure, in which the teacher mainly leads the practice, to a combination of dominant and subject, in which the teacher plays a leading role and at the same time students cognitive subject status is highlighted. In other words, the deep level of integration shifts from the category of teacher-centered classroom structure (a traditional classroom instruction structure, in which teachers oversee the instruction) to the structure in which teachers play a leading role and students are the main subjects of cognition; this way the goal of cultivating innovative talents can be truly realized. In short, the point of deep integration (the connotation and essence of deep integration) is to transform the traditional classroom teaching structure, and the transformation of the classroom teaching structure should not be abstract and empty, but should be embodied in the change of the status and roles of the four components of the classroom system (teachers, students, teaching contents, and teaching media). We believe that only by understanding the meaning of deep integration from the point of view of the three basic attributes (creating an information-based teaching environment, realizing new ways of teaching and learning, and most importantly changing the structure of the traditional classroom teaching), can we really grasp the essence of deep integration of IT and curriculum. With the respect to these three basic attributes, below are compared the connotations of IT—curriculum integration with CAI. CAI is primarily a modification of teaching methods and teaching tools (involving teaching environment and teaching methods), but it does not reflect new learning styles, nor does it change the teaching structure. Thus, CAI and deep integration of information technology with the curricula should not be equated. However, the use of CAI course-ware in the integration process is more like a cognitive tool and a collaborative communication tool to promote students’ independent learning, and CAI in this context is a valuable part of the integration process (i.e., the application of information technology to the teaching process). Traditional teacher-oriented computerassisted teaching, however, uses CAI course-ware as visual aids and demonstration aids to help teachers break through teaching priorities and difficulties, and CAI in this context is the entire content of the information technology applied to teaching process, not a link or a part of it. The use of CAI classroom materials on these two applications is not the same, both in terms of its substance and its application. In our opinion, it is more scientific and thorough to recognize and comprehend the connotation and essence of information technology and curriculum integration based on the above three basic attributes, and only in this way will it be possible to form concrete ways and methods for realizing deeper integration. So far, the connotation of integration at home and abroad has mostly been about the construction of an information-based learning and teaching environment or the

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execution of a new teaching and learning styles, or at most about both the informationbased learning and teaching environment and the new learning and teaching style. But no researchers have ever addressed the issue of changing the structure of traditional classroom teaching. I believe that this is a major shortcoming of the existing international integration theory, which will be clarified further in the book.

3.3 Approaches of Integrating Information Technology and Curriculum Since there are no definite ways to teach, no one can come up with a set of integrated methods that are suitable for all subjects, but the integration of different subjects with IT needs to be done with the help of the IT environment, so it is important to follow common principles. The guiding philosophy and implementation principles need to be shared. If this guideline and implementation principles are grasped, teachers of different disciplines can make full use of their potential to innovate independently and create a wide variety of practical and effective integration models and methods in their teaching practices. In this sense, the common guiding principles and principles of integration that should be followed by all disciplines can be seen as a macroimplementation approach or methodology. The following five are the principles and guidelines that we have developed through years of integration practice and in-depth theoretical thinking, and they are our prescriptions for teachers to achieve deep integration of IT and subject instruction.

3.3.1

Advanced Teaching and Studying Theories Should Be Used to Guide the Integration

The process of deep integration of information technology and curriculum is not only the application of modern information technology, but also a profound reform in the field of education and teaching. In other words, the process of integration is the process of deepening reforms of education. Since it is a reform, it must be guided by advanced theories. Practice without theoretical guidance is a blind practice, which will achieve half of result with twice effort or even be futile. The theory of advanced education mentioned here includes theories of teaching and learning that support teaching (theories by Ausubel and Gagne), and the theory of teaching and learning that supports students’ autonomous learning (represented by the NeoConstructivism theory). Considering our national context, special attention should be given to the new constructionist theory. In the books written by scholars in China, the new constructionist theory is often used as one of the main theoretical foundations of deep integration, and this chapter is devoted to its origins, development, and main content. This is not because this theory is perfect, but because of the following two factors.

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The neo-constructionism is especially pertinent to the current state of our educational community. It stresses learner-oriented mode and promotes the idea of instruction, in which students acquire knowledge through autonomous construction, which is a major difference with the teacher-centered education and teaching concept that has ruled all levels and types of schools in China for many years. Neo-constructionism learning and teaching theory as well as the teaching design method under constructionist learning environment can provide strong theoretical support for the deep integration of information technology and teaching of various subjects.

3.3.2

The “Teacher-Student” Instructional Structure Should Guide the Integration

As mentioned above, the essence and goals of deep integration are to reform traditional classroom structure—change the teacher-centered classroom structure, and create a new “teacher-student” classroom structure. From this point of view, deep integration of information technology and curriculum should be carried out right around the creation of this new teaching structure, to achieve the goal of successful cultivation of innovative talents and of substantial results of deep integration. Otherwise, it will lose the direction of integration and turn into a profound and complex educational revolution (deepening the reform of teaching process) with simple and mechanical manipulations and operations of technical means. If such integration were to take place, it would make little sense. Most of the so-called integration classes that are being described as typical or exemplary are computer-aided teaching classes, IT skills learning classes, or information literacy training classes. Though these classes do help to break through some key points in teaching, they do not have much effect on the development of students’ innovative spirit and ability, because such integrated classes do not affect the structure of classroom teaching at all, and the traditional teacher-student relationships and roles are not altered, and students’ initiative, motivation, and creativity are not fully developed. So this integrative lessons are only a shallow integration at best, rather than a deep integration. Since classroom teaching structure is a concrete manifestation of the interconnection and interaction of the teaching system of four components (teachers, students, teaching content, and teaching media), if we wish to create a new teaching structure around the essence of integration, we must require teachers to pay close attention to the position and role of these four components in the process of integrating IT with the curriculum. In other words, can the status and role of these four elements be changed in some way through integration? What is the extent of the change? What factors have changed and which have not? What are the reasons? Only through careful analysis of these issues and the implementation of corresponding actions can effective and deeper integration be achieved. In fact, this is the main basis for assessing the effectiveness of integration and the depth of integration. In order to emphasize the

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importance of the structure of teaching and learning, the relevant monographs are written by Chinese scholars usually regard the theory of the structure of teaching and learning as another important theoretical basis for deep level integration and usually have a special chapter to introduce its basic contents.

3.3.3

Teaching–learning Approach to Instructional Design Used for Deeper Integration Lessons

To create a new classroom teaching structure based equal combination of teaching and learning, it is necessary to achieve the new teaching structure through related teaching modes. The crux of the new teaching structure is the instructional design, and it is the instructional design in the informational environment, that is, the instructional design involving the in-depth integration of IT and curriculum. What kind of instructional design theories and methodologies should be applied in order to achieve this objective more effectively? From the content of the next chapter, the current popular instructional design theories mainly fall into two categories: teaching-centered instructional design and learning-centered instructional design (also known as constructionist learning environment instructional design). Since these two teaching design theories both have their own advantages and disadvantages, it is better to combine them, learn from each and make up for each other’s shortcomings, to form a new teaching design with complementary advantages. This instructional design theory can support the creation of a new classroom teaching structure (i.e., teacher-student combination classroom teaching structure) that not only gives play to the leading role of the teacher, but also highlights the cognitive status of students.

3.3.4

Efforts Be Made to Build Information-Based Learning Resources (a Prerequisite for the Implementation of Deep Integration)

The key to a new classroom teaching structure is to fully engage students’ initiative, motivation, and creativity, which rely not only on teachers’ proper inspiration and guidance, but also on learners’ independent learning, self-directed inquiry, and collaborative learning and inquiry. This requires tools that support the cognitive inquiry, tools that facilitate emotional experience and internalization, and tools that facilitate collaborative exchange to provide the necessary help and support to learners or learning groups in the learning process. Information-based learning resources are designed to provide essential cognitive tools and tools for emotional experience and integration for learners’ independent learning and inquiry, as well as convenient tools and environments for learning groups’ cooperative study and inquiry. It can be said that without information-based learning materials, there is no real meaning! This is the prerequisite for the implementation of deep integration. Tasks are usually of the following four types: multimedia materials, multimedia course-ware, web-based courses, and informational learning

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tools. The first three are applicable to all disciplines, i.e., they can be used as learning support tools in both arts and science teaching and learning. The first three types are suitable for all disciplines, i.e., they can be used as learning support tools for both liberal arts and science teaching. In general, most of the multimedia learning resources can be collected, downloaded, and organized online, while the other three types of information-based teaching resources have to be designed and developed by teachers, especially the information-based learning tools, which are more difficult to develop and often require specialized computer software technology. It should be pointed out here that the emphasis on the construction of informational learning resources does not mean that teachers are required to develop multimedia course-ware or computer software, but rather that they are expected to make efforts to collect, organize, and make full use of existing resources.

3.3.5

Features of Different Subjects Be Combined to Create an Instructional Model Supporting the New Classroom Instructional Structure

The creation of a new classroom instructional structure should be realized through relevant teaching models. Teaching models belong to the category of teaching method and teaching strategy, but it is not equivalent to a certain teaching method or a certain teaching strategy. Teaching models refer to the stable combination and application of two or more methods or strategies in the teaching process. In the teaching process, in order to achieve a certain desired effect or goal (such as creating a new classroom instructional structure), it is often necessary to use comprehensively a variety of different methods and strategies. When the combined use of these teaching methods and strategies can always achieve the expected effect or goal, it becomes an effective teaching model. As mentioned above, various teaching models for integration in class have their own implementation steps and approaches. If we can master the implementation steps and approaches of these models and apply them flexibly, we can achieve the ideal effect of efficient integration and even deeper integration. Over the years, our practice has proved that as long as we truly understand and master the above-mentioned ways and methods of integration, and combine them with our own teaching practices and subject characteristics, teachers can show their own talents and create new teaching models that effectively support the classroom teaching structure of teaching–learning approach.

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3.4 Comparison of Chinese and American Research on the Integration of Information Technology and Curriculum Because our theories of deep integration of IT and curriculum with Chinese features are formed on the basis of theories critically inherited from the western developed countries, led by the United States, and combined with China’s national conditions and our own years of experience in related experimental research in primary and secondary schools, our deep level integration theories have the following five innovations and developments when compared with the integration theories existing in the western countries [4]. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Deeper knowledge of the definition and connotation of IT and curriculum integration. The understanding of the advanced education theory that guides the integration of information technology and curriculum has been expanded. More effective ways and means of integrating IT with curriculum are proposed. New criteria are introduced for measuring the effectiveness of the implementation of IT and curriculum integration. A new division and a new exploration of the teaching models for IT and curriculum integration.

4 Comparison Ways and Methods for Information Technologies and Curriculum Integration Currently education specialists in China and abroad are vigorously endorsing educational informationization with severe challenges, the essence of which is that whether education can realize its goal or not—to promote education informationization in quality upgrading of growth, as well as significantly improve the quality of interdisciplinary teaching and abilities and qualities of students. We clearly answer this issue and found effective countermeasures. The key for achieving the ultimate objective of education information technology is the deep level of integration between Information Technology and curriculum. Whether we can find effective methods of deep integration or not to significantly improve the teaching quality of subjects and the quality of students’ abilities determines the lifeline of whether the current education IT can be carried out in a healthy, deep, and sustainable way. In the coming section, we will look at how countries around the world are facing this serious challenge, i.e., we will analyze and compare the various approaches and methodologies of integration that are being used in the international arena. We will focus on five aspects of this issue.

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4.1 UNESCO Response UNESCO believes that in order to meet the above challenges of basic education informationization, primary and secondary school teachers need to master the necessary qualities and abilities under the informationization teaching environment. In January 2008, UNESCO published the ICT-CST (Information Technology Competency Standards for Teachers), in order to enable teachers to successfully integrate information technology into the curriculum and to successfully integrate information technology into subject instruction. In the ICT-CST, teachers are expected to have four competencies: the ability to construct learning contexts, information technology literacy, knowledge deepening, and the ability to create knowledge. In the overview section of this standard, these qualities and competencies are mentioned and emphasized. It is also stated that building learning environment competence means that teachers should be trained to build learning environments in a nontraditional way, that is, to integrate information technology with new pedagogical approaches to create a social environment that facilitates independent study, active inquiry, and collaborative communication and group learning. This enables a socially interactive classroom that is both conducive to independent learning, active inquiry, and cooperative communication and group activities. The meaning and objectives of the other three literacy and abilities are written in the implementation directions of the standard. Because the first competency, Building Learning Environments, is not listed separately in this standard, it is integrated into the implementation guidelines for the third and fourth competencies. The following is an introduction to the training objectives and training methods for the latter three competencies.

4.1.1

Information Technology Literacy

The training objectives of information technology literacy are: 1.

2.

3.

Teachers can use IT as a basic tool in the school curricula, that is, teachers can use IT to enable new ways of teaching and learning and to support new classroom environments; Teachers know when and on what occasions to use which information technology to carry out which teaching activities, they also know when and on what occasions not to use a certain information technology; Teachers know what kind of information technology ability is needed to support their own professional development for the subject they teach. Information technology literacy training approaches are:

1. 2.

First let teachers learn word processing ability (such as text input, editing, typesetting, and printing, etc.); Teachers will then learn about the features and uses of various digital learning resources and how to use them, such as learning about presentation software,

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3.

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practice software, and classroom materials for personal tutoring, using a web browser to access websites, using a search engine to search for text, setting up an email account for daily email communication, etc.; On this basis, further let teachers master the applications of information technology in the process of optimization of teaching and learning, teaching evaluation, and teaching management by various means and methods.

Knowledge-deepening ability: The training objectives of knowledge deepening-capability are: To provide teachers with the knowledge to make changes in their teaching methods and to be able to do so; To develop an understanding of how to conduct “student-centered” instruction and to make teachers aware of their role in teaching and learning: to assist in clarifying learning tasks and requirements, to guide students’ understandings, to support students’ efforts to work collaboratively with each other, and to support students in planning and monitoring the execution and completion of activities. Knowledge development skills are taught in the following ways: 1.

2.

3.

4.

Let teachers learn to use technology tools and means suitable for the teaching contents of this subject (such as physics, chemistry and other science visual tools, mathematical class data analysis tools and role simulation and play in the humanities and social sciences, etc.); Teachers should be aware of the need for student-centered teaching and collaborative learning for students to gain a deep understanding of concepts and learning and to apply these concepts and knowledge to more complicated problems; Empower teachers to use open teaching resources to support collaborative problem-based or project-based learning both inside and outside the classroom, such as Web search engines, online databases, and email to engage students in a variety of problem-based or project-based collaborative learning activities both in and outside the classroom; Enable teachers to use IT to promote their own professional development.

4.1.2

Ability of Knowledge Creation

The training objectives of knowledge creation are: 1.

2.

Teachers should consciously renew teaching concepts; that is, teachers should realize that the curriculum should go beyond the practice of taking subject materials as the core materials and focus on the twenty-first- century skills that can create new knowledge (twenty-first-century skills are considered by the ICTCST criteria to be abilities such as, communication, cooperation, experimental inquiry, critical thinking, and creative expression); Teachers should realize that the ability to evaluate their own and others’ academic achievements is an important part of students’ learning process. The training approaches of knowledge-creation ability are as follows:

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To enable students to have the ability to create knowledge, teachers themselves must have the following professional abilities: to construct the information learning environment; to design and develop information learning resources; to use information technology in order to develop students’ creative ability and critical thinking ability; and the ability to guide students in their reflective learning. With several professional abilities listed above, the teachers should further strive to create a classroom learning community-not only to create a sound learning situation to help students learn relevant skills and supplement each other in learning, as well as engage in collaborative interaction, teachers should also be involved in community leadership and implement the vision of a supportive, innovative information technology environment, a sustained learning community; That teachers can engage in a professional learning community to continue to build their professional abilities.

4.2 Strategies of American Scholars The United States has always placed great emphasis on the research and study of the IYCI approach. According to the currently existing literature, research on the IYCI approach in the United States can be divided roughly into three stages of development since the mid-1990s: Phase 1—WebQuest phase (roughly mid-1990s to 2003); Phase 2—TELS (roughly 2003 to 2008); Phase 3—TPACK phase (roughly from 2008 to present). The first two stages are introduced and discussed briefly, then the third stage (i.e., recent developments) in the United States in recent years is highlighted.

4.2.1

The First Stage: WebQuest

The most influential integration mode (i.e., the teaching mode of integration lessons) at this stage is WebQuest. As mentioned earlier, the types of teaching models are diverse, hierarchical, and vary from subject to subject and unit to unit. The teaching mode based on information technology and curriculum integration is not an exception. Since the mid-1990s, no more than the following widely used models of teaching in the United States have been used to integrate information technology and curriculum: Direct Instruction (JiTT), WebQuest, Problem-Based Learning, Project-Based Learning, and Resource-Based Learning. The instructor utilizes the JiTT model to pre-teach online the table of contents, relevant information, the key difficulty, and the requirements in order to make students be fully prepared for the class; also, students are supposed to provide feedback to the teacher about the preview and the problem before the class so that teacher could customize the learning content, the method, and the schedule for the next lesson.

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In the JiTT model, the teacher is also supposed to arrange questions for students in order to make them explore them online after class. Essentially, problem-based learning, project-based learning, and resource-based learning are the same type of WebQuest (which cannot be applied without web support). Challenge-based learning, project-based learning, and resource-based learning are essentially the same type of WebQuest (which cannot be applied without web support). Because this kind of models implements real-world topics and issues from nature or social life to explore and extend, so it requires an integrated use of various knowledge within a subject (or a certain amount of integrative use of specific knowledge in a particular area) that needs searching and studying a lot of literature via the web as part of a collaborative team effort. Extracurricular activities of that mode also take more time, so problem-based learning, project-based learning, and resource-based learning can essentially be considered the three sub-classes of the same WebQuest mode, and refer to the integrative mode of out-of-classroom instruction (generally not appropriate for classroom instruction within tens of minutes of the integrative mode in the classroom). So the only two major models of integration that were implemented in the United States throughout the 1990s (including the early 2000s) were WebQuest and JiTT; in practice, the WebQuest model dominates. In December 2003, Teaching and Learning magazine selected the top ten Educational Technology Applications in the United States, all of which have a WebQuest mode, which is strong evidence in its favor. It is also clear that the models described above put strong emphasis on out-of-classroom instruction neglecting the need of deep exposure in the classroom. The WebQuest Model was suggested by Bernie Dodge and Tom Marsh (the University of San Diego) in 1995. In English, Web refers to the Internet and Quest refers to research and exploration. Once WebQuest is formed, it can be understood as a Web-based research activity. This integrative model can efficiently motivate students to search for relevant information on the Web and, on that basis, to conduct independent research activities. Regarding to the background of WebQuest, Professor Bernie Dodge made the explanation [2]: Just as students need scaffolding to learn, so does the faculty’s development of pedagogical design abilities. In WebQuest, we give teachers a fixed structure, lots of rules and instructions. Teachers don’t have to engineer from scratch, so it’s easy and convenient. I believe that’s why so many instructors choose WebQuest—it’s also the original intent and premise of Bernie Dodge and others who study WebQuest.

Bernie Dodge, the founder of WebQuest, defined WebQuest as the following: a type of activity directed by inquiry, which implements Internet resources in order to set up a unit of instruction, while the students interact use using all or a part of the Internet information (which can be supplemented by video conference) [3]. In this type of curriculum, students are presented with a specific case or task (usually a problem to be solved or a project to be completed); the course plan provides students some online information resources and demands creative solutions from them by analyzing and synthesizing the information. To ease such pedagogical activities, WebQuest also provides teachers with fixed design patterns and related

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rules and guidelines so that teachers have no need to learn from scratch to implement the instructional design of this integrative model, so it is easy to use and implement [4] [5]. From the definition above, we can see that the subtext of WebQuest has the following three characteristics: firstly, the topic of WebQuest (the topic of this kind of course planning) is a problem to be resolved or a project to be completed, that is, an actual task in real life; secondly, in such activities as WebQuest, students get all or most of their information from the Internet, so WebQuest can be effective in motivating students to search for relevant information online, which is one of the main characteristics of WebQuest mode as well. Third, WebQuest provides teachers with a fixed learning process template structure and a series of guidelines with scaffolding to help to implement this integrated curriculum design, so that most teachers can easily catch up [6]. As to the specific implementation of the WebQuest, Bernie Dodge believes it should involve the following seven steps [7] [8]: develop a proper unit of instruction; (2) put up a task, which is able to foster students’ higher-order thinking development; (3) implement web design (4) make an assessment (5) determine the learning process (6) write down the content of all activities (7) check and improve. More detailed description is presented in the 5th section of the 12th chapter.

4.2.2

The Second Stage: TELS

The most influential integration model in the second stage is TELS. The main characteristics of this stage are as follows: the pattern of ITCI has gradually shifted from most teachers’ one-sided praise of WebQuest and other extracurricular integration modes to some teachers and scholars paying close attention to a variety of effective in-class integration modes. The second stage started from around 2003, because in the fall of 2003, the National Science Foundation of the United States launched an important project with symbolic significance for educational informationization: Technology Enhanced Learning in Science (TELS Project). The goal of this project was to promote effective integration of information technology and science teaching implementing research and practice of science curriculum design, teachers’ professional training, assessment and information technology support, so as to improve students’ science learning performance and finally achieve the goal of enhancing science learning by using technology [9]. To achieve this goal, the National Science Foundation has set up research centers for the study, which involved more than 14,000 middle school students and 200 teachers from 28 schools. In particular, the TELS program attached great importance to curriculum design. In order to meet the needs of science teaching in middle schools and realize integration of information technology and science teaching, TELS has selected three subjects for science teaching in junior high schools: earth science, life science, and physical science; three subjects for high school science teaching were also chosen:

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biology, chemistry, and physics. On this basis, the TELS formed the information technology environment to support a total of 18 middle school science subject curriculum modules (middle and high schools both have nine theme module)—TELS course module was designed into several topics of the project, its purpose was to absorb the advantages of WebQuest mode, introduce inquiry-based learning based on network classroom teaching, to implement information technology and discipline teaching integration more effectively. After several years of experimental research and exploration, the results of actual tests and evaluations have confirmed that all the experimental students participating in TELS program have a relatively significant improvement in understanding complex scientific concepts comparing to the students in non-experimental groups, thus making the program have a certain impact in the United States. The implementation of the TELS program is a clear sign that the United States (and all Western countries) has shifted its focus from extracurricular integration to in-class integration. Although educational informationization can significantly improve the quality of subject teaching and students’ ability, in theory it offers an encouraging prospect. In 2004, hosted by Microsoft the international informationization forum emphasized: “there is a need to realize a leapfrog Development (Leapfrogging Development) in the aspect of the quality of education through the application of information technology.” But over the years, in China and abroad, in the area of education informationization application practice, there is still a large gap between practical state and the ideal state, this phenomenon is especially obvious in the field of elementary education. For example, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, education experts from Asian Society in America published a study on American high school math and science learning, and according to this report, American high school students’ math and science scores lagged the Asia–Pacific region, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan and, China. As a result, there revealed deep concerns in the United States about the level of math and science education in high schools. This indicates that it is a serious challenge whether the quality of teaching, as well as the capacity and quality of students’ learning, can be greatly improved through the computerization of education. The essence of this challenge is to provide a clear response to the question of whether the computerization of instruction can significantly increase the quality of teaching as well as the ability and quality of students’ learning. In other words, to find appropriate countermeasures to realize effective means of informationization and curriculum integration. As mentioned above, TELS stands for the Advanced Learning in Technology program, which was started by the National Science Foundation in the fall of 2003. This project is purposed to promote the effective integration of information technology and the teaching of science through research and practice in science curriculum development, professional teacher training, assessment, and information technology support in order to improve the performance of high school students in science and, finally, to achieve the goal of enhancement of the science instruction through implementation of technology [10]. This is not only the research goal of this

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project, but also the primary concomitant of the TELS integration regime formed from this project. There are two main features: The first is an emphasis on curriculum development. As already mentioned above, in order to meet the needs of middle school science instruction and to implement information technology support in there, the TELS project developed 18 thematic course modules supported by an information technology environment for middle schools (9 thematic modules for middle and high schools, respectively). Three subjects were selected in the junior high school: earth science, life science, and physics; three courses were also selected in the senior high school: biology, chemistry, and physics. Junior high school earth science has two topics: global warming and magnesium rock; life science has three topics: meiosis and the process of cell formation, underwater studies, and simple genetic; physics has four topics: test speed, hydrogen car, thermodynamics, environmental studies, wolf ecology, and population management. Therefore, there are nine thematic modules in science instruction in junior high school. The three subjects (biology, chemistry, and physics) of high school are respectively divided into 9 subject modules (see Table 1 below). The reason for TELS to do this is to implement WebQuest, which is based on web-inquiry, into classroom instruction in order to achieve more effective in-class integration between information technology and subject instruction. This is because at the beginning of the twenty-first century American education experts and scholars Table 1 Secondary school science curriculum module of TELS project

Junior high school

Senior high school

Earth Science

Biology

Theme 1—Global Warming: The Earth; Theme 2—Igneous Rocks

Theme 1—Evolution of Bird Wings; Theme 2—Improving Asthma in Communities; Theme 3—Meiosis—Next Generation: Diverse Survival

Life Science

Chemistry

Theme 1-Meiosis and Cell Formation Process; Theme 2-explore the world of the sea Theme 3-simple inheritance;

Theme 1-Chemical Reactions; Theme 2-How We Recycle Old Tires; Theme 3-Phases of Events and Phase Changes of Events; Theme 4-Will Gasoline Be a Thing of the Past?

Science Of Science And Science

Physics

Theme 1-Experience Speed; Theme 2-Hydrogen Cars; Theme 3-Thermodynamics: Explore your Surroundings; Theme 4-Wolf Ecology and Population Management

Theme 1-Safe Breath; Theme 2-Simulation of Static Electricity

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have generally recognized that WebQuest, as an extracurricular integration mode, is very beneficial for the cultivation of students’ innovative spirit and ability due to the opportunity to encourage students to study and explore independently by involving the practical problems in natural or social life. However, since WebQuest emphasizes the solution of practical problems, which are comprehensive and interdisciplinary in nature and mainly belong to extracurricular activities, it is more time-consuming. Moreover, it is aimed at a specific practical problem, so the systematic learning and mastery of basic knowledge of various subjects in primary and secondary schools are often inferior to traditional classroom teaching. As a result, the popularity of WebQuest not only fails to guarantee subject teaching quality, but may even weaken it. If one can, however, insisted on the classroom teaching under the premise of internal integration model, and absorb some advantages of WebQuest mode (around several topics to do classroom teaching, for example), so that, based on the organic combination of the two, subject matter learning and cultivation of innovative ability are most likely to be achieved. Students need to cultivate innovative spirit and ability to solve problems, while instructional quality needs to be significantly increased. At the same time, the in-class integration model can also be promoted to a new level. Secondly, special attention to the creation and construction of E-learning environment should be paid. This is like the TELS project, which is trying to implement the inquiry-based WebQuest model into the classroom learning process to reliably realize information technology and subject teaching, which is closely related to the idea of integration. If there is a need to develop this type of inquiry-based learning in the classroom learning process, it is important to do without computer software, and of course, without the support of learning tools and learning resources, namely, the support of an information learning environment. Hence, a tremendous effort must be made in research to develop various learning tools, related informationbased learning processes, and computer software-based resources that can support the teaching of science in order to implement the TELS integration mode. The following is a detailed introduction to the specific implementation of TESL integration mode based on the implementation of four steps of TELS (namely, science curriculum design, teacher professional training, evaluation, and information technology support). Science curriculum design in TELS Curriculum is the key to instruction implementation. In order to meet the needs of science instruction in schools and realize a proper support of information technology for science teaching, TELS project has designed a course consisted of 18 themes supported by information technology (9 themes for middle schools and high schools respectively), as shown in Table 1 below. Teacher training in TELS In order to achieve the above objectives of TELS, teachers participating in the project should be professionally trained in order to understand and grasp the design ideas and curriculum requirements. The training task is undertaken by the designers and researchers of the TELS project; the main content of the training is how to use

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various learning tools and teaching resources within the information environment to support and promote middle school students’ science learning, to achieve the goal of effectively improving the teaching quality of middle school science; the training is a combination of workshops and individual counseling. Evaluation of TELS The purpose of the evaluation of TELS project is to test whether the integration of information technology and science teaching can be effectively realized through the curriculum plan of the project and the support of learning tools and learning resources within the information environment, to improve the science learning performance of middle school students. To test the effectiveness of the integration of information technology and science teaching, the TELS project team formulated specific knowledge and ability standards that students should achieve in combination with the theme modules of each discipline, and on this basis formulated a set of standardized benchmark tests. The testing subjects cover earth sciences, life sciences, physical sciences in junior high school, and biology, chemistry, and physics in senior high school. TELS information technology support Information technology support in the TELS projects is mainly reflected in the implementation of the project, the project team, and related enterprise cooperation, in development based on computer software learning tools and information resources, to create classroom teaching and a vivid information learning environment, to visualize complex, abstract scientific phenomena, thus supporting students’ learning of the concepts of science knowledge. The information-based Learning Environment in TELS projects includes two major parts, namely, Web-based Inquiry Science Environment (WISE) and Scalable Architecture for Interactive Learning (SAIL). With WISE and SAIL, the following teaching and learning functions can be effectively realized: • Teachers can easily complete the design, modification, improvement, and uploading of TELS curriculum content; • Students can solve practical problems with a predetermined themes using inquiry learning (such as on the earth’s climate change, human genetics, automotive hybrid, and circulation, etc.) in the information-based learning environment by the design and experiment, debates, criticism and problem-solving, what allows students to understand relevant discipline knowledge, concepts, and to use the knowledge and concepts; • Facilitate the collaboration among study groups; • Facilitate the interaction among teachers and students. 4.2.3

TPACK Stage

The third stage of exploring the approach and method of ITIC in the US. Although the integration of information technology and curriculum has been carried out earlier

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in the United States (information technology was widely used in elementary and middle schools in the 1990s), as mentioned above, the main model of integration in the first stage was WebQuest, which focuses on students’ web-based autonomous learning and exploration. The main model of integration in the second stage is TELS, which focuses on the design of science curriculum in middle schools—the content of science subjects in junior and senior high schools was redesigned into 18 theme modules. As previously mentioned, the TELS model is that an inquiry-based learning network is introduced into classroom teaching, much like WebQuest, in order to better implement the integration of information technology and teaching subjects, which can overcome the inadequacy of WebQuest, that extracurricular consolidation model contributes to the cultivation of the students’ innovative spirit and ability to innovate, but is generally bad for the interdisciplinary learning and understanding of elementary and secondary school basic knowledge systems. From the integration models in stages one and two shown above it can be seen that their primary focus is on technology (emphasis on web-based technology, i.e., teaching in an information technology environment) and students (emphasis on autonomous student learning and autonomous inquiry). The second phase also starts to pay close attention to classroom integration, but its goal is to introduce a research-based, networked, autonomous learning classrooms; that is, the first two stages emphasize the technology integration process and students’ autonomous use of technology, and characterized by the absence of serious concerns about the knowledge required of teachers and the important role of information technology for teachers in the teaching process. Obviously, this is the problem and flaw in the process of active promotion of educational computerization in the United States, and it will have a direct effect on the future healthy, sustainable, and in-depth development of educational computerization. In the United States, the first academic institution to find such problems and defects and try to correct them is the National Association of Teacher Education Colleges Innovation and Technology Committee. The American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education (AACTE) is the Association of Colleges of Education among Colleges and universities in the United States. The Council on Innovation and Technology is a leading body within the Institute dedicated to promoting technological innovation in education. By reviewing many cases of the implementation of ITCI in the United States since the 1990s, combined with AACTE’s own practical experience in carrying out teacher training in various schools for a long period of time, the committee first discovered the above-mentioned problems and deficiencies and determined to correct them. For this reason, in 2008, the Committee edited and published a theoretical manual that almost every teacher in the United States study seriously—Integrated Technical Subject Teaching Knowledge: An Educator’s Manual [11]. An innovation and technology commission chairman Joel A. Colbert. Dr. Colbert, winner of outstanding lifetime achievement award in the field of teacher education Professor Glen Bull have stated in the preface for the Chinese version of the manual [11]: this guide is valuable not only for the United States, which has been promoting the computerization of education and the implementation of ITCI since the 1990s and made a shift from “emphasis on technology” to the idea of that “the

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integration of each subject content in technology is critical,” it will also change the way teachers are trained and use technology in the educational environment. AACTE has long been a major contributor to the professional development of teachers (especially elementary and secondary school teachers) in teacher education in the United States. The mission of the AACTE Commission on Innovation and Technology is to technologically improve educational leadership, technical advice, and theoretical support; therefore, the chief editor of the AACTE Commission on Innovation and Technology is integrating technical subject knowledge into teaching: A Guide for Teachers, in 2008 Rutledge, Taylor, and Francis. The Taylor and Francis Group (Routledge) has been universally recognized in education in the United States, particularly among elementary and secondary school educators, since its publication. Since the English initials of the name of Knowledge of Integrated Subject Teaching Technology are TPCK (later changed to TPACK), as mentioned above, the learning and application of subject teaching knowledge of integrated Technology (TPACK) is not only critical to the technical integration of each subject content area, it will also change the way teachers are trained and the way technology is applied in educational context. TPACK is not only a brand-new subject teaching knowledge with technology integrated, but also a gradually developing brand-new operational model that can integrate information technology into the teaching process of various subjects. Moreover, since 2008, with the publication and application of the Educator’s Handbook, edited by AACTE, the integration models represented by TPACK is exerting a growing influence on the subject teaching at all levels of schools (especially primary and secondary schools) in the United States. As defined by Matthew J. Koehler and Punya Mishra of Michigan State University, TPACK (Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge) is a framework of teacher Knowledge integrated with technology, which is based on the subject Pedagogical Knowledge (PCK) proposed by Professor Shulman L. S. in the 1980s [12] [13] augmented with technical Knowledge. It is the complex interaction among the three knowledge elements of subject contents, teaching methods, and technology, and it is a new form of knowledge formed after the integration of the three kinds of knowledge. The interaction between the three knowledge elements is shown in Fig. 1 below. As can be seen from the definition of TPACK above, its connotation has the following three characteristics: First, TPACK is a brand-new knowledge that teachers should have and must have. Its implementation cannot be separated from teachers. Therefore, in the process of promoting and applying TPACK, it must be emphasized that teachers are active participants in teaching reform as well as designers and implementers of classroom teaching. Teachers should play a guiding and monitoring role in the teaching process. This viewpoint is of great guiding value to teacher education and teacher professional development. Second, TPACK involves three knowledge elements, including subject content, teaching method, and technology, but it is not a simple combination or superposition of the three kinds of knowledge, but the integration (i.e., fuse) of technology into the teaching process and teaching knowledge of specific subject content. This means

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Subject content knowledge

135

Pedagogical knowledge

Subject teaching knowledge

Integrated technical subject content knowledge

Integrated technical Subject teaching knowledge

Technical knowledge

Fig. 1 TPACK Framework and its knowledge elements

that learning and application of TPACK should not only emphasize technology, but pay more attention to the teaching and learning theory as well as methods in the information technology environment (i.e., teaching and learning theory and methods in the information environment). Third, TPACK is a new knowledge formed after the integration of three knowledge elements. Matthew J. Koehler and Punya Mishra think it is a kind of ill-structured knowledge because it involves many conditions, factors, and interactions with each other. The problems to be solved by such knowledge (that is, problems encountered when information technology is integrated into the disciplinary teaching process) are “wicked problems”—problems that do not have a solution (defined solutions) for every teacher, every course, or every teaching concept; instead, such a solution can only be found by relying on the cognitive flexibility of each teacher in the process of combination and intersection of three kinds of knowledge. The implementation of TPACK is relatively different from other IT and curriculum integration models in many contexts, mainly by two reasons: one, this integration model focuses on contexts in the implementation and delivery process; two, in the process of implementation, this integration model stresses that teachers must have the knowledge of TPACK and play fully the important role of teachers in the process

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of integration. The following is a detailed introduction to the implementation requirements and relevant cases of TPACK model combined with these two characteristics and the applications of TPACK integration model in some disciplines of primary and secondary schools. Understanding the connotation of circumstances, striving to explore effective ways and methods of integration under different circumstances Context is a concept that other integration models give little or no attention to. Since TPACK context is closely tied to the TPACK integration model implementation and execution, a TPACK theoretical guide (i.e., Subject Teaching Knowledge of Integration Technology: A Guide for Educators), after a general introduction of TPACK content in Chapter 1, namely by Mario Antonio Dr. Kelly (AACTE Commission on Innovation and Technology), in Chapter 2 presents a specifically designed TPACK with plenty of room to connote the concept of context and model of integration in the process of implementation (i.e., the way and method of integrating information technology and curriculum). As defined by Dr. Mario Antonio Kelly, the context of TPACK is a specific class of students and teachers, and the factors of physical environment of the class (hardware and software infrastructure), the students’ family background, cognitive characteristics, psychological qualities, and the class spirit. The context involves aspects of physiology, psychology, cognition, language, society, culture, and so on and so forth. Due to the complexity of contextual factors, especially the synergistic effect among them, contexts have potential obstacles for the integration of information technology into the teaching process (for example, if the knowledge base and cognitive ability of the same class of students are significantly different, it will cause great obstacles to classroom teaching). This also offers potential opportunities and support. For example, in the cases listed above, the teachers can choose the appropriate pedagogy to remove the appropriate barriers. The list of such obstacles and opportunities is endless. Briefly, the context and its complexity further emphasize the teacher’s important role in integrating IT into the teaching of a subject. In Fig. 1 above, which shows the components of TPACK, the context term is emphasized because the vast range of teachers should use the model in order to maintain the integration, but should not only pay attention to technology (T), pedagogy, (P) and content (C), as well as should not neglect the importance of the context. Therefore, future teacher training and professional development should guide them to pay more attention to the complex contexts (specially to pay attention to the synergy among the factors that make up the context), as well as try to explore effective ways and methods of integration under different circumstances. Teachers must have TPACK knowledge and try implementing in the integration process As stated in the first dimension of TPACK connotations above, the model is an entirely new piece of content knowledge that should and must be held by teachers, and its implementation cannot be separated from teachers. Therefore, in the process of integration of information technology into subject teaching through TPACK, teachers

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must perform as designers and implementers of classroom teaching, the leaders, and regulators of the teaching process; that is, teachers must play a leading role in the integration process. In other words, in the process of integration of information technology with curriculum through TPACK model, in addition to the new knowledge of TPACK, most vital for teachers is to establish in their minds the educational idea that teachers should play a leading role in the process of integration of information technology into subject instruction. Compared with student-centered educational ideology in the first two integration stages (namely WebQuest stage and TELS stage) in the United States, which only emphasizes students’ independent learning and independent exploration but ignores (or even excludes) the chief role of teachers, this is a great shock wave and a great progress. Second, to make teaching (no matter what subject teaching) more effective, indepth, and master TPACK knowledge, teachers must understand the TPACK connotation and the second dimension of its features. TPACK incorporates three kinds of knowledge, which are course content, teaching methods, and technical elements, but it is not a simple mix of these three elements, but technology integration (i.e., merging) should be incorporated into specific course content and methods of teaching knowledge. This means that the study and application of TPACK do not simply emphasize technology or teaching methods in isolation (or the traditional teaching method), but rather focuses more on the information technology medium of teaching and learning theory and methods (also known as information theory and teaching and learning methods) of study and application. Cases of implementation and requirements of the TPACK integration model in elementary and secondary school subjects in elementary and middle school Case of reading and writing teaching in the fifth grade [11] This is a reading and writing for a fifth-grade class of Ms. Lander. She completes the teaching requirements using digital storytelling. Digital storytelling is a modern expression of the ancient way of storytelling. It requires students to have a certain knowledge of the subject contents, such as vocabulary, reading, writing, and oral expression. Ms. Lander divides the implementation of the teaching contents into three parts. First, the teacher carefully selects a number of historical novels suitable for the class’s reading level, such as The wind does not come, Lily’s Crossroads, Counting the stars and I have heard of a piece of land. Second, divide the class into 5 study groups (4–6 students in each group). Third, each study group (each group is equivalent to a literary circle) will read, discuss, and explore the novel selected by the teacher for 4 weeks. In traditional teaching, the instructors teach a lesson every day and review and consolidate the contents. Ms. Lander is now expanding the content of her lessons through digital storytelling. To this end, she implemented the TPACK mode in the third step above five steps: Step 1—The teacher gives a presentation on how to tell a digital story using PPT electronic manuscript (mainly illustrating the main points);

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Step 2—The teacher gives to each study group a theme for digital storytelling (for example, each group is expected to create a story around a theme such as someone’s experience or a historical event); Step 3—The teacher shows to the students a story about special living customs of American Indian students in the boarding school with multimedia (i.e., the teacher will give an example of digital storytelling). At the end of the presentation, the teacher clearly explains the online evaluation criteria and rules of the learning result assessment; Step 4—Students enter the literary circle in groups and begin reading, discussion, and inquiry activities lasting 4 weeks. After a period of reading and discussion, we can start to create stories based on the theme proposed by the teacher, which includes: designing the story framework, collecting materials, and using software tools (such as iMovie, Windows Movie Maker, etc.) to write stories and other activities; Step 5—The last stage of the teaching in this unit (approximately before and after the fourth week), every literature circle (i.e., the study group) based on discussion and exploration, can start creating multimedia presentations with implementation of oral expression. In this case, the context of implementation of TPACK model involves the following factors: the teaching content—reading and writing in the fifth grade of primary school, and the teacher expands the teaching content through digital storytelling; the class was divided into five study groups (each group was equivalent to a literary circle) to read, discuss, and explore the novels selected by the teacher; students already have the corresponding subject content knowledge of vocabulary, reading, writing, oral expression, etc.; the classroom is supported by multimedia and network facilities and so on. In this case, much of the 4-week learning process was spent on reading, discussions, and explorations in the literature circle (namely, student self-study and introspection). Yet the leading role of the teachers was not neglected, but was fully played. As mentioned above, the realization of the learning content here is split into three parts, among which the first and second parts are finished by the teachers. Part three is mostly based on autonomous student learning and independent learning, but in the process of implementation of the five steps, the first three are all demonstrated, mentored, and ensured with inspiration by the teacher. The last two steps are difficult to implement, and if implemented, it is difficult to achieve the desired effect. This indicates that, in this case, if the teacher only emphasizes students’ autonomous learning, autonomous exploration and neglects (or even ignores) teachers’ leading role, radical constructionist student-centered education will have the profound critical consequences; in fact, whether teachers have the critical awareness for the effective implementation of the TPACK model or not plays an important role. In this case, the application of TPACK knowledge is mainly reflected in the five steps in the third part of the above-described teaching process—not only in the first three steps in which teachers play a leading role, but also in the next two steps in which students play a leading role in independent learning and independent inquiry.

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This is because in the Steps 1 and 3 teachers use information technology directly (PPT or multimedia) or display the teaching content; in Step 2 the teacher displays digital storytelling theme, (namely, students discuss how to use digital means to tell the story); obviously, the three teaching steps involve knowledge about course contents, teaching method, and technology, which are the three elements of integration. So, this process naturally embodies the TPACK knowledge and use. Look at autonomous student learning and offline research in Steps 4 and 5: here students first develop a story structure, gather materials, and then use software tools to create the story, either in groups or online. Obviously, this activity cannot be accomplished without the support of information technology, also, it requires the selection of teachers to teach the course content in the literature circles to develop a digital storytelling directly in relation to teaching methods, namely, the integration of course content, instructional method, and technology—the three factors of knowledge involved in the learning process. This indicates that in this case, even though the teaching phases are based on independent learning and student independent learning, effective learning activities (i.e., learning activities that can achieve the intended teaching goals) cannot be achieved without the guidance and application of TPACK knowledge. B. Teaching cases of permutation and combination problem in middle school mathematics [11]. Professor Neal F. Grandgenett, editorial director of the international Journal of Mathematics and Computer Education, believes that for a math classroom to be effective, teachers must have the skills embodied in TPACK to integrate the crossfield knowledge of subject matter, pedagogy, and technology. From the point of view of the subject content features Professor Grandgenett stressed that mathematics teachers’ learning and application of TPACK knowledge should follow the following sequence: First, the teacher must fully grasp subject contents of mathematics; it is possible to understand and reveal and expand the profound connotation of the subject contents in the actual teaching; secondly, teachers should be able to use appropriate teaching methods to teach the content of mathematics, to effectively help students to understand the relevant mathematical principles, laws, or concepts in a systematic way. Third, since most contemporary mathematical contents are intricately interwoven with various technologies, teachers must be able to understand and select technologies that are relevant to the content of the subject being taught, and to apply them appropriately in the teaching process. Fourth, as Matthew J. Koehler and Punya Mishra have illustrated, TPACK is not only the embodiment of the knowledge of subject contents, teaching method, and technology, but also the integration (or integration) of all three. The mastery and application of TPACK knowledge (that is, the implementation of TPACK model) have no fixed solution suitable for all knowledge points and different contexts. On the contrary, such a solution can only be found by relying on the cognitive flexibility of teachers in the combination and intersection of the three kinds of knowledge and in different contexts.

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In mathematics teaching, the question of whether or not one can establish close proximity to life is of vital importance and has a role to play not only by introducing topics of current content naturally, but also by providing a vivid and non-boring alternative introduction (by creating this situation, students’ attention can be highly concentrated and cognitive conflict can arise in order to stimulate their motivation to learn); in addition, it certainly plays a guiding part in helping students properly understand the relevant mathematical principals, laws, or concepts in a systematic way. To illustrate this point, Professor Grandgenett provides examples of using the backpack problem to create situations. Backpack problem is a real-life problem proposed by Caldwel and Masat in 1991 [11]: You are going to conduct a two-week hiking and will carry everything you need. You made a list with 8 items you may need with a total weight of 77 pounds. In your list there is also the weight of each item and the value of it, you can use numbers 1–5 (5 for the heaviest weight or the highest value) to evaluate each item. If you can carry only 30 pounds, which items you should carry in order to achieve the maximum value? At a first glance, this might seem like a simple question. Using a spreadsheet and sorting items by weight or value might yield something, but you will soon realize that this is not the answer to the backpack question above. In order to carry maximum number of items, you need to try 8 squares of 2 (256 items) in different combinations. Obviously, in this case, writing a piece of software (a computer program) to try out all possible combinations is an effective strategy to solve the problem in a relatively short time. The problem of arrangement, combination, and optimization is not only encountered in how to select the necessary items in the backpack. The same is true when NASA tries to decide which experiments to accommodate on a space mission—each with its own weight and value of the facilities involved (just as the objects carried on a trip with their own weight and value). Obviously, this knapsack problem creates a real situation and is highly appropriate for the theme of arrangement and combination. Not only the students attention can completely be focused on the learning of the theme, but students’ cognitive conflict may be aroused effectively (because this kind of situation related to space mission is likely to inspire each student to find a solution to the problem as soon as possible) in terms of learning motivation and learning interest; moreover, it plays an important role in helping students to form a correct understanding of the concept of permutation and combination and master the analysis and treatment methods of permutation and combination. The context condition in the case study is the instruction of arranging and combinations challenge in middle school mathematics. The students are steeped in the teacher’s creativity, and the current situation is closely related to the learning content, self-learning, and group collaboration surrounding the computer and classroom support knapsack problem (so that students write programs to try all possible combinations). In this case, backpack problem is used to carry out situation teaching. Arrangement and combination are the subject content to be taught in this math class. To develop

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students’ independent learning and cooperative inquiry based on group inquiry by creating real-life situation is the teaching method adopted by teachers in combination with subject contents to be taught in this class. For this kind of teaching methods to be effective, every student should have the chance to try all 256 possible combinations, which requires technical support and can only be done by writing computer software, and the technical support must be incorporated into the current learning process; namely to the current lesson contents and teaching method. It is a technology that enables students to better understand and master the subject being taught, so that the current teaching method can be truly effective and adopted. The case of situation teaching above is also a typical case of implementing TPACK integration in mathematics class.

4.3 Countermeasures of Japanese Scholars 4.3.1

Advocating a New Teaching Mode Based on Coordinated Self-Disciplined Learning [14]

At present, the basic view in educational technology circles in Japan is that the applications of information technology in education (including online teaching and distance education) have been increasingly popular, though most of them follow the traditional teacher-centered instructional method based on knowledge transmission. The corresponding teaching process and teaching design framework are shown in Fig. 2 (a). However, mobile terminals (including mobile phones, PDAS, micro-computers, network games, etc.) and the rapid development of mobile computing technology signal about totally different emerging education approach. Due to the mobile terminals are small, but plentiful in functions (not only can be used in verbal communication, email correspondence, etc., but also support video, writing, Internet, and many other functions), if used in education, can bring a totally different situation. In order to adapt to the current state and demands in the field of education, a group of Japanese scholars represented by Nishikiyohara put forward a new teaching method (in year 2005), which can fully arouse the initiative and enthusiasm of learners. The corresponding teaching process and teaching design framework are shown in Fig. 2b. During the new school year, which began in spring 2005, a team led by Nishikiyohara, experimented with this approach. The 276 students were divided into 44 study groups to carry out the teaching and learning activities. In this way of teaching, both adults and children can learn according to their own will, can design learning environment according to their own ideas; instead of the current school system, where learners have no initiative in choosing what to study and where to study.

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a

Education goals Education contents

Pedagogy

Foresight Teachers’ experience

Teaching skills

Reflection

Education results

Learning development

Foresight

Mentor experience

Analysis & interpretation

Practical knowledge

Empirical knowledge

b

Diverse needs of autonomous learning objectives

Education practice

Learning management

Reflection

Empirical knowledge

Coordinated & self-regulated learning

Analysis & interpretation

Practical knowledge

Fig. 2 a The framework of teacher-centered instructional design; b The framework of studentcentered instructional design

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Teaching Method Based on Coordinated Self-Disciplined Learning [14]

The teaching method of coordinated self-disciplined learning involves five steps: 1.

2.

3.

Basic concept: refers to execution of this teaching method. At the beginning, it is necessary to clarify the course goals and requirements for students. The goals and requirements are that each student should learn in a coordinated and disciplined manner; at the end of the study, everyone should write a complete study report; be actively involved in educational practice and gain the required abilities from it. Metaphor and analogy: using various analogies (especially implying some morals, i.e., metaphors) and finding similarities among different things; applying visual images to support students in finding connections among the currently learned knowledge (complex and abstract concepts) and knowledge from their everyday life, thus allowing them to become familiar with current complicated knowledge and abstract notions with ease, and facilitate learners to further understand the inner relationship between different knowledge concepts. The mental image (also known as mental representation) refers to how the cognitive subject represents the nature, the structure, or the internal relationship of objective things in the brain. In the process of implementing independent study coordination, in order to support students to cultivate as soon as possible the actual learning content in the brain that reflects the proper mental representation of the objective things; that is, in order to help students understand and internalize as soon as possible the actual learning contents and the internal relationship between things (law) that reflects the essential property of objective things (concept), the following four steps must be taken to promote the formation of the proper mental representation (i.e., mental framing): – Cultivate students’ awareness of problem-raising, inspire students to put forward their own questions around current teaching contents, including knowledge and concepts; – Students’ collect and process the information related to, the problem and then think somberly and express ideas in groups; – Based on careful thinking and full discussion, students gradually form a more comprehensive and in-depth understanding as well as airing views on solving the problem in groups (forming a correct mental representation); – Each student completes a study report to summarize the above learning process and experience.

From the above process, the contents that form correct psychological representation (namely, mental image) are the goal to be pursued in the process of coordinated self-disciplined learning, the concrete embodiment of features of coordinated self-disciplined learning mode, and the key to the success of this learning mode. 4.

Model (teaching design model)

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Model refers to the theoretical operating style or operating framework. In order to facilitate instructional design that reflects the process of coordinated self-disciplined learning, Nishikiyohara proposed a teaching design model called MACETO. The whole teaching design is built around the meanings of six English letters MACETO, representing respectively: M denotes Meaning, that is, the full understanding of the importance of the coordination of autonomous learning style, based on the transfer from traditional way of learning (entirely teacher-center approach) to self-coordinated learning with the emphasis on students’ initiative and enthusiasm, which plays an important role in the process of cultivation of their innovative spirit and innovative ability; A refers to Activities (including self-study activities, group collaboration activities, and teacher-learner interactions) that emphasize action, participation, and expertise throughout the whole learning session and require real learning and real experience; C stands for Content, specifically the current content of learning to be completed (which knowledge elements are involved in the learning process, and the internal connections between that knowledge); E stands for Learning Environment—the creation of an Environment that promotes coordinated and self-disciplined learning, i.e., the establishment of a learning environment that can facilitate Independent Inquiry, group collaborative activities, and teacher-student interactions; T refers to Tools. To create an environment conducive to the realization of coordinated and self-disciplined learning, it cannot be detached from the support of various software tools and software platforms in multimedia and network environments; O refers to the Outcome, which is what kind of learning outcome students can achieve throughout this kind of coordinated and self-disciplined learning—this is also the teaching goal to be achieved and pursued by teaching design. 5.

Statement

Statement refers to the judgment given in a form of a text: students are required to present their learning outcomes (that is, understanding inner links between things and judgment) achieved during the process of coordinated self-disciplined in a form of a written report.

4.4 Countermeasures of Chinese Scholars Analysis and study of the theory and practice of ITCI in the world, as well as more than 20 years of our own experience in experimental instructional practice, made us gradually gain a new understanding of the process of information technology and curriculum integration (especially its connotation and meaning), and construct a new scientific theory of IT and curriculum integration. On this basis, as already indicated

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above, we have finally discovered the ways and means of the improvement of school subjects and students’ skills by implementation of methods of deep integration, or in other words, the initiatives and methods, which can effectively address the challenges of basic education.

4.5 Analysis and Comparison of the Above Approaches and Methods All the above measures are the latest representative measures and practices that have achieved some results since the beginning of this century. These countermeasures can be divided into two categories: that of the western mainstream scholars’ countermeasures (including the countermeasures of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, American countermeasures of early period, and countermeasures of Japanese scholars) and countermeasures of Chinese scholars, and those of, American scholars. Here need to point out that the American scholars of the early countermeasures refer to the countermeasures taken before 2008, which include the first phase of WebQuest mode and the second stage of the TELS mode; Countermeasures of American scholars in recent years refer to the countermeasures adopted after 2008, namely, TPACK mode. The differences between the above two types of countermeasures are mainly reflected in three aspects:

4.5.1

Two Types of Countermeasures Follow Completely Different Educational Thoughts

The countermeasures put forward by western researchers are based on the thought of student-centered education. The standards for Teachers’ Information Technology Competence (ICT-CST) issued by UNESCO clearly stipulate that instructional practice should be student-centered. In order to change the traditional teaching method based on knowledge transfer, Japanese researchers put forward a new teaching method based on coordinated and self-disciplined learning. To realize this teaching method, learner-centered instructional design as shown in Fig. 2b must be adopted. In the United States in the project of TELS (using technology to strengthen science learning), although it was used to promote the effective integration of information technology and science teaching within four enactments (that is, the science curriculum design, teachers’ professional training, evaluation, and information technology support), there was made no mention of the student-centered approach. However, one of the project leading advocates and facilitators, Professor Jim Slotta, when was introducing the implementation experience of TELS and WISE, pointed out [15]: “Lecturing and traditional teaching are terrible models, so we need to explore better ways of how to engage learners in the learning process, such as advanced teaching modes like collaborative learning and design-based learning.” He

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added: “there is no knowledge being taught across the curriculum, and students are always engaged in the process of creating and criticizing the materials, or in solving problems.” Thus, the guiding ideology of TELS program in the United States is to completely reject the traditional lecturing method (i.e., transmission-acceptance) and strongly advocate the student-centered instruction. The countermeasures that western scholars have put forward are built on the basis of student-centered education thought, for the reason that since the 1900s with the increasing popularity of multimedia and network technology, constructionist as a new type of learning and teaching, theory is being widely popular in the world, and believed to be the main theoretical basis of reformation of education in the information age. It is well known that the basic viewpoint of constructionist holds [16]: knowledge is self-constructed in the process of interaction between learners and the environment, and it is based on personal experience, which is purely subjective and varies from person to person. It cannot be taught by teachers, so students must be in the center of the learning process. It is precisely because constructionist adheres to the epistemology of subjectivity in philosophy that inevitably advocates the student-centered educational thought, and is widely spread in the Western world. However, the countermeasures proposed by Chinese scholars (including TPACK advocated by American researchers after 2008) are based on a completely different educational thought—“teacher-and-student combined” educational thought (also known as blended educational or B-learning). Here, we have no intention to judge the relative merits of these two kinds of education thoughts, but just wish to point out that eastern and western cultures are rooted in different soils, that’s why the final formation of education thoughts are also bound to have their own characteristics. We should draw lessons and absorb the excellent achievements of western civilization, but must not blindly copy it, should receive advantages, and reject inappropriateness.

4.5.2

Differences Between Two Strategies in Understanding the Role of the Teacher

Because of the difference in educational thoughts between the two strategies, the understandings of the role of teachers will certainly differ. Under the guidance of radical constructionist, western scholars generally deny the important role of teachers in imparting knowledge and skills in the teaching process. For example, as mentioned above, Professor Slotta, one of the TELS program hosts, said that lecturing and traditional teaching are a very bad models and, frankly stated, in his TELS pilot teaching, the teacher did not teach knowledge throughout the course. Although the role of teachers is not denied in TELS program, the teacher professional training is also included in the four implementation steps in order to promote the integration of information technology and science teaching. However, in the experimental teaching in TELS project, the role of teachers is only reflected in the following three aspects [15]:

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– Walking back and forth in the classroom in order to better interact with students and understand how students engage in inquiry learning and collaborative learning; – Participating in students’ inquiry and collaboration activities as a participant, or guide students’ inquiry and collaboration process as a commentator—this new interactive form is conducive to students’ deep processing of new knowledge; – Creating the required learning environment for students to carry out scientific research activities—Web-based Inquiry Science Environment (WISE) is designed and developed under the guidance of this requirement. The three roles can be summed up as what advocates constructionist: teachers should be the conveners and directors of the inquiry and process of collaborative learning, the creators and providers of the learning environments, and the helpers and advocates of the construction of students’ meaning. Clearly, none of these areas involves classroom lecturing. The UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization’s Information Technology Capability Standard for Teachers (despite three manuals on the ICT-CST capability standard, information technology literacy, deepening knowledge capability, and creative knowledge capability) has done detailed rules for implementation, and two of the aptitude modules are specifically linked to the process of teaching teacher knowledge frameworks, but, as previously described, knowledge-deepening abilities and creating knowledge goals refer to the fact that a teacher must have a capacity to change teaching methods (namely, the teacher must be able, through collaborative, problem-based or project-based learning, to enable students to apply learned concepts and knowledge to more complex problems), and the ability to understand how to implement student-centered teaching). This capacity to create the knowledge means that teachers must be able to deliberately update teaching concepts and recognize that the ability to assess oneself and others is an essential part of student learning. The ability to deepen knowledge and create knowledge, which UNESCO requires, also does not encompass the capacity to teach in a classroom based on lectures. Regarding the new method of teaching proposed by Japanese scholars (the coordinated self-disciplined learning), which is formed on the basis of traditional teaching, and the critique of the focus on the teacher, as well as the transmission of knowledge, it is not possible to include lecture-based teaching in the classroom (the main drawbacks of lecture-based instruction is that too much emphasis is placed on the transfer of knowledge while the cultivation of students’ abilities is ignored). Just compare Fig. 2a and Fig. 2b earlier. Chinese researchers have a broader understanding of the role of the teacher. Simply put, the duty of teachers is to impart knowledge and educate learners. Education involves emotions, attitudes, values, and outlook on life. It should teach students how to behave. Teaching requires teachers to play a leading role in the teaching process, so that students can learn and master necessary knowledge and skills in the shortest time and in the most effective ways. In terms of teachers’ leading role in the teaching process, Chinese scholars believe that teachers should not only play the role of three aspects such as the three roles in TELS experiment teaching (that is advocated by constructionist organizers and directors of the learning process, learning environment

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designers, and providers and helpers of students’ meaning construction, as well as facilitators), but also to be able to teach, that is, to have lecture-based classroom teaching capacity—rather than dismiss lecturing as something very bad, as western scholars believe. Chinese and western researchers have large differences on this issue, because Chinese researchers believe that in addition to the constructionist as a representative of reform deepening process in education in the information age (or student-centeredness), there is also another learning and teaching theory, represented by Ausubel and Gagne (or teacher-centeredness). It is well known that Ausubel divided learning into two types: meaningful learning and mechanical learning according to its effect. There are two different ways to achieve meaningful learning: imparting-receiving learning and discovery learning. Ausubel believes that both two teaching methods can effectively achieve meaningful learning; the key is to be able to establish a non-arbitrary substantive relationship between new concepts, new knowledge, and the learner’s original cognitive structure. On the contrary, if such connection cannot be established, not only will the imparting-receiving method be mechanical and meaningless, even discovery teaching is impossible to achieve the goal of meaningful learning. Therefore, Ausubel stressed that whether the non-arbitrary substantive connection between the old and the new knowledge can be established is the single and most vital factor affecting learning, which is the most basic and core principle in educational psychology. We agree with Ausubel because countless teaching practices and teaching cases have demonstrated the validity of this principle. Obviously, Ausubel’s ideas on realization of meaningful learning provide the most powerful theoretical support for classroom teaching based on lecturing, which is the concrete embodiment of imparting-receiving teaching mode. Imparting-receiving teaching and discovery learning both can achieve meaningful learning; the key is to be able to set up any kind of substantive contact between learners’ original cognitive structure and the new concepts, and new knowledge. So, if meaningful learning the same as discovery learning can achieve the goals of meaningful learning, what is the reason to think that the former is as a very bad thing and throw it away? In fact, talking about establishing substantial connection between the original cognitive structure and learners’ new concepts and new knowledge, since the teacher has subject knowledge, in-depth theoretical knowledge and insight into the discipline, as well as various internal relations between knowledge points, and understanding students’ learning basis, knowledge level and cognitive characteristics. Therefore, in this case (that is, in terms of the learning of new concepts and new knowledge, it does not involve the cultivation of the ability to analyze and solve problems, as well as the ability of innovative thinking and innovation), the classroom teaching based on teaching (i.e., the “transmission acceptance” teaching method) is certainly much more effective than the “discovery” learning based on students’ autonomous learning and autonomous inquiry. So, the Chinese researchers, although also very fond of the three methods advocated by constructionist—discovery, exploration, and cooperative learning (because this kind of learning is to cultivate students’ ability to analyze and solve), but teachers should never ignore the role of teaching in classroom instruction. The question is how to teach, how to inspire guided problemsolving, how to seize the key difficulties, and what needs special concern is to pay

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more attention to how to help students in the process of establishing new connections among new concepts, new knowledge, and original cognitive structure (teachers’ chief role, the attention to the thought of the right imparting-receiving instructional model, also been fully reflected in TPACK). In a word, a teacher’s duty is to teach and educate. In terms of the leading role of teachers in the teaching process, the three roles advocated by constructionist are organizer and director of learning process, creator and provider of learning environment, helper and promoter of students’ meaning construction. We should also follow Ausubel’s theory and give full play to the advantages of classroom instruction based on teaching. To put a stress on one certain theory can have a one-sided effect, however by combining the two and complementing the advantages of each other the best instructional effects can be obtained.

4.5.3

Differences of Two Countermeasures in the Process and Strategies of Problem-Solving

In order to meet and overcome the challenges of informationization of basic education, UNESCO believes that it is necessary for teachers to master the necessary qualities and abilities within the information-based teaching environments. In Standards for Teachers’ Information Technology Competence (ICT-CST) released by the organization, it is clearly stipulated that such literacy and competencies include: ability to build learning environment, information technology literacy, knowledgedeepening ability, and knowledge-creation ability. The experts of UNESCO mainly pay attention to teachers when dealing with challenges of educational informationization. The teaching factors involved include learning environment, teaching and learning methods, teaching resources, and so on. The TELS project implemented by American scholars aims to promote the effective integration of information technology and science teaching through the research and practice of science curriculum design, teacher professional training, assessment, and information technology support, to improve students’ science learning performance. American scholars focus on curriculum (instructional content) and on teachers when dealing with the problems of education computerization. The teaching factors involve curriculum design, learning environment, teaching and learning methods, teaching resources, and so on. Advocated by the Japanese researchers is the new teaching method of coordinating autonomic learning, which if implemented effectively, involves such basic concepts as metaphor and analogy (mental representation), model (instructional design mode), propositions, such as five steps mentioned above. The key is to form students correct mental representation (as mentioned above, the formation of a mental representation is related to the current teaching content). When Japanese scholars deal with the challenges of educational informationization, they mainly pay attention to students and teaching contents, what involve teaching factors such as learning environment, teaching, and learning methods, instructional design, and psychological representation.

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Among the various countermeasures taken by western researchers to meet the challenges faced by informationization of basic education, as far as the focus is concerned, some regard to teachers, some to courses (teaching content), and some to students and teaching contents. In terms of the teaching factors involved, the commonality (that is, several countermeasures are considered) is the learning environment, teaching and learning methods, teaching resources, and other factors. Differences (that is, only one kind of countermeasure consideration) are the curriculum design, instructional design, psychological representation, and other factors. Among the most representative and authoritative measures proposed by Western researchers in recent years, although the main objects of concern are different, the teaching factors involved are not the same. But they have their own different considerations, and these considerations have their rationality, so it is worth learning from. Yet, it is inadequate that all the above countermeasures seem to lack the corresponding theoretical support—for example, why some countermeasures focus only on teachers, or only on teaching contents and teachers, or only on teaching contents and students? What if the focus is only on students, or on students and teachers? Or students, teachers, and content? None of this is explained in terms of theory; in addition, strategies involve different teaching factors (some more, some less), are they all essential teaching factors? Are there any links between the factors? And what is the connection? None of this is explained in terms of theory. So, it creates a variety of doubt and confusion, and its roots lie in a kind of defective countermeasure of problem-solving approaches and strategies. Pain-cures-all-things (头痛医头、脚痛 医脚) approach to solve the problem is one that lacks systematic, comprehensive and in-depth scientific analysis. When the understanding of the nature of the problem is not clear, and the inner links between things are failed to grasp, it will be difficult to find the most effective ways to solve the problems. In terms of the ideas and strategies of problem-solving, Chinese researchers make totally different choices from western scholars. In the face of severe challenges, the Chinese researchers actively explore countermeasures; that is, efforts to find ways and methods to improve the quality of education through information education—there is no easy way to find ready-made answers; and they start from theory, first constructing deep integration theory for information technology and curriculum. The deep integration theory can give systematic and scientific answers to three basic questions about the integration of information technology and curriculum (namely, the goal, the connotation, the approach, and methods of the integration). As mentioned above, the definition or connotation of the integration of information technology and curriculum given by the theory includes three basic attributes: creating an information-based teaching environment, realizing a new teaching and learning mode, and reforming the traditional classroom teaching structure. And it can be clearly pointed out that these three attributes are not parallel, but progressive—the construction of information teaching environment (which is the basic content of integration) is to support the new way of teaching and learning; the new teaching and learning mode is to reform the traditional classroom teaching structure; the reform of traditional classroom teaching structure is to achieve the goal of cultivating innovative spirit and

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practical ability. The essence and the goal of integration are to reform the traditional classroom teaching structure—to change the teacher-centered traditional classroom teaching structure, and to create a new type of teacher-and-student combined classroom teaching structure, which can give full play to the chief role of teachers and highlight the cognitive status of students as the main entity. Only by understanding the connotation of integration from these three basic attributes, especially the attribute of reforming the traditional classroom teaching structure, can we truly grasp the essence of the deep integration of information technology and curriculum. This deep integration theory is not only the scientific statement for the basic contents of integration, as well as specific and ultimate goals of integration, but it also profoundly reveals the teaching environment (or learning environment), way of teaching and learning, the structure of instructional process and several central organic connections between teaching factors such as innovation ability training and so on. The basic contents of integration are to build information-based teaching environment, the teaching environment should be able to support the creation of the learning situations, inspire thinking, information acquisition, resources sharing, multiple interactions (including the man–machine interaction, interaction between teachers, students, and teachers), as well as learning methods: independent exploration, cooperative learning aspects of requirements of teaching and learning methods. The reform of traditional classroom teaching structure is the overall goal of this integrated course, which realizes the innovation spirit and practice ability training the innovative talents cultivation is to carry out the ultimate goal of deep integration of information technology and curriculum activities), but also profoundly reveals the teaching environment (or learning environment), way of teaching and learning, teaching structure and several central organic connection between teaching factors such as innovation ability training and so on. The structure of classroom instruction refers to a stable structure of education thought, teaching theory, and learning theory, it is a mutual connection and concrete expression of four key elements of the instructional system (teacher, student, instructional content, and instructional tools). The essence and the foothold of integration are to change the traditional classroom teaching structure, that is why the latter becomes a focal point for Chinese scholars. It is the structure of instructional process (or, in other words, the four key elements of instructional system), but not just students-and-teachers or students-teachers-and-instructional content (please, note: the information-based teaching environment and teaching contents do not only refer to the curriculum and written materials, but include images, audio, video, animation, multimedia course-ware, and are based on the study of computer software tools such as the informationization teaching resources). The whole process of integration is determined by the characteristics of classroom instructional structure, or, in other words, the integral components of instructional system, but not as within the approach of Western countries—when no reasons are explained, no foundation is proposed, but based only on the personal interests and subjective judgment.

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We emphasize that the essence and the goal of integration is to reform the traditional classroom teaching structure—to change the teacher-centered classroom teaching structure, and to create a new teacher-and-student combined classroom teaching structure, which can give full play to the leading role of teachers and highlight the cognitive status of students as the main entity. And this is by no means an abstraction or an empty slogan, but actual implementation of the status and the role of each component of the teaching system; that is to say— 1.

2.

3.

The role of teachers should be changed from the deliverer of knowledge or master of classroom teaching to the organizer and director of instructional process; the lecturer, the cultivator of good sentiment, the creator and provider of learning environment, the helper and promoter of students’ deep meaning construction. The role of students should be transformed from passive knowledge recipients and recipients of external stimulus to main entity of information processing, active constructors of knowledge and meaning, as well as emotional experience, become the subject of knowledge and experience internalization and cultivation. Teaching media should be transformed from simple demonstration tools and visual teaching tools to visual teaching tools that assist teachers in breaking through the key difficult points, as well as cognitive tools that promote students’ independent learning and active exploration, joint communication tools, and tools that foster emotional experience and information internalization.

In the traditional teaching, instructional content mainly refers to written materials, which is the only learning content for students, the main source of student knowledge. Now it is definitely the time to make a complete change of this situation: students can and should get knowledge from textbooks, but they also should learn from a variety of other objects (including teachers, students, and social experts of particular course) and a variety of instructional resources (such as discipline project sites, repository, CDs, libraries and reference rooms, etc.) in the forms of learning and teaching materials, which should be richer in contents than traditional teaching materials, so that the teachers could go far beyond simple teaching of knowledge and skills. Since the teaching structure is a system of four closely interconnected factors (teachers, students, learning content, learning tools), if one wants to implement a new teaching framework into the classroom in order to create the real integration, the teachers need to pay close attention to these four elements in the process of the integration of information technology and curricula, to see whether or not the status and the role of those four elements can really be changed, if yes, then to what extent? What elements have changed and which haven’t? What are the reasons for this situation? If only we can carefully analyze these key questions, and then take corresponding measures, there is the way we can realize effective, deep-leveled integration. This is the only way of how to measure the impact and the level of integration.

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5 Impact of Information Technology on Educational Reform at All Levels and Types Since the beginning of the twenty first century, a variety of newly emerged information technologies have been integrated rapidly into the work, study, life, and other areas of human activities, especially in the field of education, which has had a significant and far-reaching impact on the reform deepening process at its all levels. These emerging information technologies mainly involve four: big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and Internet + education. Among those, the concepts of big data, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence are accurate, clear, and not easy to produce misunderstandings or generalization; however Internet + education, at present, has a variety of different academic interpretations—some interpretation come from the Internet age philosophy of education organization construction [17], some from the area of learning environments, and some from collaborative, interactive teaching models. However, if only the perspective of related information technology is taken in order to understand the role and meaning of Internet + education, this concept becomes simpler and clear—in terms of the current situation, Internet + education from the technical point of view can be represented using CCtalk (online live platform), “Learning Cell” learning platform, or other teaching and learning platforms. Next, I would like to introduce and talk about the representative (and in-depth) applications of four types of emerging information technologies in the field of education; namely big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and the Internet + education. Other more specific emerging technologies, such as 3D printing, fall into the category of big data; robots can be classified as artificial intelligence; Web 2.0, the Internet of Things, and mobile wireless technologies can be categorized as Internet + education. I won’t go through the list here.

5.1 Big Data Educational Applications Big data refers to massive data that is difficult to be captured, managed, and analyzed by general software tools. Compared with traditional data, it is characterized by huge amount of data, unstructured, distributed with large number of visual presentations [18]. At present, it is widely believed in the academic circles of China and abroad that big data can change the way of human education and learning. Some researchers also believe that the way of human thinking can be changed (in fact, big data can indeed significantly improve the quality and efficiency of thinking, while the way of thinking processing is controlled by the neuro-physiological mechanism of cerebral cortex and cannot be changed by big data) [19]. Big data education applications mainly rely on the support of Educational Data Mining (EDM) and Learning Analytics (LA). The connotation of educational data mining (EDM) is to quantify, analyze and model learning behavior and learning

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processes. The purpose of EDM is to use statistical, machine learning, and data mining methods to analyze the data generated in the teaching and learning processes. The connotation of learning analysis technology (LA) is measurement, collection, and analysis of data about learners and their learning environments. The purpose of LA is to understand and optimize the learning process and learning environment, especially to use big data in order to analyze learners’ features so as to provide the basis for personalized resources construction. In the context of big data, the use of EDM and LA can help teachers improve teaching effectively. For example, teachers can view the number of students’ questions on the Internet, see to what extent they are involved in the discussions, explore characteristics of students’ learning processes, e.g., the records of the mouse clicks, etc.; on this basis students’ learning behavior can be examined, and then most appropriate teaching methods and strategies can be found. It can also be used to track students’ learning activities: how much time do students spend on different knowledge points? Which points need to be repeated or emphasized? Which presentations or learning tools are most effective? etc. Big Data can also help teachers to make a comprehensive and correct evaluation of students achievements—with complete information collection and strict logical reasoning, big data can objectively and comprehensively show the image of a students’ learning process. This allows the teacher to correctly examine and evaluate each student’s achievements, and then make correct evaluations on this basis, as well as carry on effective interventions. The above analysis shows that big data has unique advantages in supporting personalized learning and adaptive teaching, which is one of the goals of education reform deepening at all levels. The arrival of big data era also brings new opportunities to information literacy training of primary and secondary school teachers. In the process of information literacy training for primary and secondary school teachers, a large amount of data is generated, including structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data such as numbers, symbols, text, audio, video, graphics, and images. Big data technology in the process of primary and secondary school teacher training allows us to collect and analyze all kinds of information mentioned above, so as to find out problems and give feedback to teachers. Therefore, the training of teachers can be adjusted by the training plan according to the feedback information, while school teachers can adjust self-adaptive learning according to the feedback information, so as to perform more effectively [19]. The construction of information literacy training platform for primary and secondary school teachers based on big data involves five links: data collection and storage, data analysis, visual presentations, personalized training plan formulation, and training evaluation. The collected data involves static data and dynamic data. Static data refers to the basic personal information of the teachers and various training resources used by teachers within training. Dynamic data includes preview and evaluation data of training resources collected by the teachers before training, behavior data of teachers in the training process, and practical operation data after training. Data analysis is the key link in the operation of training platform. Based on a large amount of in-depth data mining and analysis in the process of searching the

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relationships and the value of the data, we analyze teachers’ information literacy and information literacy requirements, as well as requirements for support services during and after the training process, etc. All these things provide the basis for formulation of correct training plan. Visual presentations can dynamically present the information obtained by big data analysis in the information literacy training process to the teachers in the forms of intuitive graphs or charts to help them understand the deep value of the information. The platform also makes a personalized training plan for teachers, which is not static, but is in the process of constant updating: practice testing, finding shortcomings in practice and making modifications, etc. steps are repetitive and cyclical, what ensures the applicability of the training plan. Training evaluation function of the platform happens not just after implementation of training plans, but throughout the whole training process at each step. In addition, two kinds of evaluation methods (formative and summative assessment) complement each other, so it can timely detect and solve the problem, fully promise the training results [19].

5.2 Cloud Computing Educational Applications Since 2010, cloud computing has spread over all kinds and all levels of education in our country. Especially it fosters the distribution, promotion, and sharing of highquality education resources, promotes quality education resources, thus making it possible to foster regional balanced development of the compulsory education of high quality. Cloud computing plays a vital role in China, only in Beijing Fengtai District Bureau of Education under the E-Fengtai teacher project for example [20], you can see the rapid development of cloud computing education, which is presented in three types of education application presented below. Beijing Fengtai District Education Bureau started to build education cloud platform of the district in 2015. After two years of careful design and planning, Fengtai District education cloud platform (referred to as E-Fengtai Teacher) was officially launched on April 27, 2017, thus opening a new era of digital teaching and learning led by cloud computing in Fengtai District education. At present, the E-Fengtai Teacher platform enables teachers to work and study in the cloud anytime and anywhere through single sign-on or unified authentication in a safe and convenient way. This platform has gathered all kinds of high-quality resources inside and outside the district, and on this basis the following three aspects of educational applications have been carried out [20].

5.2.1

Promotion of Co-Construction and Sharing of High-Quality Resources

E-Fengtai Teacher platform gathers China Knowledge Network, Beijing city-level best teaching resources, Fengtai District-level best resources, school level and teachers self-built quality resources databases, as well as application stores for each

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grass-roots unit to choose. The cloud platform is a large virtual community based on cloud services. Most teachers can easily share teaching resources and exchange teaching methods by logging into the cloud platform. QQ, WeChat, and other communication software allow achieving instant messaging, transmission and sharing of files, remote collaboration, and interaction. It can also backup, store, and share various materials and files in such cloud services as 360 Cloud Disk and Baidu Cloud Disk, so that administrators of schools and teachers could learn, communicate, and cooperate with each other on the cloud platform. The personalization, digitization, and networking, as well as openness, issues of common access, interactivity, and collaborative issues of the applications of the E-Fengtai Teacher platform are of considerable breadth and depth. The platform supports school teachers in the process of instruction, continued teacher education, remote network education, and allows them to construct, implement, and share quality education resources from the comfort of own homes. Cloud platforms can deliver the most abundant quality resources to most users at the fastest speed and at the lowest cost, thus, promoting the balanced development among schools and greatly reducing or even eliminating unbalanced development of compulsory education in the region.

5.2.2

Assisting Teacher Training and Teaching Research

The vigorous promotion of E-Fengtai Teacher platform for teacher training and teaching research at all levels in the district is reflected in the following three aspects: The cloud platform promotes quality of teaching and research with rich resources and various conditions

All kinds of high-quality teaching resources gathered by the cloud platform, what provides resources guarantee for all schools in the region and allows to carry out teaching and research activities (such as teaching design cases of various disciplines, various high-quality demonstration courses, etc.), and creates convenient online learning conditions for teachers to self-study and what is more important to learn within interdisciplinary approach. Through the observations of other subjects, the teachers’ experiences transfer to their own disciplines and teaching, what broadens their ideas and vision, enhances their information literacy and teaching abilities. Use of teacher community on cloud platform in order to deepen the development of thematic teaching and research On the platform of E-Fengtai Teacher, district research staff in the teacher community, can work according to particular demands in order to establish a number of different topics, carry out different contents of online teaching and researching activities, so as to break through the limitations of the staff work, time and space, geography, subject, and learning sessions. This let all the teachers have an opportunity to participate in teaching and research activities by careful organization and leadership

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of teaching and research section in the district, as well as to foster deep thinking and concentration on research. The following is an example of the Formative Assessment Research based on Interactive Feedback Teaching project implemented in the district, which helps to illustrate how the district makes use of the teacher community on the cloud platform and conducts the in-depth thematic teaching and research: Formative Evaluation research based on Interactive Feedback teaching is a key subject of the national thirteenth five-year plan of educational technology planning approved by Central Audio-visual Center in China. There are altogether 24 primary and secondary schools and kindergartens in Fengtai District. The Teaching and Research Department of the information center of the district (equivalent to the Teaching and Research Office of the district) organizes the implementation of the project in accordance with the work plan every semester—from guiding the preparation of the project research plan, to the revision and defense of the research plan of each school; from the general topic opening meeting of the information Center to the sub-topic opening meeting of each school; from a discipline design training to each discipline school teacher lectures demonstration; every project meeting, theme training, lesson observation, and discussion, etc. are incorporated into the community of Interactive feedback teaching and Research on the Platform of E-Fengtai Teacher. The resources and research trends in the teaching and research community also facilitate each sub-project school to keep consistence with the research plan of the general research group, so that each school could carry out its own sub-project research work in an orderly manner within the school.

5.2.3

Improving Subject Instruction Quality Using “Precise Teaching” Method Based on Interactive Feedback System

Interactive Response System (IRS) refers to the classroom information teaching system composed of remote control, receiver, and cloud platform software for both teachers and students in the multimedia computer classroom environment. In this system, each teacher and student has a remote controller. During the instructional process, each student can participate in the interactions according to the questions set by the teacher through selection of corresponding items or before answering and can get immediate feedback. The system has the functions of collecting group feedback information, performing automatic statistics and presentation immediately, what constitutes to a set of automatic evaluation, investigation, feedback, record, statistics in a classroom information teaching system. Teachers use this system in classroom teaching, what requires an in-depth study of the textbook, with following design of a syllabus and choice options according to the situation of students, teaching content, key points, and difficult points. The design of the syllabus involves the compilation of multiple-choice questions or judgment questions; the number of required options should be 2–5 (not too many). Teachers post questions via remote controllers, and students answer questions via their own hand-controlled remote controllers. The interactive feedback system supported by the cloud platform has three advantages in teaching: First, we can better implement the practice of teaching in accordance with students’ aptitude. Interactive Feedback System under the cloud platform support solves the problems that teachers face in the classroom instructional process: difficult to give feedback to all the students, and give to many students the feedback information in time. This technology allows every student by just clicking a button

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on the remote control, participate in learning activities, and can obtain immediate feedback information, while the teacher by using the response system can collect the information of the students immediately, so as to know the right and wrong answers of each student and the statistics of the options of each answer (such as the statistics of the percentage of the students in each option). Therefore, by using this automatic statistical function of data, teachers can get timely feedback of each student’s learning situation and adjust instructional methods, strategies, and processes accordingly, so as to better implement individualized teaching. Second, a shift from passive to active learning (from I must learn to I want to learn). The interactive feedback teaching system eliminates students’ fear of classroom tests and their worries when answering questions. The design of test outline can trigger students’ cognitive conflict—changing from passively accepting knowledge to actively exploring them (students need to think independently during the process of manipulations). When cognitive conflict happens, students carry out analysis and debate, thus moving from passive to active learning, from surface to deep meaning construction. In a word, deep learning really improves the learning effect. In the process of answering questions, students who get correct answers, and those who have deviated answers may have a little debate (the information that teachers collect through the interactive feedback system, can be used in this debate, or carried out collaboratively in the group), what not only provides the ground for the interaction between teachers and students in class, but also forms the group effect, greatly improving students’ study enthusiasm. Finally, the shift from I must learn to I want to learn is likely to take place. Third, it can provide effective data support for teachers’ scientific research and formative evaluation of teaching. The interactive feedback teaching system supported by the cloud platform can not only accurately record all the teaching and learning information generated in the whole class, but also automatically analyze the feedback data of each student and the whole class in the teaching process. It can not only analyze each student’s learning situation, but also analyze the class’s overall mastery of knowledge points. In this way, it is not only convenient for teachers to summarize the instructional process, to provide rigorous scientific data for teaching research, but also helps to implement formative evaluation of teaching process. Walking in the cloud, opening a new era of digital teaching and learning is not only a slogan, but also a new stage in the development of educational informatization, which is the concrete embodiment of the development of digital campus, smart campus, and smart classroom.

5.3 Artificial Intelligence Educational Application In the academic circles of China and other countries, it is widely believed that the future of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an Intelligence era. AI will be integrated

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with people’s work, learning and life and change all the aspects of human society profoundly (especially the traditional industries and education).

5.3.1

Representative Views on the Application of AI Education in China

In China, views on AI education application and prospect can be represented by Dr. Zhang Gao [16], the high education division general manager of BAIDU company, who said, intelligent era is likely to produce two scenarios: one is artificial intelligence will replace many simple mental work; second, through deep integration of artificial intelligence with all areas of life, it will realize reconstruction of traditional industries, so that the role of the Internet will realize the qualitative change from improving efficiency to restructuring industry. Artificial intelligence (AI) will also have a profound impact on the field of education, which is directly reflected in [16]: AI will bring education closer to its essence, which is the process of systematically helping learners to improve their cognitive abilities and ideological morality, and serving their individual needs. For example— AI intention recognition technology can be used to explore the real needs of each user, and then provide corresponding personalized services according to the personalized needs. AI knowledge catcher technology can capture different types of knowledge points in the article and recommend various learning contents related to the knowledge points for users to expand the learning depth and learning boundaries, to provide learners with more effective learning support services. AI augmented reality (AR) technology in teaching can provide knowledge materialization service; namely by building AR scene, abstract knowledge can be presented in three-dimensional vivid interpretation, thus expanding students’ interest in learning and endorse students in-depth understanding and mastery of those abstract knowledge. AI virtual reality teaching (VR teaching) technology can provide the multidimensional interactive experience; that is, to provide classroom hardware, software, terminal, and a complete solution of the course required by virtual reality technology, thus creating an unprecedented immersion learning experience. AI lightning estimation technology can satisfy the demands of entrance examinations services. For example, PC and APP can launch the analysis of papers synchronously within 2 h (400 million copies can be examined within 4 days). On the first day of the college entrance examination, 4 million students and their parents will be served. The real exam questions and analysis can cover 90% of the exam areas. AI intelligent lesson preparation technology can provide teachers with intelligent lesson preparation services and provide teachers with high-quality lesson preparation resources according to the needs of classroom instruction progress; to meet teachers’ personalized needs for lesson preparation.

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Representative Views on the Application of AI Education in the World

A similar international view is presented by Stephen Haggard (former Executive director of the Open University Curriculum program and now an expert in online learning consulting at the Department for Education). Haggard believes that the latest advances in the application of AI in education are mainly reflected in the following four aspects [17]: One is the customization of textbooks—the contents of textbooks can be presented according to the way students want to read it. A piece of software called Cram101 can do this, it can automatically arrange the contents of textbooks in a completely new and different way according to different reading purposes, such as skimming, reviewing, or deep reading. For example, it can represent the original text in the form of summaries, highlights, quizzes, or comprehension checks. It can also remind readers of previously overlooked or missed contents; Second, helping language learners identify their weakest vocabulary and grammar—often language trainers can help language learners identify their weakest vocabulary and grammar and adjust course contents accordingly. The feature is now available for download from Duolingo; Third, automatic evaluation of composition—AI can also be applied to the automatic evaluation of composition, plagiarism detection, school selection, and other fields. All these AI educational applications with complex algorithm models can be used to calculate course contents, instructional strategies, and subject knowledge, as well as data from users to make them more realistic and accurate; Fourth, IBM’s newly developed Teacher Assistant with Watson is an automated lesson plan selector that can be used to help elementary school math teachers to choose the best lesson plans and learning methods for their classes. Watson can also intelligently evaluate all math lesson plans in the corpus based on the analysis of language, problem types, knowledge, and conceptual levels used in each lesson, as well as match these lesson plans with teachers’ actual needs. At present, teachers’ requirements are still obtained by the way of teachers providing keywords. In future, IBM will expand Watson’s capabilities to explain and evaluate data of students as well as teachers and to provide students with reports to their learning needs. At that point of time, it may be safe to say that humans have artificial intelligence systems that work in classroom teaching and learning. In addition to the representative view of Stephen Haggard, several scholars in the international research field regarding to the new development of AI educational application are also worthy of attention. One of them was reported by University of Oulu, Finland: an education technology and learning expert Professor Javier [18] and her team coming from diverse disciplines, used brain electric induction, such as eye tracking multi-modal bio-metric technology, and collected data of students on individual levels, then connected it with the teaching tool of system logs, audio and video, tracking learners’ full trajectory of learning activities and social activities,

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and thus laid a solid basis for promotion and sharing of self-regulation learning and collaborative learning. Another is Dr. Mackay [18] from the University of Michigan, who advocated to start from the existing learning experience, using the study analysis technology for learner’s portrait (to describe the characteristics of the learners). On this basis, the learners can be provided with personalized teacher of artificial intelligence, which can further promote personalized and adaptive teaching of college basic courses. Another is Dr. Mackay [18] from American Nobel University, who used biological recognition and video multi-modal technology, such as the learners emotional tracking, engagement tracking, learning activities tracking, and attention tracking, as well as many other aspects of tracking and observation, in order to better understand and automatically identify learners’ vast variety of psychological changes in the process of classroom learning.

5.3.3

International Radical Views on Artificial Intelligence in Recent Years

In the international academic circles, in addition to actively carrying out the above researches and explorations related to the application of AI education and its prospects, a few scholars also put forward some views on artificial intelligence, radical and controversial. For example, some researchers believe that the world has entered the fourth industrial revolution era with artificial intelligence as the core [19]. This view was first presented by Paul Mackey, the editor of The Economist, and in the book The Third Industrial Revolution—how the new economy mode changes the world, by Jeremy Rifkin, which caused great repercussions in the world, even for a time, the Fourth Industrial Revolution has become a popular slogan in some countries and regions (even the United States Washington Post website at the end of November 2017, also stated that the fourth industrial revolution had been coming). However, there are quite a few researchers who explicitly challenged this view. For example, Hongyu, Zhou a famous Chinese researcher, believes that the so-called fourth industrial revolution is just another stage of the current third industrial revolution. Because the first industrial revolution, the second industrial revolution, and the third industrial revolution are different in quality—they realize a fundamental change from the agricultural age to the industrial age and then to the information age. There is no crucial difference between what is now called the fourth industrial revolution and the third, and the former is impossible to constitute to the time-changing differences. Both Paul McKinley and Jeremy Rifkin stressed that the third industrial revolution was characterized by information and networking. In fact, intelligence is also an important content and feature of the third industrial revolution—because intelligence is precisely the embodiment of the integration of modern information technology and network technology. The third industrial revolution emphasized new energy sources, new materials, new technologies, and the Internet (the three new networks). Only by integrating them can intelligence be realized. Without the integration of the three

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new networks as the foundation, intelligence cannot become a reality. Therefore, Klaus Schwab and others put forward: “to separate the intelligence from the third industrial revolution, and make it become a symbol of the fourth industrial revolution”—is a controversial view in the academic world. Hongyu Zhou insisted that it was appropriate to adopt the term “the third industrial revolution” (or collectively new industrial revolution) rather than mention the fourth industrial revolution [19]. There is another controversial opinion on current international scene. Some researchers state that 2017 is the key turning point of the application of artificial intelligence in education in the world, and that in future AI will probably not play a big role in the field of education due to direct obstacles of data privacy. Even if AI do play a role in education, it will not be welcomed. Based on this, research reports (or white papers) published by some European academic institutions in recent years identify 2017 as a key turning point for the application of AI education [17]. Western scholars generally believed that data privacy is the most direct obstacles facing artificial intelligence in education—currently applied AI data in education depends on data mining. AI technology requirements for everything one does to learners are closely monitored, recorded, and analyzed up to each click of the keyboard. Under American law and culture, academic institutions are mostly allowed to conduct such monitoring, and most Americans accept that academic institutions have access to their personal learning data. In the process, the confidentiality of personal data is difficult to guarantee. On the contrary, the constant leakage and misuse of personal data will indeed endanger the very foundations on which artificial intelligence is built. Unlike the US, there is very little public agreement in European countries that academic institutions monitor and record personal data, and EU law explicitly grants individuals the right to be solely responsible for and manage personal data. In recent years an increasing number of EU citizens, especially students, have begun to control their own data strictly and refused to use it by third parties. In this case, the AI system will not be able to obtain the necessary data to support educational applications. Therefore some European academic institutions have identified 2017 as the key turning point in the application of AI education. It should be said that this view is not subjective conjecture, but has a certain objective reality basis. At the global level, it remains clear that whether or not on national and policy levels, people will agree to allow academic institutions to monitor and record personal data of learners in order to promote educational application of artificial intelligence, it is more likely that different countries and regions will adopt different policies and measures in this respect—as mentioned above, the EU is completely different from the US, while China’s current policies and measures in this respect are quite similar to those in the US.

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5.4 Internet + Education Application As it is mentioned in the introduction section, regarding the connotation of Internet + education, academic circles have different understandings and interpretations of it, but if to have a look at the questions from the standpoint of emerging information technology-related views, it becomes simple and clear in terms of the current situation. From technical point of view Internet + education can be represented by the teaching and learning platforms. Here we will focus on CCtalk and Learning Cell platform as examples to see what innovations such application can bring to us.

5.4.1

Application of CCtalk (Network Platform) [21]

CCtalk is an Internet-based live platform, which plays an irreplaceable role in promoting the balanced and high-quality development of compulsory education. Below is presented a brief introduction of CCtalk application case from Lushi County, Henan Province. Lushi County is a mountain region in Henan Province with high levels of poverty. The county is full of continuous mountains and winding rivers. Extremely harsh natural conditions restrict the balanced development of education in Lushi county. First, imbalanced educational resources, education quality of the county is higher than villages and towns. Second, the state of teaching is not balanced. In Lushi County, schools with thousands of students co-exist with only a few or a dozen teaching centers. Third, the teaching reform is not balanced: schools with good conditions have begun to try flipped classroom; schools with poor conditions cannot even do basic collective lesson preparation. Some schools even have difficulty offering music, physical education, or art classes. What is more, the school buildings are seriously short of space, have poor hardware conditions, lack of functional classrooms, and substandard playground. The leader of the Board Of Education in Lushi County, the members of academic affairs office, the members of Audio-Visual Education Center, and some school principals have successfully participated in the relevant activities related to Internet + education in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shengzhen. All of them were impressed by the functionality of CCtalk live platform. Afterward several meetings were held in order to discuss the relevant issues regarding the implementation of CCalk in Lushi County. The CCtalk web-cast platform developed by Shanghai Hujiang District has the following six advantages: 1. 2. 3.

Live broadcast equipment is simple, if there is a computer, network cable, a camera, and audio, video broadcast activities can be carried out; Multi-channel live broadcast can be carried out simultaneously; In the live broadcast process on-site communication and interaction can also be carried out;

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4.

5. 6.

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Low requirements for terminal devices—tablet computers, smartphones, iPad can be used as user terminals to participate in live broadcast activities; the applications of smartphones, which are more convenient for teachers and students to teach across time and space, bring special value; New videos can be generated during each live broadcast and saved in the live broadcast group; The newly generated video can be shared by learning institutions and members in the county, to continuously enrich the quality education resources;

In brief, CCtalk has the advantages of being low in cost and high in benefits, what makes it popular among teachers and students. CCtalk also promotes balanced development of education through three class forms. These three kinds of classes are synchronous class, mainly promoted by the county, foreign teachers’ class, introduced from outside, and courier class, distributed by the county. The specific contents of the three classes are as follows: 1.

2.

3.

The key content is synchronous classroom. Synchronous classroom means quality classes provided by the city famous teachers, which, are distributed in advance according to class schedule, in order to enable rural school students to synchronize learning, to enjoy the quality of urban teaching resources. Every week, the platform will release a series of live-streaming curriculum schedules from urban junior middle and primary schools’ classrooms of various subjects for rural schools to choose. The introduction of out-of-town teachers’ class—this kind of class refers to Beautiful Countryside Course, Rainbow flower Course, Famous teachers’ Course in Qixia District, Nanjing, Shark Park Children’s Science Channel, and so on. Delivery of the Courier classroom. Courier classroom is set up specifically for the small-sized schools with many teaching centers. The Teaching and Research Office of Lushi County realizes the construction of a series of tasks for online courses in primary school music, physical education, and art disciplines in order to support excellent teachers in the city to do live classes on the network end. By means of Internet children in remote mountainous areas watch large screens and engage in what is known as Courier classes. For schools in mountainous areas, it is difficult to keep up with the rhythm of live broadcasting, however it is possible to make use of the teaching videos generated by CCtalk and thus to achieve better results. The Education Bureau of Lushi County also regularly carries out exchanges and interactions between parents and schools via live broadcast activities, to mobilize all social forces and related factors and realize all-round education.

5.4.2

Application “Learning Cell” Platform

Learning Cell platform is an Internet-based open learning platform developed by a team led by Professor Yu Shengquan, School of Education and Technology, Beijing

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Normal University, specifically designed to support deep learning. The connotation of the platform involves such new concepts as generation, evolution, adaptation, and social cognition, while “learning cell” is the smallest organizational unit of learning resources. The platform is composed of six parts: learning cell, knowledge group, knowledge cloud, learning tools, personal space, and learning community. The functions of this platform support deep learning and include four modules: interactive support module for online deep learning behavior; knowledge evolution module for group collaborative construction of deep learning; visualization and cluster analysis module for multiple connections of deep learning behavior, and development evaluation module for deep learning motivation. The introduction of four functional modules of the platform dedicated to support deep learning is presented below. 1.

2.

Interactive support module for online deep learning behavior. The core functions of online interactive support modules for deep learning behavior are: learning meta-knowledge creation, collaborative knowledge editing, knowledge contents and knowledge content versions comparison, the full text notation, paragraph micro-notation, resource evaluation, resource comments, semantic information management, resource semantic association, learning activities, learning tools, personal space, friends management, knowledge ontology building, knowledge network, interpersonal network, social knowledge network, semantic labels, semantic annotations, semantic search, community learning and interaction, resource aggregation tools, and so on. This module can provide effective support for nine behavioral interactions that can facilitate deep learning. Knowledge evolution module for collaborative construction of deep learning. In order to achieve the deep learning and knowledge evolution by means of collaborative knowledge construction, various techniques are needed, e.g.,: group crowd-sourcing technology, content collaborative editing and version control technology, the dynamic semantic modeling technology, resources orderly evolution control technology and polymerization technology, visual path display technology for the process of resources evolution, etc.

Crowd-sourcing technology is used to gather the knowledge items from learning groups and realize orderly the collaboration between groups. Content collaborative editing and version control technology is to improve the adaptability on the basis of the existing Wiki technology, so as to ensure that ordinary users can co-edit the same learning resource content, and to ensure the security of resources through flexible version control. The semantic modeling of resources technology serves in order to construct the open learning resource ontology by introducing the popular semantic Web technology, and to annotate the resources quickly and make semantic inference in the resources. The technique of dynamic semantic aggregation of resources is to realize the automatic aggregation of similar resources based on semantic modeling of resources to form a resource circle on the same topic.

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The orderly evolution control technology of resources is to control the evolution direction of resources through knowledge ontology, content review, and other technologies to avoid aimless disorderly growth. The visual path presentation technology of resource evolution aims to present the evolutionary process of resources intuitively and at the same time to present the contributions of different users in this process, so that learners can not only learn and understand the current knowledge, but also know how relevant knowledge and skills are developed step by step. 2.

Deep learning behavior—visualization and cluster analysis module of multiple connections

The core functions of deep learning behavior visualization and cluster analysis of multiple connections involve visualization of learning trajectory, knowledge network, interpersonal network, social knowledge network, and label clustering. Learning trajectory visualization is the application of visualization technology to demonstrate the change of deep learning in time; The visualization of knowledge network is to reveal the semantic relationship of knowledge dynamically; Visualization of interpersonal network is used specially to show the interpersonal network topology relationship and network operation and change rules behind learning behavior, so as to support the interpersonal relationship analysis of learning behavior; Visualization of social knowledge network is to show the knowledge connection and interpersonal relationships behind learning behavior through visualization technology, so as to integrate materialized resources with interpersonal resources, and thus clearly show the knowledge and interpersonal relationships behind deep learning behavior with multiple connections; Tag clustering is to realize the knowledge discovery of data for learning behavior through clustering analysis; 3.

The module of encouragement of the evaluation of deep learning development

The core functions here include: learning evaluation scheme settings, learning interactive data collection and analysis, multidimensional evaluation results display, and diagnostic criteria settings. The Learning Cell platform provides evaluation services based on process information. The service provides evaluation scheme design tools for course developers. Developers for the purpose of curriculum evaluation, according to the evaluation scheme, with learners’ information in the process of curriculum implementation, evaluate each learner’s learning process and the overall learning situation, give the evaluation results and feedback to curriculum developers and learners, so as to realize the visualization based on process evaluation. In the process of learning, learners can check their own evaluation information at any time to understand their own learning situation comprehensively and deeply, so as to timely adjust learning strategies and better realize personalized learning and adaptive learning.

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5.5 Characteristics and Advantages of Emerging Information Technology As mentioned at the beginning of this section, emerging information technologies mainly involve big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and Internet + education. The traditional information technology is generally considered to be represented by computer and multimedia educational applications. As mentioned above, the applications of computer hardware and software to the whole school education (including assisting teachers to teach, supporting students to learn independently, realizing teaching evaluation and management based on computer software and hardware, and providing support for digital teaching resources, etc.) are generally referred to as digital campus. It should be said that the application of traditional information technology in education, represented by digital campus, has indeed promoted the reform and development of various levels of education, and has really played a role in driving educational modernization by using educational informationization. However, objectively speaking, this promotion is not broad enough, not deep enough; in this stage of development, “education information driving the modernization of education” is more like a slogan, but actually—education modernization in reality exists only in a few individual areas and far from being universally accepted. Since the twenty-first century, especially in the recent ten years, four types of emerging information technology (big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and Internet + education) are increasingly widely used, which have gradually developed because of the unprecedented characteristics and advantages that they bring. The applications of emerging information technology not only promoted the education reform and development of change and innovation in education at all levels but also effectively supported the education of all types. Using educational informationization to drive modernization of education is no longer just a slogan or advocacy, but a quick push for various levels and types of education in China (including some poor areas in the central and western regions) to the forefront of international educational modernization. To be specific, the types of emerging information technologies play diverse roles in deepening educational reform at all levels, and their meanings and influences are dissimilar. Big data, for example, has advantages that cannot be replaced by other technologies in supporting adaptive teaching, personalized learning, scientific evaluation due to large amounts of data provided, and accurate management. Cloud computing has innate and unique features in realizing the co-construction and sharing of massive high-quality education resources across time and space and across regions, so as to promote the balanced development of compulsory education in the region (and even the balanced development of high-quality education). Artificial intelligence (AI), including knowledge engineering, expert systems, voice recognition, video recognition, semantic analysis, affect computing, intention recognition, eye tracking, virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), etc., has proved by years of research and practice that its applications in education can indeed broaden the horizon and provide ideas for reform and innovation of all kinds of education and at all levels. It

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is widely recognized by global academic community that AI is the most important and effective technical means to achieve educational innovation. As to Internet + education, one of the four kinds of emerging information technology, because the Internet has extremely strong connectivity, collaboration issues, interactivity, and it is extremely rich in various resources, including tangible resources and the materialization of interpersonal resources, so the Internet + education has the advantages and characteristics of other three types of emerging technology. For example, as mentioned above, the CCtalk live broadcast platform developed by Shanghai Hujiang District has the function of cloud computing to realize the co-construction and sharing of educational resources across time and space and across regions, so as to effectively promote the balanced development (and even the balanced development of high-quality education) of compulsory education within the region. The Learning Cell platform developed by Professor Yu Shengquan’s team, at Beijing Normal University, has four functional modules designed specially to support deep learning, so it can reflect the characteristics of personalized learning and adaptive learning (with the characteristics and advantages of big data technology) in supporting students to learn autonomously. In terms of supporting curriculum design and teaching (i.e., assisting teachers in teaching), the Learning Cell platform can often play the function of intelligent teaching (i.e., it has the characteristics and advantages of artificial intelligence in educational application). At present, other common Internet-based teaching and learning support platforms, at home and abroad, are similar to the above CCtalk live broadcast platform or Learning Cell platform. They are usually based on their own advanced teaching and learning concepts, with unique structure and powerful functional modules, so they all have different features and advantages. Through the above discussion you can see, the four types of emerging information technologies, namely, big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and Internet + education have unprecedented features and advantages in forms of education applications. Big data, for instance, is an effective implementation of adaptive teaching, personalized learning, assessment and precise scientific management; cloud computing can support the co-construction and sharing of high-quality educational resources across time, space, and region, so as to promote the balanced development of education within the region. Artificial intelligence can broaden the horizon and provide ideas for the reform and innovation of all kinds at all levels of education, as well as provide various tools and means to achieve innovation. The Internet + education also has functional characteristics and advantages of the first three emerging information technologies. To acquire or realize these functional features and advantages is the exact consistent aim and unswerving goal pursued by all countries in the world for vigorously promoting educational modernization through educational informationization. Therefore, with the increasing strength of our country, the continuous enhancement of national strength, and improvement of educational information level, we earnestly hope that the department of education and schools of all types and at all levels should never be satisfied with the original education applications represented by computer and multimedia of digital campus level, but should endeavor to advocate

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and promote big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and Internet + education, and soon develop further extensive and in-depth applications of the digital campus and digital classroom from the above four categories of emerging pervasive applications of information technology, marked by intelligent campus and wisdom class—this is the vision of education informationization that people wish to realize as soon as possible. It is also the concrete embodiment of Chinese dream in the field of education informationization.

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Chapter 5

New Instructional Design Theory for Integrating Information Technology and Subjects Teaching

Abstract As mentioned earlier in the above, theory of the new instructional design was formed after Chinese scholars’ carrying out innovative research on traditional instructional design theory in two aspects.

1 Novelty of the New Instructional Design As mentioned earlier in the above, theory of the new instructional design was formed after Chinese scholars’ carrying out innovative research on traditional instructional design theory in two aspects. The first involves how new system science represented by threes of system science, including Dissipation Structure Theory, Synergistic and Super cycle Theory, promotes in-depth development of theory and practice of instructional design. The second relates to how teaching-centered design and learning-centered design complement each other, thus, forming an instructional design that attaches equal importance between learning and teaching. So, this chapter will elaborate on the new instructional design theory from the above two aspects. In the 1950s and 1960s, the earlier system sciences which include System Theory, Information Theory, and Cybernetics are first applied to solve core problems in the field of education technology; as a result, the creation of a new theory—instructional design (known as instructional system design)—encouraging vigorous development of education technology. Education technology, in essence, is the study of how to teach (how to make the learners learn in a relatively short period of time, to better understand and master more knowledge and skills). So, each stage of the teaching process, especially the in-class stage (teaching process usually includes three phases such as before-class, in-class, and after-class, and the focus is in class, namely the classroom teaching process) that involves multiple parts that involve multiple implementation steps, should be planned and designed systematically and comprehensively. The system carries on comprehensive planning and design matters, and the systematic method advocated by system sciences just meets the demand of this aspect. Certainly, such planning and design must be guided by certain teaching theory, learning theory and educational communication theory in order © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 K. He, Innovative Education Informatization with Chinese Characteristics, Bridging Human and Machine: Future Education with Intelligence, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0622-0_5

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to achieve the expected goal. This is the historical background for the emergence and growth of new theory of instructional design, and for the basis for instructional design, a bridge discipline—a bridge that closely links teaching theory, learning theory and teaching practice. Since the 1970s, system sciences have made great progress, and basic contents have developed from representatively three traditional theories (namely, system theory, information theory, and cybernetics) to three new theories represented by dissipation structure theory, synergistic and super cycle theory. Accordingly, the system method has also been greatly expanded. Then, what aspects does the expanded new system approach embody? How do these expand new system methods and promote further progress of instructional design theory and application? This is the hot issues current in domestic and foreign educational technology circles, which are concerned here in this chapter. In order to make a satisfactory answer to the questions, we need to first understand features of system methods, basic contents, and system of the new three methods (especially what are the different characteristics of the system method between new three and earlier three). And then on this basis, we further clarify how earlier threes support the formation and growth of instructional design theory, and how the new threes promote further growth of instructional design theory and application. The first section of this chapter introduces the new threes, basic contents, and features of system methods; on this basis, the last three sections will analyze the significant advance of instructional design, function, and existing problems; the last section discusses two aspects of innovation of instructional design theories, especially the second aspect of the innovation.

1.1 Three Early Support Theories for the Growth of Instructional Design [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] The system sciences include the new three theories: Dissipation Structure Theory, Synergy and Hypercycle Theory. The common features of these theories are the internal mechanism and transformation, including conditions of the state of order and disorder, balance and unbalance. Because this internal mechanism and transformation conditions depend on the interconnection and interaction between the elements of the system, which involves self-organizing of the system, and therefore the new three can be collectively referred to as self-organizing theory. Here are the basic contents of these, and then we will analyze how they present the new features, and the new system for the new development of science, which uses the new system method, promoting the development of theory and application of instructional design.

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Dissipation Structure Theory

The theory of dissipation structure was first proposed by I. Prigogine, a Belgian physicist, at an international conference on Theoretical Physics and Biology in 1969. In this conference, Prigogine read a paper entitled Structure, Dissipation and Life, in which the concept and related theories of dissipation structure were first expounded. The so-called dissipation structure refers to the macroscopic stable and ordered structure formed by fluctuation in the nonlinear region away from the equilibrium state of an open system that continuously exchanges material, energy, and information with the outside world. Prigogine divided different states of system motion into equilibrium state, near equilibrium state, and far equilibrium state, and developed the dissipation structure theory [1] on this basis. The equilibrium state is the actual process that happens in an isolated system in finite time and space. This process always increases the entropy of the whole system irreversibly, and goes from order to disorder along the degenerate direction, so the structure of equilibrium state system is a static dead structure. This equilibrium state is governed by the second law of thermodynamics (its mathematical expression is a linear equation), also known as the principle of entropy increase (entropy in thermodynamics is used to express the energy characteristic of heat energy that cannot do work, and its numerical value is expressed by the change in heat energy divided by the quotient of temperature). The near-equilibrium state obeys the principle of minimum entropy generation. For an isolated system, if the entropy generated is ds, then the entropy generated is ds/dt. As mentioned above, in the equilibrium state of the system motion, the entropy of the system will increase, namely ds/dt > 0 and in the near equilibrium state of the motion of the system is ds/dt < 0. However, when the entropy decreases with the increase of time, and finally reaches the point where the entropy does not change with time, that is, ds/dt = 0, this entropy value is the minimum entropy. For near-equilibrium states, fluctuations also cause transient deviations from the system’s state, but such deviations tend to self-attenuate and even disappear, i.e., the system can return to equilibrium after minor disturbances (such as pendulum and swing). When the system reaches the far equilibrium state, the linear relation will be broken (no longer follow the law of linear equation), and the nonlinear relation will be formed. And it no longer obeys the principle of minimum entropy generation. At this time, the entropy value of the system can be either positive or negative, or the system can oscillate. The original equilibrium, near-equilibrium law will no longer apply, so the system will move toward disorder— > the orderly— > self-organization, and finally forms a new structure—dissipation structure, because to stay away from the equilibrium state and follow the system of nonlinear relationship between the role of external disturbances or fluctuation is completely different [2]: when the system is of a new kind of dynamic balance, a random disturbance or fluctuations will be increased rapidly through the coherent effect; thus on the macroscopic on the whole, giant fluctuation is formed, and makes the unstable disordered state change over to a new stable state; this is the dissipation structure.

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Prigogine has defined the connotation of the dissipation structure—the material, energy, and information exchange with the outside of an open system, in the nonlinear region far from the balance state, due to the fluctuation of macroeconomic stability and orderly structure, to form a dissipation structure, which requires four conditions: it is an open system; the system is far away from the equilibrium state; there is nonlinear interaction among elements (subsystems) within the system. There is some random disturbance or rise and fall that acts as a lever—rise and fall that leads to order.

1.1.2

Synergistic

Synergy was initiated in 1976 by H. Harken, professor of theoretical physics at the University of Stuttgart in Germany. Synergies and dissipation structure theories study how systems realize self-organization, so they belong to the category of selforganization theory and are regarded as the new development of system science. The difference between synergistic theory and dissipation structure theory lies in that dissipation structure theory which correctly points out that an open system far away from equilibrium state and in nonlinear region can form macroscopic ordered structure due to fluctuation through continuous exchange of matter, energy, and information with the outside world—from disorder to order. On this basis, the synergistic theory further points out that the key to transform disorder into order lies in synergistic phenomenon caused by non-linear interaction among the components within the system. Synergistic not only deeply studies the formation mechanism and action mode of this synergistic phenomenon, but also makes a scientific quantitative analysis of the specific process of how fluctuation leads to order, thus developing one of the important principles of synergistic, fluctuation principle. The other important principles of synergistic are synergy principle, dominance principle, pattern principle, and generalized evolution principle. In short, the theory of dissipation structure is based on the principles of openness, distance from equilibrium, nonlinearity, fluctuation, and puts forward external conditions of self-organization of the system. Synergistic reveals the internal basis of system self-organization through synergistic principle, dominant principle, fluctuation principle, pattern principle, and generalized evolutionary principle. The research objects and objectives of synergistic and dissipation structure theory are identical. However, the former is more microscopic in contents, focusing on quantitative analysis and pays more attention to internal basis, while the latter is more macroscopic in contents, focusing on qualitative analysis and focuses on external conditions. The two are complementary.

1.1.3

Hypercycle Theory

In 1977, German physical chemist M. Eigen published a self-organization principle of hyper circulation in nature, which has attracted widespread attention from

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international academics, and has led to a hyper circular craze. In the paper, the chemical evolution has three phases. The first is evolution of pre-organisms; the second is self-organizing phase of biological molecules; the third is biological evolution. The breakthrough happens in the first and third stages of evolution, i.e., from self-organization of bio-molecules to proton-cells. In order to reveal the law of this evolutionary process, the author puts forward the concept of hypercycle and three principles of hyper circulation: principle of natural selection is the principle of structure optimization and information proliferation. The so-called hypercycle refers to the new cycle of the biological reaction cycle and the growth of catalytic cycle, which has a solid self-replication and self-catalytic ability. The theory of hyper circulation mainly focuses on molecular biology. The purpose of the three-stage theory is to say that during origin and evolution of life, there is a molecular self-organizing phase—it is through this stage that the biological molecules are systematically carried out by the hypercycle way, so that the cellular structure of the unified genetic code is formed, so that life can be continued. As mentioned above, the theory of dissipation structure and synergistic mainly study the self-organizing phenomena of the physical world, and then promote the relevant conclusions to the social and biological areas, to illustrate the self-organizing phenomena of these areas and their development and evolution laws. The hypercycle theory is to study the self-organization phenomenon of non-equilibrium system directly from the biological field, and to clarify the mechanism of the evolution of life and how to continue. It is shown that the theory of hyper circulation is not only significant in the science of life, but also the new area and new angle of the development of self-organization theory.

1.2 Main Characteristics of the System Method [1] [2] From the above introduction of basic contents of the new threes, they are in system science category (as their object of research is still like the old three theories— a system in the physical world or the spirit world—including some in the field of biological areas, natural or social system, and not limited to concrete object or phenomenon in natural science, social science, or technology science). The new three, as the representative of system science, differs from the old three theories. The research of new three theories focus on the internal mechanism and transformation conditions of ordered and disordered, balanced, and unbalanced states of the system; that is, the self-organization problem of the system. Based on this understanding, we will analyze and discuss the system methods typical of the three new theories. For the convenience of comparison, we first review the system method characteristic of the earlier three theories.

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Features of the System Method of the Old Three Theories

As is known to all, the original system method based on the earlier three theories refers to [2], a method to investigate an object in the process of system operation, according to the systematic of things themselves. Using this method to examine a system from a systematic point of view, the objects would be investigated comprehensively, holistically, and dynamically, from how the whole and the parts (elements), the whole and the external environment connect and interact with each other in dialectical relationships, so that effectively address and solve practical issues to reform subjective and objective world. According to the system method, it should meet the requirements of integrity, hierarchy, dynamics, and optimization when dealing with and solving problems. Integrity is at the core of the system approach. According to system theory, all kinds of things in the world are not simple, mechanical accumulation or accidental and random combination, but an organic wholeness, formed by various elements through mutual connection and interaction, and such wholeness only exists in the process of mutual connection and interaction between various elements of things. In other words, the sum of the properties of components does not reflect the whole property of things (the whole property is not as simple as the sum of the properties of the components). This judgment has two meanings: First, the overall function of the system is new (that is, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts). It is well known, for example, in the 1960s and 1970s of last century, the Soviet Union’s performance of aircraft parts is behind the United States, in aviation industrial base and production but they produced MIG-25, its overall performance (such as the speed and the ability to climb) has reached the world advanced level at that time, because they pay special attention to the design and optimization of aircraft performance. Second, each component (element) of the system cannot be decomposed into independent elements or subsystems one by one. If it is forced to be decomposed, then the decomposed elements or subsystems will no longer have their original properties and functions in the whole system. For example, the human body is an organic whole composed of various organs. As an organic whole, lower limb organ, the legs and feet have the function of walking, which is basic to lower limb organs. But once the legs and feet leave the body because of surgery or a car accident, they no longer have the function to walk, and become a useless muscle. Therefore, the use of system approaches to analysis, handle problems, must proceed from the overall, trying to grasp the connection between the whole and the part, and through the analysis of interactive relationship, to reveal the overall features and movement rules, and avoid analyzing a problem, from the start, splitting them into several parts, and then make a synthesis. Hierarchy is the basic content of a systematic approach. As an organic whole, the system is always composed of different levels of structure—the elements within the system are divided into several levels according to the way of interrelation and interaction, organizing into an organic whole (rather than a disorderly pile-up). On

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the macro level [2], corresponding to the basic form of material movement, the hierarchical structure of the system can be expressed in the following different forms: physical structure, chemical structure, biological structure, social structure, thinking structure, etc. In each kind of the above structure form can also be further distinguished, such as Zhukov(´ykov), the former Soviet Union scholar, pointed out that biological structure can be further divided into seven levels: biosphere, biological community, group, organism, organ, cell, the cell. Physical, chemical, biological, social, and other structural forms also have similar situation (such as modern society has the state, province, city, county, township, village, and other levels of structural forms). It is important to underscore that the division of system hierarchy is relative, which has the following two situations: First, from the perspective of structure, since the objective world is infinite, the hierarchy structure of a system is infinite—the elements of the structure of higherlevel system contain the structure of the lower-level system; a component of the structure of a complex system, or even a more complex system. Second, functionally, the higher-level system has a restrictive effect on lowerlevel systems. However, the lower-level system is not only passively restricted to the higher-level system, but has some reaction to the function of the higher-level system. Dynamics is another central aspect of the system approach. Any system is always in constant motion and change, so the system has dynamic characteristics. Due to the mutual relation and interaction between various components as well as the system inside and outside, interaction is often accompanied by randomness or uncertainty, dynamic changes in the system operation process, and thus require system designers to consider this dynamics; namely to look at system with a relational and developmental point of view, not isolated, static point of view, in order to give out coping strategies in a timely manner, and conforming to the change. Optimization is the goal that system method pursues all the time. As far as the spatial structure of the system is concerned, there are four situations, such as partly excellent, the whole is excellent; partly not excellent, the whole is excellent; part is excellent, the whole is not excellent; part is not excellent, and the whole is not excellent [1]. As far as temporal process of the system is concerned, there are also four situations: it is good now; it is good in the long run; it is not good now but good in the long run; it is good now, but bad in the long run; it is bad now, and bad in the long run. Except for the first two cases, the other cases all need to take advantage of the situation and adopt an appropriate strategy of turning the worse into the better, so that they can be gradually optimized and even more optimized. The commonly used and effective strategies for turning bad into good are as follows: centralizing the advantages and divide-and-conquer; Tian Ji’s horse race took the advantage against the disadvantage (田忌赛马以优对劣); drawing on each other’s strengths and complement each other’s weaknesses and so on so forth.

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Characteristics of System Method of New Three Theories

Since the new threes belongs to the category of system science„ a system as the research object, which underlines the study of order and disorder in the system, equilibrium and non-equilibrium state of internal mechanism and conversion condition, namely self-organization issues related with the system; thus the characteristics of the system method of the new threes, obviously include the original features of old threes—entirety, dynamics and hierarchy and optimization; and meanwhile, adding the following new features related to the system of self-organization, that is, openness, nonlinear, collaborative, and fluctuation. Openness requires the continuous exchange of matter, energy, and information between the system and the external environment, which is the primary condition for the formation of dissipation structure of the system. Only through this kind of openness can the system introduce negative entropy flow to offset the increase of entropy, to promote the development of the system from disorder to orderly stable state. It has been pointed out that the total entropy (ds) of an open system is composed of two parts, determined by the entropy (dis) of the system itself and the negative entropy (des < 0); namely ds = dis + des. Since the system always spontaneously tends to increase the maximum entropy, it is usually dis > 0; if the absolute value of negative entropy from the external source is greater than the entropy dis of the system itself, then the result of adding the two is likely to make the total entropy of the open system ds < 0. Only when the total entropy is less than zero can the system transform from disorder to order and form a new ordered structure. Non-linearity refers to the nonlinear relationship among the elements of the system (that is, each subsystem). Only nonlinear interrelation and interaction can produce coherent effect. Only with this kind of coherence effect can small disturbance or fluctuation caused by some internal or external causes be continuously amplified, so that the system will change from disorder to order and finally form a new stable ordered structure (i.e., dissipation structure). Synergy is the key to formation of the above coherent effects [1]. Different elements of the system interact in nonlinear relationships, which used to be unordered, and then under the action of domination principle (one party assimilates attributes of another party, making other attributes as same as the party), the system will move in accordance with the unified mode and coordination, due to the “assimilation” (also known as coherence effect), so that making the system gradually from disorderly to orderly to form a new ordered structure. It can be seen that synergy is the core mechanism for the system to realize selforganization. Fluctuation means that the system must have an appropriate external disturbance or fluctuation to cause order. Due to some internal or external reasons, some small fluctuations may occur within the state of the system, but for the system of different states, the impact of fluctuations is different: for the system in the equilibrium state, although the fluctuation can be positive or negative, it can be eliminated by using the method of statistical average [2] For the system in the near equilibrium state, the state deviation caused by fluctuation will self-attenuate and eventually return

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to the stable state. In far-away from the equilibrium state, the role of fluctuation is different, as mentioned above, nonlinear interaction between components of the system will cause, by synergy, correlation effect; these tiny fluctuation correlation effect can be increased rapidly, which eventually leads to the system to reach a new stable state—the formation of dissipation structure.

2 Support for Formation and Growth of Instructional Design Theory from the Old Three Theories As mentioned above, according to the old-three-theory system to deal with and solve problems, stress should meet the requirements of integrity, hierarchy, dynamics, and optimization, and pay attention to integrity in particular—this is the core of the system approach. In the 1950s and 1960s, American educational technologists applied the systematic approach of the old threes to solve problems in the field of teaching. In order to show that the systematic approach based on the old threes can support the formation and development of different schools of instructional design theory, let’s first look at how the types of instructional design theory are divided.

2.1 Classification of Instructional Design Theories 2.1.1

Classification According to the Epidemiological Basis of Instructional Design

Indeed, the development of Instructional Design (ID) theory since the 1960s, if considered designed from philosophical basis of epistemology, can be divided into two categories: Objective instructional design and subjective instructional design (also known as constructionist instructional design). According to Michael J. Hannafin and Janette R. Hill, the main contents, and operational steps of these two types of instructional design are shown in Table 1 below [6]:

2.1.2

Classification According to the Basis of Learning Theory of ID

In addition, Instructional design (ID) can be divided into the first generation of ID1 and second and third generations of ID2 and ID3 , which are considered from different learning theories. ID theory basis includes learning theory, teaching theory, communication theory, and system theory, the four constituents. But because the student is the entity of learning, any teaching aim is to promote students’ learning quality and learning efficiency. The inherent law of learning theory—the study of human learning, ID clearly plays a key role in guiding learning. In other words,

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learning theory should be the most important theoretical basis of the above four theories, so some scholars in academia advocate [7] [8] [9]: the development of ID theory can be divided according to different learning theories that have been adopted in different periods. The main sign of the so-called ID1 is that in terms of learning theory, it takes behaviorism’s associative learning (i.e., stimulus– response) as its theoretical basis. The main sign of ID2 is that in terms of learning theory, it takes Gagne’s connectivecognitive learning (eclecticism learning theory) as its theoretical basis. The main symbol of ID2 is to take the learning theory of constructionist as its theoretical basis. It is generally believed that the representative model of ID1 is Kemp model, which was proposed by J.E. Kemp in 1977 and then gradually improved after many modifications. Because the model of the whole teaching process mainly imparts knowledge from the teacher to the student, its guiding ideology is the teacher to be completely in the central position of the teaching process through the teacher’s teaching to promote and implement the link between stimulus and response. Students are passive recipients and the teacher provides the exterior stimulation; their initiative and enthusiasm in learning process is hard to play, so ID1 has been waning after ID2 appeared. The representative of ID2 is the Smith-Ragan Model (see Fig. 1), which was proposed by P.L. Smith and T.J. Ragan in 1993 and published in their book Instructional Design. The above model is developed based on the influential Dick-Cory model, drawing on Gagne’s advantages of paying attention to cognitive analysis of learners’ internal psychological process in the learner characteristic analysis, and further considering the important influence of cognitive learning theory on the organization of teaching content. The above model is better very widely used to realize the combination of behaviorism and cognitive science, to embody the basic thoughts of the connection more fully—the cognitive learning theory; and T.J. Ragan is himself an education technologist and the contemporary influential psychologist, so the model greatly influenced the world. If the above model is compared with the contents listed in the second column of the framework of ID shown in Table 1 (objective ID), it is not difficult to see that the representative model of ID2 is procedural display of objective I contents in Table 1, that is, according to Analysis— > Design— > Development— > Implementation— > Evaluation and other stages of the gradual development. On the face of it, Fig. 1 seems to involve only Analysis— > Design— > Evaluation and other three steps, but the compilation and production of teaching materials step is obviously development. In addition, although the implementation step is not clearly listed in Fig. 1, it is possible to complete the formative assessment only during the implementation process, which indicates that the implementation step has been implicit in the formative assessment. The ID process pattern shown in Fig. 1 is indeed the same as the ID process framework shown in Table 1, which develops gradually in five stages. Similarly, the representative model of ID3 is procedural display of the contents in the right-most column of Table 1, that is, the contents of subjective ID (or

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Learning environment analysis

Teaching analysis

Learner characteristics analysis

Learning task analysis Write test items (Including the analysis of teaching

Design organizational strategy (Teaching Organization Strategy) Transfer strategy (Strategies for selecting teaching media & Interaction Strategy

Modes) Management strategy (Teaching Resource Management Strategy)

design Compiled in critical teaching materials

Conduct formative evaluations Teaching evaluation

Modify teaching

Fig. 1 Smith-Ragan model

constructionist ID) are as follows: Analysis— > Design— > Development— > Implementation— > Evaluation and other stages of gradual development.

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Table 1 Objective and subjective teaching design ID Stage

Objective ID

Subjective ID (Constructionist ID)

Analysis

Teaching contents Teaching object (learner) Teaching requirements

Learning contents Learner profile Describe the problem (identify key concepts)

Design

Teaching goals Teaching tasks Standard reference evaluation

Learning goals Learning sequence (group and individual) Context-driven evaluation

Development

Collect and develop teaching materials

Develop learning resources and tools

Implementation Teachers—delivery, Monitoring Student—memory, acceptance (Achieve teaching objectives through transfer-accept)

Teachers—organize, guide & promote Students—self-directed, cooperative, and inquisitive (solve problem through independent construction)

Evaluation

How do students know? How do students learn this knowledge?

What do students know? What did the students learn?

2.2 Embodiment of System Method Characteristics of the Old Threes in ID Process To illustrate how the old three system approaches to support the formation and development of ID theory, just look at the old three system characteristics (i.e., integrity, hierarchy, dynamic character, and optimization, etc.) in the framework of ID process shown in Table 1 or as shown in Fig. 1—teaching models of great influence are clearly shown.

2.2.1

Wholeness

As mentioned above, ID model shown in Fig. 1 and ID framework shown in Table 1 (whether objective ID or subjective ID) are grounded on Analysis— > Design— > Development— > Implementation— > Evaluation and other stages of gradual development, and these stages cover the complete process of teaching system with activities, which can be more comprehensive, truly reflect the interrelation and interaction between the whole teaching system and its parts (elements). Therefore, ID developed in accordance with this mode or framework should be a good embodiment of system method in the aspect of integrity.

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2.2.2

183

Hierarchy

Hierarchy refers to the organic whole composed of several levels among the components of a system, and the elements of the higher-level system structure contain the structure of lower-level classifications. Take the teaching analysis section in Fig. 1 as an example, which contains three levels of task analysis, learner analysis, and learning environment analysis. Learning task analysis includes two sub-levels: teaching objective analysis and teaching content analysis. According to Bloom’s theory, there are three types of teaching goals: cognitive, emotional, and motor skill. Therefore, the sub-level of teaching goal analysis can be further divided into three sub-levels: cognitive goal analysis, emotional goal analysis, and motor skill goal analysis. Among them, cognitive goals can be divided into knowing, understanding, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating, so they can be further divided. Take the strategy design section in Fig. 1 as an example, it contains three levels of strategies—organization strategy, transfer strategy, and management strategy. The teaching organization strategy can be further divided into macro strategies and micro strategies. The macro strategies and micro strategies themselves can have a variety of different choices (such as teaching content organization, learning resources organization, and so on).

2.2.3

Dynamics

Dynamism is fully reflected in the fact that ID itself is the design of activities for an instructional system (i.e., the instructional process). If there is neither teacher’s teaching nor student’s learning activities, there is no teaching and learning process, and there is no instructional design. In addition, in ID process model shown in Fig. 1, dynamism is also reflected in the formative evaluation of teaching implementation process, and the corresponding modification of teaching contents and strategies according to the feedback information is obtained from formative evaluation, to better meet the requirements of teaching objectives.

2.2.4

Optimization

To achieve the optimization of teaching process is the goal of ID. There are many ways to achieve optimization in teaching, the most used is to optimize through the effective use of teaching strategies and various technical support environment. For example, according to the use of teaching strategies, there can be a variety of different strategies to optimize a teaching, such as demonstration, discussion, debate, situation creation, role playing, independent inquiry, collaborative learning, and so on. According to the technical support environment, there are different technologies to support the environment of the optimization of teaching, such as multimediabased, network-based, software tool-based, simulation experiment-based, and other supports.

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3 The New Threes Supporting Formation and Growth of Instructional Design As mentioned above, the features of system method of the three new theories are the following new features related to the self-organization of the system namely, openness, non-linearity, synergy and fluctuation, based on the four features of the original the old threes, such as integrity, dynamics, hierarchy, and optimization. In order to use the system method of the new threes to promote in-depth development of ID theory and application, we must pay close attention to how to fully reflect the openness, nonlinearity, synergy and fluctuation in the ID process. In addition, the academia for years using the old three system approaches to promote the formation and development of ID theory, which, in general, made great successes, by using integration, hierarchy, dynamic, and optimization requirements, and indeed made ID theory increasingly perfect. But undeniably, there are still some defects in this aspect, and some of them are serious. Especially in the aspect of wholeness, because the academic circle still has biased understanding of the connotation of wholeness (biased understanding will be mentioned below), and it has not been fully implemented, which future generations will make up for this. Considering this factor, when discussing how to promote the in-depth development of ID theory and application through the application of the new threes, we will add a holistic feature based on the four features of the new threes. We will study how the system method of the new threes promotes in-depth development of ID theory and application from five aspects—integrity, non-linearity, synergy, fluctuation, and openness.

3.1 Correctly Implementing Holistic ID 3.1.1

Defects of Traditional ID in Implementing Holistic ID [6] [10]

Bloom’s classification of teaching goals and Gagne’s classification of learning results share a common premise [6]: different goals or results can be best reflected by the application of specific teaching methods, while the teaching goals of a lesson or a unit can often be decomposed into several sub-goals. If you choose the best method for each goal, and then teach each sub-goal one by one according to these methods, when all these sub-goals have been taught, the teaching goal of the whole lesson or the whole unit will be achieved. The traditional ID in most cases (especially in the teaching of basic subjects) is effective, but is not suitable for the student to complete complex skills of a learning task [10]. Due to the complexity of traditional ID in these occasions, task is decomposed into simple components, and makes a particular study area divide into cognitive, motor skills, or emotional areas, these areas corresponding to the knowledge, skills, and attitude of learning. The learning in the cognitive field can be further divided into six sub-goals: knowing, understanding, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating. Such a division often

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fails to produce the expected learning results in complex skill learning areas, such as vocational education and professional education such as architecture and medicine. For example, a surgeon, although he has curing skills (capable of performing operations), does not have a good understanding of the structure and operation mechanism of the human body, or has mastered the knowledge of the mechanism and operation of the human body and certain surgical skills, but lacks love for the patients. Is this the surgeon you expect? These problems suggest that this three-dimensional division of cognitive, emotional, and motor skills in the learning domain is not appropriate when we focus on performance in specific areas of expertise in real life and work. To be a competent surgeon, a surgeon must satisfy all three requirements: cognitive, emotional, and motor skills. As pointed out by Jeroen J.G. van Merrienboer, the traditional ID principles based on Gagne theory and Bloom theory imply the idea that the whole is equal to the sum of the parts, [10] which is contrary to the emphasis on the integrity of system method. As mentioned above, the idea that the whole is equal to the sum of its parts just ignores the interrelation and interaction between the parts. Merrienboer believed that this is the main defect existing in the traditional ID for the complex skills learning areas as well as the basic disciplines (of course, we should not be denied that traditional ID still has an important practical guiding significance, based on the theory of Fresnel and Bloom (to 3D division of the teaching goal), such as in primary and secondary schools teaching, colleges and universities teaching of some basic subjects). In order to overcome the defect of three-dimensional division of traditional ID in the field of complex skills learning, a group of scholars represented by Professor Merrienboer, of the Open University of the Netherlands, put forward the holistic instructional design specifically aimed at the field of complex skills learning in the early 1990s. The ID uses complete task to replace parts of the task, stressing the need to give students a real, practical oriented whole learning task, at the same time focusing on integration and coordination of various sub-goals as the important task; thus this is advantageous to cultivate knowledge, skills, and emotional attitude of comprehensive training, and this can effectively promote students to transfer knowledge and skills to other areas of the real life. If use of 3D goal is to divide different objectives, such as cognitive, motor skills, and emotional attitude, and then further subdivided again; on this occasion, due to focus on each sub-goal parts analysis and implementation, usually teachers have no chance to think about the relationship between the 3D objectives, less attention on the cooperation and coordination between the sub-tasks, and thus for complex skills learning areas, using 3D division of the traditional ID, often not conducive to for the cultivation in students’ knowledge acquisition and skill transfer.

3.1.2

Basic Contents of Holistic ID

The contents of holistic ID include four elements: learning task, supporting information, instant information, and partial task exercises, so it is also known as four-factor instructional design [10].

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Among the four elements, learning task is the core, which is presented to students in the form of overall task from simple to difficult level. The composition of complex skill tasks can be divided into repetitive skill and non-repetitive skill. Repeat-ability refers to the skills that are basically the same in the learning and transfer processes, that is, the skills that do not change with the overall task difficulty. Non-repetitive skills refer to the skills that are different in the learning process and the transfer process, which will change with overall difficulty of tasks (such as problem solving and reasoning). Due to this situation, students are required to solve practical problems through analysis and reasoning by using known concepts, knowledge, and strategies in unfamiliar or dissimilar task situations, so that non-repetitive skills are the key skills for students to solve transfer problems. In the design of learning tasks, for the learning of non-repetitive skills, it is necessary to present students with real, specific, and meaningful overall task situations, guide and promote students to analyze, conclude, reason, and summarize actively in the real situation, and complete the construction of cognitive schema. For the learning of repetitive skills, because the skill behaviors in the learning process are highly like the skill behaviors required in the future task situations, the learning process can adopt task situations that are close to reality, and the skill behaviors can be programmed and regularized. Therefore, the realization of the procedural rules of skill learning is the key to the ID, and it is not difficult to make students master it as soon as possible through repeated imitation, practice, and continuous repetition. Supportive information is the support information needed to complete nonrepetitive learning tasks. Therefore, the design of supporting information is crucial to the learning of non-repetitive skills. In design, effective mental model and cognitive mode should be provided for each task level. Secondly, the information of each task level should be explained and demonstrated with a certain teaching strategy. Third, the teacher gives students cognitive feedback on the quality of the work done by non-repetitive skills and relates it to the current learning task. Instant information is the precursor information needed to complete a repetitive learning task. This information includes both necessary instructions for correct operation of the rules and the relevant knowledge required for correct application of the rules. This information should be provided to students in a timely manner as they complete their learning tasks. Some tasks are additional exercises designed to automate the learning of repetitive skills. For repetitive skills that require a high level of automation, adequate practice is the key. To do this, additional tasks need to be designed.

3.2 Fully Reflection of Non-Liberality As mentioned above, non-linearity refers to the nonlinear relationship among the elements of the system. It is generally believed that a teaching system contains four elements, that is teacher, student, teaching content, and teaching media [11], so within the teaching system, due to the mutual connection and interaction between various

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elements, forming the nonlinear relationship, which should include six relations— teacher and student, teacher and teaching content, teacher and student, student and teaching content, teaching media and teaching media, teaching content and teaching media. Considering the six relations, some has strong correlation with each other, if you put them together, it will help you understand problems, such as teacher, student, and teaching content; similarly, teacher, teaching media, and student can also be combined into a new relationship. In this way, the non-linear relationship in the teaching system is embodied in four kinds: teacher-student, teacher-studentteaching content, teacher-student-teaching media, and teaching content-teaching media. Below we will look at the nonlinear characteristics of the teaching system through these four relations on the influence of development of ID theory and application, and how ID should be adapted to the nonlinear characteristics of the teaching system.

3.2.1

Reflection of Non-Liberality Relationship Between Teacher-S and Student-S (Reflected by Adhering to the Educational Thought of Teacher-Student Combination and the New Teaching Concept)

Traditional ID, whether objective or subjective (i.e., constructionist ID) has failed to fully consider nonlinear interconnection existed between teachers and students, and interactive relations, but only emphasizes the status and role of the teacher or students in isolation. Objective ID emphasizes the leading role of teachers, and it is conducive to the play of the leading role of teachers; it is conducive to the monitoring of the whole teaching process, conducive to the teaching of systematic scientific knowledge and attainments of teaching objectives. But there is also a big disadvantage, that is teachercontentedness, only emphasizing teachers’ teaching while neglecting students’ learning, all ID content is centered on how to teach, rarely involving how to promote students’ independent learning. The classroom teaching is designed according to this theory. Students have few opportunities to participate in teaching activities, most of the time in a passive state of acceptance. It is hard for students to take initiative, which will not be conducive to cultivate innovative talents. The ID of objectivity is, in terms of its teaching concept, teaching-centered, and teacher-centered in terms of its educational thought, which obviously has a great bias. Subjective ID (constructionist teaching design), on the other hand, emphasizes the learners’ cognitive status in the learning process, and holds that knowledge should be constructed by students independently instead of instilled by teachers, which is conducive to students’ independent learning, active exploration, and innovative talent growth, which are its outstanding advantages. But this kind of ID with emphasis on students’ autonomous learning, at the same time, tends to ignore the teacher’s leading role in the process of teaching, and even contradicting the students’ autonomous learning and teachers’ leading role (believing that teachers play a leading role will be bound and restrict students’ autonomous learning), but also ignore the emotional

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communication between teachers and students and the important role of emotional factors in the learning process. This kind of subjective ID is learning-centered in terms of its teaching concept and student-centered in terms of its educational thought, which is also one-sided. The consensus of the international education and technology at present, is to combine the two—giving priority to teaching and giving priority to learning, making the two complementary to achieve the best teaching effect (as to how to realize the organic combination of both, to form a new type of ID, which will be discussed in detail in the fifth section of this chapter). In a word, under the guidance of system method of the new threes, the international educational technology circle is experiencing another historic change in educational thought and teaching concept. It is of great importance to understand the significance and influence for promoting the deepening reform of school teaching at all levels.

3.2.2

Non-Linear Relationship Between Teacher-Student-Teaching Content (Through the Effective Use of Macro Strategy and Micro Strategy to Organize Teaching Content)

As mentioned above, the nonlinear relationship between teachers, students, and teaching contents includes the nonlinear relationship between teachers and teaching contents and between students and teaching contents. During ID, the nonlinear relationship between these two aspects can only be implemented through the design and implementation of teaching content organization strategy. As can be seen from the strategy design section of the Smith-Ragan Model shown in Fig. 1 above, it contains the design of three strategies, i.e., organizational strategy, delivery strategy, and management strategy, among which organizational strategy refers to organizational strategy of teaching content. It should be pointed out here that among most teachers, the teaching transfer strategy and teaching management strategy that are suitable for use in lessons (during classroom teaching process) are paid more attention to, while the teaching content organization strategy used before class is neglected. Since the teaching content organization strategy must fully consider the students’ original cognitive structure and cognitive features, it is of great import to optimize the teaching process. In general, instructional content organization strategies can be divided into macro and micro strategies. Macro strategy is to reveal the structural relations in the contents of subject knowledge, that is, the structural relations among all kinds of knowledge in a teaching unit or a course, and in the knowledge, the system is formed by the nonlinear interconnections and interactions between all kinds of knowledge. Macro strategy can effectively help teachers to guide the organization of knowledge contents and arrangement of knowledge points and sequence in the teaching process. For students, it can promote their understanding and mastery of the knowledge system, instead of just staying on mechanical memory and isolated application of various knowledge points.

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Micro strategy emphasizes how to organize teaching around certain knowledge point or certain topic within a lesson (its strategy components include definitions, examples, exercises, etc.). The knowledge point of the subject can be divided into conceptual knowledge point (clarifying what), procedural knowledge point (clarifying how to do), and fundamental knowledge point (clarifying why), etc. Obviously, for different types of knowledge points, teachers’ teaching methods and students’ learning methods should be different, and micro strategy provides the most effective prescription for teaching various knowledge points. After years of efforts in the academic world, significant progress has been made in both macro and micro strategies in the organization of teaching content. Currently, the most influential macro strategy would be the strategies proposed by Charles M. Reigeluth in his Elaboration Theory [8]. The most popular micro strategies among teachers belong to the strategies proposed by David Merrill in his Component Display Theory [8].

3.2.3

Non-Linear Relationship Between Teachers, Students, and Teaching Media (by Realizing the Two-Way and Even Multidimensional Interaction Among Teachers, Students, and Teaching Media)

As mentioned above, the nonlinear relationship between teachers, students, and teaching media includes the nonlinear relationship between teachers-media and student-media. A nonlinear relationship between the two in the reflection of the traditional ID is relatively simple, in addition to the media of the tape used to students’ autonomous learning, to practice a foreign language listening outside, the rest of the teaching media, whether it is a traditional slide show, projection, film, video, or a modern electronic whiteboard and multimedia computer), basically as auxiliary teaching visual aids, presentation aids (that is, the visual teaching tools). However, in such applications, students can only passively receive information, due to lack of interaction and one-way information transmission. In this application, the teacher acts as the information source (information provider) — > teaching media as information carrier and transmission medium— > as the receiver of information provided by teachers, students have a one-way linear transmission relationship among the three (teachers, students, and teaching media). Although this relationship plays an irreplaceable role in knowledge transmission and solving some key points and difficulties in teaching, yet it has great limitations, because in this linear relationship, students are completely in a passive state of acceptance, which is not conducive to the development of students’ initiative and enthusiasm, and is not conducive to the cultivation of innovative talents. The only way to change this situation is to make the relations between the life and teaching media and among the linear into nonlinear: the information in between teachers, students, teaching media is not only one-way transmission, but two-way and even multidimensional interaction; that is, to realize human–computer interaction, the interaction between teachers and students, student–student interaction. The teaching

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media is no longer only used as visual teaching aids and demonstration teaching aids (i.e., visualized teaching tools) to assist teachers in teaching, but also can be used as cognitive inquiry tools and cooperative communication tools for students’ independent learning and group cooperation. In this way, students’ initiative, enthusiasm, and creativity can be given full play, and the goal of cultivating innovative talents can be put into practice.

3.2.4

Non-Linear Relationship Between Teaching-Content and Teaching-Media (Reflected Using Hyperlinks to Organize Digital Teaching Content)

The traditional teaching content is usually printed textbooks, plus audio-visual media at most. No matter it is carried by paper media or audio-visual media, the relationship between them and the teaching content is a simple linear relationship—the teaching content is presented in a linear and sequential way in the media (i.e., organized according to the order of contents, chapters and contents). Entering the information age, this situation has changed a lot—the information technology marked by multimedia and network has penetrated in every field of national economy and social life, including the field of textbook publishing. Up to now, digital media, such as multimedia and network, have been ever more closely combined with textbook publishing, thus, forming a new digital network course with graphics and sound. In this kind of online course, the relationship between digital media and teaching contents is fundamentally different from that between other media and teaching contents in the past. This difference is reflected, in that the relationship between teaching-content and teaching-media has changed from linear to non-linear. Teaching contents in the digital media are no longer according to linear, sequential, but according to nonlinear, information organization—each hyperlink (can be a paragraph of text, a graphic, a photograph, a case, or a course-ware) is expressed in a node (each node is a knowledge point), and the relationship between various node-chain is used to connect. According to this way of non-linear links of teaching content, unlike traditional teaching material, one cannot teach from the first chapter of the first quarter linearly the sequential methods of reading, but one can only, according to the learner’s original foundation and personal interests, starting from an arbitrary nodes (knowledge), select any branch, path, sequence of study, and transitions between various related knowledge, achieve the on-demand learning, and thus to a great extent, satisfy every learner needs to explore with the requirements of personalized learning. Obviously, this superiority traditional contents and media between the linear relationship cannot be compared.

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3.3 Making Most of Synergy Synergistic theory points out that the key to make a system from disorderly to orderly lies in the fact that each key element within the system caused by the nonlinear interaction between collaborative phenomenon results from disorder to order in a system through the phenomenon of nonlinear system on the synergy, which form coherent effect and make tiny fluctuations continuously enlarge. As mentioned earlier, synergistic theory to explain the phenomenon of synergy is, in a state of disorder in the original system—the composition of different elements (that is, each subsystem), in the dominant principle (control principle in synergistic refers to the attribute that has assimilated the other party, one party is to make the other attributes with their same), under the action of system will be thus gradually changed from disorderly to orderly, forming a new ordered structure, because of assimilation according to a unified mode and coordinated operation. It is well-known that there are two main schools of constructionist: one is Piaget’s assimilation and adaptation theories, the individual constructionist school; the other is the school of social construction established by Vygotsky’s theory of social culture and activity. Social construction theory emphasizes the important role of social activities and cultural background in the formation and development of higher cognition, and holds that knowledge cannot exist independently of the social and cultural context in which individual lives. Therefore, social construction theory strongly advocates collaborative learning—the essence of which is the collaborative construction of knowledge in groups or teams. The so-called collaborative construction of knowledge is a process in which individuals in a group or team complete the meaning construction by cooperating with each other and participating in some purposeful activities together; that is, the process of forming some intelligent products such as ideas, opinions, and methods. The cooperative learning advocated by social construction theory is the concrete manifestation of the cooperative phenomenon in the teaching process of system science. For example, in a teaching system, at the beginning of learning a new concept or a new principle, the students’ understanding the concepts or principles are completely in a state of disorder—some is known, some is less known, and some unknown. However, after the teacher’s inspiration and guidance and the organization of group or team collaborative learning, the final assimilation will enable the whole class of students to achieve the understanding and mastery of the concepts or principles, to complete the transformation from disorder to order. Since the social construction theory advocated Collaborative Learning, it has gone through three stages of development, including Collaborative Learning (CL), Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL), and Web-based Collaborative Learning (WBCL). In the third stage of development, with the rapid development of Blog, Tag, Rss, Wiki, and other social software, the current web-based collaborative learning is brewing a new breakthrough—to the direction of large-scale collaboration. Due to the above biggest characteristic of social software is of reusable micro content and polymerization, and stressing that people-contentedness encourages users to

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participate [12]. And this social software is based on the web, which means that the web has now provided good support for large-scale collaborative learning environment—because it is already not only a kind of new media, new technology, but also has created a worldwide ubiquitous, support of study and work by the humans, and even affected all aspects of daily life—a collaboration and communication platform.

3.4 Effective Implementation of Fluctuation Due to some internal or external reasons, the state of a system may have some small ups and downs. With such ups and downs, the coherent effect caused by the synergistic effect of nonlinear system can be continuously amplified, so that the system can transfer from an unstable disordered state to a new stable ordered state. In the process of the system from disorder to order, fluctuation acts as a lever—through fluctuation leads to order. So, for the teaching system, how to form this fluctuation? Or what kind of strategies should be used in ID to form such fluctuations? To answer this question, we must first understand the nature of fluctuations. As mentioned above, in addition to the learning of complex skills, other fields of non-complex skills learning—such as the teaching of basic subjects in primary and secondary schools and the teaching of some non-specialized courses in colleges and universities—the teaching design that divides the teaching objectives into three dimensions still has important practical guiding significance. As far as the teaching of cognitive goals is concerned, the process of the system from disorder to order and the formation of a new stable state (i.e., dissipation structure) is the process of the meaning construction of certain knowledge from ignorance to knowing (or knowing little to knowing more). Fluctuation is equivalent to cognitive conflict in such teaching occasions, if learners’ cognitive conflict can be aroused, their learning motivation can be stimulated and the process of meaning construction can be successfully completed. Common strategies that can effectively cause learners’ cognitive conflict include: – Asking inspiring questions; – Encouraging divergent thinking and critical thinking; – Guiding independent inquiry…. As far as the teaching of emotional goals is concerned, the process of the system from disorder to order and the formation of a new stable state (i.e., dissipation structure) is the process of psychological internalization of certain emotions and attitudes from relatively lacking to gradually forming. Fluctuation in this teaching situation is equivalent to emotional conflict, as long as it can cause learner’s emotional conflict, it can stimulate his/her learning motivation, so as to gradually complete the psychological internalization process. Common strategies that can effectively cause learners’ emotional conflict include:

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– Creating real and vivid situations; – Encouraging students to reflect on reality; – Advocating the unity of knowledge and practice, and guiding students to reflect on their feelings and attitudes…. In terms of the teaching of motor skills, although motor skills are mainly acquired through the process of imitation practice, but how to imitate and practice? It is still guided by thinking, so its essence is still cognitive activity. In other words, fluctuation in this teaching situation is still equivalent to cognitive conflict, so the above strategies can still be used.

3.5 Keeping the System Open Openness requires the continuous exchange of matter, energy, and information between the system and external environment, which is the prerequisite for the system to move from disorder to order and finally form a dissipation structure. Therefore, it is of special importance. This is important in two ways:

3.5.1

Without an Open System, It Cannot Run

In a teaching system, for example, it cannot depart from the support of the school environment and local social environment, if the teaching system completely is closed up, cuts it off from all the external environmental links (between school and social environment) making it impossible to any exchange, substance, energy, and information, so that the teaching system cannot run, nor even survive.

3.5.2

Without an Open System, Development Will Be Impossible

Without openness, the system cannot operate, and is impossible to develop. Again, taking a teaching system as an example, it is because of opening, classroom teaching changes its face—by chalk blackboard, dictated blackboard writing, turned into audio-visual teaching, multimedia teaching, network teaching. It is because of the opening, the way of students’ learning change—by listening to notes, passive acceptance, becoming able to use visual software, geometric painting board, simulation experiments and other cognitive tools, self-learning, collaboration to explore. It is because of the opening, teaching contents become rich and colorful from a single textbook to a picture, text, sound, and digital teaching materials, but also having related teaching resources and subject special topic website support. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, with the development of science and technology, the depth and breadth of materials, energy, and information exchange between a teaching system and external environment has entered a new stage, which

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makes the openness of a teaching system reach an unprecedented degree. Take the aforementioned Web 2.0 as an example. Its core values are open source and interaction [13]. Open source means that both information, resources, and services are open to all users at the same time. Users can freely refer to online resources and information, and then integrate, create, and publish new contents. Interactivity means that in Web 2.0, everyone is the creator and user of information, who can submit their own contents, and can freely use the resources and information created by others (within the scope of intellectual property rights). In addition, Web 2.0 has transformed the traditional mode of web application from reading to reading and writing and co-building (everyone can participate in the construction of online resources). If Web 2.0 is applied to support large-scale collaborative learning, the openness of the teaching system will be further expanded. For another example, let us take cloud computing technology, emerging in the computer field in recent years because this technology can greatly promote the depth and breadth of materials, energy, and information exchanges between a teaching system and the external environment. If it is introduced into the teaching process, it will certainly cause another major reform in the openness of a teaching system. Cloud computing refers to [14] the user’s applications that do not run on own computer or PDA or other terminal devices, but on a large cluster of servers on the Internet. The data the user processes is not stored locally, but in a data center on the Internet. To put it in a visual language, let the cloud of the Internet becomes the computing and data center of every netizen—countless software and servers are placed in the cloud, and huge amounts of data are stored in the cloud. The emergence of cloud computing technology enables learners to access the cloud teaching content, resources, and relevant information through a web browser at anytime and anywhere for open learning. Teachers and students are not only readers and users of information and resources, but also processors, creators, and publishers of information and resources— everyone can learn from or improve the information resources provided by others for use, but also upload their own processing and creation results to the Internet for use by others. In this way, the repository will become a global library that is completely open, dynamically updated, and able to meet the different needs of users, and that resources on a subject will always be up to date. It can be predicted [14] that with the increasing popularity of cloud computing, more and more schools and individuals will transfer their information, resources, and processing to cloud. So, in the era of cloud computing, stakeholders in educational technology must keep pace with the time, to gradually familiarize with advantages and characteristics of cloud computing as it is applied to teaching. At the same time, one should constantly update his/her education ideas, teaching ideas, methods, and the way to work to better adapt to the time for demands of changes and development.

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4 Misinterpretations in New Generation of Instructional Design Theory Since the 1990s, with the development of system science, with Dissipation Structure Theory, Synergistic, Hypercycle Theory, these three new theories exert bigger and bigger influence in the field of education, so a group of scholars in education and technology want to apply the new three approaches to promote the development and application of ID theory. This should have been a good thing, but due to some deviations in the systematic approach and epistemology, coupled with the misdirection of some influential scholars, it has been done badly. Next, I would like to discuss this issue with academic colleagues. Since the 1990s, a group of scholars in the field of educational technology in China have paid great attention to the research on the guiding role of the system method of the new threes in the study of educational technology or ID theory. For example, in 1999, Zhu Yundong of Yunnan Normal University and Zhong Yuzhuo of Tsinghua University jointly published a paper entitled Basic Chaos Theory and New Directions for the Development of Instructional Design in Electronic Education Research (No. 5, 1999). Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, a group of scholars have successively launched a heated discussion on the application of chaos and dissipation structure theories in educational technology or ID theory [4] [16] [17] [18]. It should be said that these papers have made beneficial explorations in trying to use the system method of the new threes for guiding the study of educational technology or ID theory. Some views are quite innovative [18], and even have perceptive insights [4]. But I do not entirely agree with some of them. For example, to construct the formulation of chaotic ID is worth discussing. There are three basic concepts in chaos theory: Butterfly Effect, Fractal, and Singular Attractor. Butterfly Effect means that a butterfly in a South American rain forest can trigger a tornado in Texas by pumping its wings. The implication is that the system is uncertain and unpredictable—very sensitive to initial conditions. Fractal is a natural shape graph generated by recursion, iteration, and other algorithms. It has self-similar properties under different scales. Singular Attractor (also known as chaotic attractor or Lorentz attractor) is a kind of attractor with special convergence behavior and fractal dimension (attractor is the convergence performance of the system, which can control and limit the motion range of the system). Scholars who advocate the construction of chaotic ID believe that the above basic concepts in chaos theory shake the theoretical basis of traditional ID [17] and wanting to use chaos theory to transform traditional ID [15] [16] or to construct a new generation of ID [17]. The intentions of these scholars are undoubtedly good, and their ideas have some merit, but they always seem far-fetched. Why? The problem, I think, is in understanding chaos theory itself. Scholars who advocate the construction of chaotic ID intend to use the system method of the new threes to transform traditional ID or to construct a new generation of ID. This starting point should be said to be very good and worthy of recognition. However, these scholars

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Marxist philosophy

Systems science deals with systems methods

Social sciences and the Humanities

Natural science and technical

Politics, economics, law, education....

Science, engineering, agriculture,

Fig. 2 Relationship between systematic approach, philosophy, and specific disciplines

improperly equate the concepts and problem-solving methods of chaos theory with the systematic methods of the new threes. It is true that chaos theory is closely related to the new threes, because the concept of chaos itself is synergies from one of the components of the new threes. Hermann Haakon, the founder of synergistic, believed that elementary synergistic study the process from disorder to order, and advanced synergistic study the process from order to chaos, and pointed out that chaos refers to the irregular motion caused by deterministic force [19]. However, this can only show that chaos is closely related to system science and is one of the research objects of synergistic, but it cannot show that chaos belongs to the category of system method as open, nonlinear, and synergistic. In fact, there is a relationship between the system approach, philosophy (including epistemology and dialectical materialism), and the specific disciplines, as shown in Fig. 2. From the Fig. 2 it can be seen, system science and system method is relatively high on the level of abstraction in human knowledge of objective things, just below philosophy (that is, with dialectical materialism epistemology), but higher than all of specific subjects of natural sciences and social sciences (including science, engineering, agriculture, medicine, and politics, economics, law, education). Also because of this, it is possible for system science and system method to have a guiding role for all-natural sciences and social sciences and their specific fields in the aspect of methodology and dialectical materialism of the Marxist theory guide all-natural sciences and social sciences and the specific disciplines, in terms of epistemology and world outlook. Meanwhile system science and system method also play a guiding role in the epistemology, world outlook, and cosmology. Because chaos is one of the research object of synergistic, it did not rise to the level of openness of system method, nonlinear, collaborative category (still in a lower level of human understanding of objective things), so to the chaotic (or Butterfly Effect of chaos theory, the basic concepts such as Fractal and Strange Attractor) as a general

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methodology, used to guide the traditional ID reform or the construction of a new generation of ID theory, obviously it is not appropriate, also impossible. But this does not mean that some scientific concepts and realistic ideas in chaos theory cannot be used for reference to promote the perfection and development of educational technology and ID theory—it is essential for disciplines to mutually reference and learn. However, this is completely different from the general methodology of chaos or chaotic theory, which is used to guide the transformation of traditional ID or the construction of new generation ID theory. Internationally, D.H. Jonassen, from the United States, was the first to believe that the process of ID is full of chaos and advocate the transformation or reconstruction of a new generation of ID (the so-called chaotic ID) with chaos theory. He is a representative of contemporary radical constructionist. As early as 1990s, he put forward the above views in the article entitled Thinking Technology: Chaos in Instructional Design published in the Journal Educational Technology [20]. But more than 20 years have passed since then, and the international response to Jonathan’s ideas has been patchy. Although a group of scholars in China are quite interested in it, so far where is the so-called chaotic ID? We cannot even see its embryonic form—the so-called chaotic ID model in some articles only emphasizes the openness and non-linearity of ID. It should be said that the system method of the new threes is advocated to guide ID correctly, rather than what is called chaotic ID mode. This phenomenon may not be a mistake in the field of educational technology research (since these scholars intend to advocate the systematic approach of the new threes, which is not wrong! It is only a partial understanding of chaos or the nature of chaotic theory), but we can learn some useful lessons from it.

5 Novel Instructional Design of Balanced Teaching–Learning 5.1 Theoretical Basis and Implementation Steps of Teaching-Centered ID Before the 1990s (that is, before the popularity of constructionist), the teachingcentered ID theory advocated by Gagne was widely adopted in classroom teaching of all levels and types of schools. This design theory focuses on teachers’ teaching but ignores students’ independent learning. The theoretical basis of this design, from the perspective of learning theory, is mainly based on Gagne’s eclecticism in learning theory marked by connection-cognition, while in terms of teaching theory, it comprehensively adopts Gagne, Ausubel, as well as representative teaching theories from the former Soviet Union and Germany. The implementation process usually includes the following steps:

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2.

3. 4. 5.

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Teaching objective analysis—through teaching objective analysis, determining the teaching contents and knowledge points, learning sequence related to the teaching objective. Learner characteristics analysis—through this analysis, to understand the learner’s knowledge and ability foundation, cognitive characteristics, learning style, to determine the starting point of teaching, in order to teach students in accordance with their aptitude. Determining teaching methods and strategies based on the analysis of teaching objectives and learners’ characteristics. Choice of teaching media based on the analysis of teaching objectives and learners’ characteristics. The teaching according to the above methods and strategies, and carrying out formative evaluation in the teaching process (formative evaluation in the teaching process has various forms, such as questions, tests, examinations, observations, etc.). Adjusting the teaching contents, teaching methods, and strategies appropriately according to the feedback obtained from the evaluation.

5.2 Theoretical Basis and Implementation Steps of Learning-Oriented ID Since the 1990s, with the widespread popularity of Western constructionist, the learning-oriented ID advocated by Jonathan et al., a representative of radical constructionist, has gradually replaced the teaching-oriented ID, which focus on students’ autonomous learning and independent inquiry, and from the creation of situation and provision of resource (to promote autonomous learning external), and design learning strategy and organization and collaborative communication (to promote autonomous learning internal cause); that is, from internal and external aspects, the students’ autonomous learning in order to support. This kind of ID theory basis is purely constructionist learning and teaching theory, and it is the radical, teaching and learning theory of constructionist, because this kind of constructionist to the teachers’ role in opposition to students’ autonomous learning, thus completely ignoring teacher role in the teaching process its implementation process includes the following steps: 1. 2.

3.

Situation creation—creating a situation conducive to students’ independent knowledge construction; Information resource provision—to provide documents and information learning tools and learning resources related to the topic of current learning, to promote students’ independent construction; Design of independent learning strategy—independent learning strategy is an internal factor that induces students to consciously and actively learn and independently construct the meaning of knowledge. Its purpose is to fully mobilize the initiative and enthusiasm of students in learning;

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5.

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Organization of collaborative learning—to deepen students’ meaning construction through mutual cooperative communication, collision of ideas and learning from each other; Organization and guidance of independent inquiry and discovery—on the basis of initially achieving the goal of meaning construction (that is, on the basis of certain understanding and mastery of the current knowledge), and then further cultivating students’ innovative spirit and practical ability through discovery learning or inquiry learning to solve practical problems; Evaluation of learning effect—including learner self-evaluation and group evaluation. The evaluation focuses on three aspects: autonomous learning ability, contribution to cooperative learning, and the depth of achieving the goal of meaning building.

5.3 Background, Theoretical Base, and Steps of ID of Attaching Equal Importance to Learning and Teaching Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, with the in-depth development of educational informationization, ideas of international education have been greatly updated, especially the educational thought has changed from student-centeredness advocated by radical constructionist to B-learning (mixed learning). Blended learning refers to blending learning (or blended learning, abbreviated as B-learning). Its original meaning is the combination of two or more ways of teaching and learning; for example, blended lecturing and traditional teaching method based on teaching is a Blearning. The combination of independent learning and collaborative learning is also a B-learning, which has been in existence since the 1980s. However, it was re-proposed in the early twenty-first century, giving it a new connotation. This new connotation refers to traditional classroom teaching method and the online learning methods combined. That is to give full play to the chief role of teachers in guiding, inspiring, and monitoring the teaching process, and to highlight the initiative, enthusiasm, and creativity of students as the cognitive entity. If Chinese researchers express this idea this way, the central role of the teacher and cognitive entity of learners combine. In other words, in recent years (especially since 2010), the internationally popular educational thought marked by B-learning is the teacher-student combined educational thought that we started to advocate as early as the 1990s. The consensus of international education at present is, to achieve the best teaching effect, we need to give full play to teachers’ leading role highlighting the principal position of students’ cognition, based on the organic combination of the two with equal attention (as opposed to the radical constructionist focusing only on the latter, unlike traditional teaching only paying attention to the former). This new meaning can be seen from the blending learning, to put forward the concept, not only showing education ideas about teaching and learning mode, but more of international education ideas about education on the change of teaching ideas and improving education thought from teachercenteredness or student-centeredness to teacher-student combination. The teaching

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concept is changed from the original teaching-oriented or learning-oriented to attach equal importance to both learning and teaching. Thus, the nonlinear relationship between teacher and student in the teaching system is established. Under the guidance of three new representative system science methods and education thoughts marked by B-Learning as mentioned before, and through nearly a decade network education practice in 1900s, we found that the two ID theories— giving priority to teaching and giving priority to learning—both have their respective advantages and drawbacks. The former (teaching-centered ID) focuses on teaching and the teach, which is convenient to give play to the leading role of teachers, facilitate teachers to monitor the process of teaching activities, and facilitate teachers to teach students in accordance with their aptitude. As a result, it is conducive to the acceptance and inheritance of previous knowledge and experience, as well as the systematic learning and mastery of basic subject knowledge. However, this kind of design ignores students’ independent learning and neglects their initiative and enthusiasm, which is easy to cause students’ superstition toward teachers, authorities, and books, which is not conducive to the cultivation of innovative consciousness, innovative thinking, and innovative ability. The latter (priority to the teaching), on the other hand, focuses on the students’ learning, attaching importance to students’ autonomous learning, independent inquiry, and collaborative communication between each other, paying attention to fully mobilize students’ initiative, enthusiasm, and creativity, thus, advantageous to the students’ innovative consciousness, innovative thinking, and innovative ability. However, this design ignores teachers’ role and fails to give full play to teachers’ chief role, which is not conducive to students’ systematic learning and mastery of basic knowledge and skills of the subject. In teaching–learning combined education thought and the new three system under the guidance of the scientific method, we get to know that to achieve the ideal teaching effect under the information-based teaching environment, it is best to organically combine the above two kinds of design thinking, complementing each other to form a complementary advantage of the theory of teaching and learning design. The theoretical basis of this design is to attach equal importance to learning and teaching. In terms of learning theory, it adopts the new constructionist learning theory. In terms of teaching theory, it mainly adopts Ausubel and Gagne’s teaching theory. In the process and method of design, it takes the advantages of both teaching-oriented and learning-oriented design, which is the enrichment and expansion of the original design theory, and therefore includes the following steps: 1.

2.

Teaching objective analysis—through teaching objective analysis, to determine the teaching contents and knowledge points, and learning sequence related to the objectives; Learner characteristics analysis—through learner characteristics analysis, to understand learner’s knowledge and ability basis, cognitive characteristics, learning style, so as to determine the starting point of teaching, in order to teach students in accordance with their aptitude;

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4. 5. 6.

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Choice and design of teaching and learning strategies (including the choice and design of traditional teaching strategies, as well as the choice and design of strategies of constructionist independent learning, cooperative learning, and independent inquiry); Learning situation creation (to be implemented at the beginning of a lesson or in a lesson); Selection and design of teaching media and teaching resources; Implementation of formative assessment in the teaching process, and making appropriate adjustments to teaching contents and teaching strategies, according to the feedback from formative assessment.

In ID of paying equal attention to both learning and teaching, steps generally follow the pattern of teaching-centered teaching design process; however, its steps have covered the design of constructionist strategies, such as autonomous learning, cooperative learning, and autonomous inquiry. In Step 1 to Step 6, it includes the requirements of situation creation and information resources, so it can better reflect the complementary advantages of equal attention to both learning and teaching design. Many teaching practices have proved that it is this kind of instructional design of equal importance to learning and teaching, which can effectively implement deep integration (i.e., deep integration) of information technology and subject teaching. It is also a kind of ID theory and method that is the most effective and the most popular among teachers in the information-based teaching environment.

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Chapter 6

Innovative Teaching Theory Supportive of Mandarin Chinese Teaching Quality: New Theory of Children’s Thinking Development

1 New Theory of Children’s Thinking Development Language is the expression form of thinking. Language and thinking are inseparable. Whether in understanding the developmental process of thinking and relationship between them, language will exert a vital restrictive effect on the teaching of national language (namely the teaching of mother tongue, commonly known as the teaching of Mandarin or Putonghua). If the understanding is scientific and objective, it will play a good role in promoting Chinese teaching. Otherwise, it will seriously reduce the quality and efficiency of mother tongue teaching, and greatly delay and block the process of mother tongue teaching reform. As is known to all, Jean Piaget has made the most in-depth research and the most important contribution to child’s cognitive development in the world. His theory on stages of child’s cognitive development [2, 3]. This theory has not only made a pioneering contribution to the research in this field, but also become the most authoritative classical theory in this field. However, this theory cannot explain such a phenomenon, when a first-grade student is about six years old. Why through our leapfrog development experiment project (“跨越式教学 试验课题”) for two academic years (only seven or eight years old or so), the students can generally reach far beyond the classic theory of regulation, children can have a level of language and cognitive development. The new theory on the development of children’s thinking [1] is proposed based on long-term practical exploration and criticism to inherit the reasonable core of Piaget’s theory. It can provide theoretical support for greatly improving the quality of Chinese teaching (as well as the teaching quality of the mother tongue of any ethnic group) in the following aspects: First, children entering the first grade of primary school (about 6 years old) also have a very strong foundation in both pronunciation and meaning of national language. A survey conducted by Chinese psychologists in the late 1980s and early 1990s has shown that [4, 5] preschoolers aged 5 ~ 6 have mastered more than 3500 oral vocabularies. Studies by Chinese child linguists in the late 1990s have shown that [6, 7] preschoolers aged 4 ~ 5 years old have been able to understand and use © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 K. He, Innovative Education Informatization with Chinese Characteristics, Bridging Human and Machine: Future Education with Intelligence, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0622-0_6

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a variety of Chinese sentence patterns (including complex interrogative sentences). This greatly reduces the difficulty of language teaching in words and the pattern teaching; in the three aspects of the teaching requirements, i.e., in form, sound, and meaning, teachers only need to focus on form, rather than as in traditional teaching, pay equal attention to all three aspects, so that every class can save a lot of time to let students read extensively (as long as the extensive reading material filling pinyin, with appropriate to the pronunciation, students can master the new words by being self-taught, and understanding the meaning of new words and related words from context), thus creating the necessary conditions to achieve a sharp rise in the quality of Chinese teaching (i.e., leapfrog development). Second, language use as the center is the fundamental means and method for children to learn language quickly. Children learn language in the process of communicating with others, that is, in the process of using language. The purpose of learning a language is to communicate, so using it when you are learning it. For the firstgrade pupils, their oral language expression ability and thinking ability have been able to write an article with complete structure, smooth, and fluent objective conditions. Chinese teaching can and must change the traditional way of teaching—over the years as a habit; the three-teaching links—literacy, reading, and writing—were isolated and fragmented, but in the language-use-centered under the guidance of thinking, teachers are trying to put together the three, and integrate and unified in the Chinese teaching process. Thirdly, the cultivation of language ability should be combined with the training of thinking ability (especially innovative thinking ability). Language is the expression form of thinking. On the one hand, language is the foundation of thinking development, on the other hand, thinking ability belonging to the cognitive category, which also plays a great role in promoting or restricting the development of language ability. Students of leapfrog experimental class, with many cases, prove proposition based on assumption of higher abstract logical thinking ability (including a variety of complex reasoning) that happened, which is unlike what Piaget theory stresses, for the children after the age of 11 reach the requirement, but 6 ~ 7 years old children with proper teaching environment and the scientific methods everyone could reach the requirements. Therefore, Chinese teaching should combine the cultivation of language ability with the training of thinking ability (especially innovative thinking ability), and this combination should start from the first grade of primary school, instead of trying this combination until the fifth or sixth grade of primary school, as traditional teaching does. Fourth, under the guidance of the new theory on the development of children’s thinking, we have formed a set of innovative teaching theories of primary school Chinese (which is also the innovative teaching theory of any national mother tongue) under the unique and unprecedented information environment. The innovation theory of the primary school Chinese teaching includes the new Chinese teaching thoughts and ideas, teaching design and mode, method, and strategies. Taking teaching thinking as an example, in child development, formed on the basis of new thinking, under the environment of informationization of primary school Chinese teaching

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theory, teaching thinking that Chinese teaching must be centered on language use, rather than syntactical analysis-centered or words-explanation-centered. Children learn language for communication and application and try to use it in a certain context. Never leave the context to memorize new words and sentence patterns in isolation; do not teach or learn Chinese in a grammar analysis-centered or wordexplaining-centered way, because that is contrary to the rules of children’s language learning. Language application as the center is the fundamental means and method for children to learn language quickly. The approach and method of linguistics are centered on grammatical analysis. Child learning and linguists’ study are different, which should not be confused with each other. As mentioned above, our new thinking of child development is written based on criticism, inheritance of Piaget’s theory (see the title and the content of the second and third chapters, about nearly 60,000 words on the questions, analysis, and critique of child’s cognitive development stage theory [1], and Piaget is the most famous international authoritative the field), so far no one challenges Piaget in the world. We begin this comprehensive, in-depth criticism of his point of view, the first time in the world. It turned out that some scholars in China did not support my monograph, because the book involves a great international authority. We are challenging Piaget’s theory publicly, not because we want to show off, but because we found, in the process of teaching reform practice that the child’s cognitive development obviously conflicts Piaget’s theory, and the theory of affected countries, nationalities, and prevents the mother tongue teaching in primary and secondary schools, especially elementary school language discipline. For example, so far, global native language literacy teaching in primary school starts at Grades One or Two, which only focus on writing words and sentences at Grade Three (in 1996 the United States education technology program requires only learn to read, about eight years old children, namely into Grade Third of primary school children also, without request of writing). In addition, the middle and lower years of primary schools around the world all emphasize visual teaching, not involving the cultivation of logical thinking at this stage, which is rooted in the limitation of Piaget’s theory of child’s cognitive development stages. This makes us dare to challenge Piaget and on this basis put forward a new theory of child’s cognitive development stage—namely new theory of children’s thinking development. It is in under the guidance of the new theory, we formed the unprecedented, very efficient, independent innovation, native language teaching theory, and the 2-1-1 mother tongue teaching mode (2-1-1 mode) was experimented in Chinese with English speakers, California, USA; Singapore and Malay as its mother tongue, in Uygur language speakers, Xinjiang, China, prove to have a significant effect for years—a large number of first- and second-grade students in each experimental school are able to write not only literary but also thoughtful, analytic, and logical articles, and such students generally reach more than 80% of the class; some became little writers; according to our new theory, the eight-year-old are not only able to read, but able to read and write. It can be said that without the criticism of Piaget, there would be no new theory on the development of children’s thinking, and there would be no widely spread 2-1-1 mother tongue teaching model. Practice has proved that Piaget’s theory does have obvious defects, which are very serious.

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This is the fundamental reason for the phenomenon of less, slower, worse, and more expensive in the teaching of mother tongue in various countries and nationalities all over the world. People asked if such a theory should be questioned, critiqued? Of course, we cannot negate of Piaget’s theory, which has made an outstanding contribution to cognitive science. The right contents we need to learn, inherit, and carry forward (in fact, in my book, the part of Piaget’s theory that proves right has been given full affirmation and the height of the evaluation). Thankfully, A New Theory on the Development of Children’s Thinking was officially published in English (both in print and online) in October 2015 by Springer, an internationally renowned academic publisher. By November 2016, this monograph (in English) had been included in the full text of the most influential Web of Science Book Citation Index (SSCI and SCI are both under the umbrella of this institution). It is possible that book can be included in full by the agency in cognitive sciences on international level with recognition of a collection of most famous psychologists. It shows that as China’s national strength enhancement, the improvement of international status, China’s gain a position in academic discourse, if our real academic theory has scientific basis, and do a lot of practice tested to prove to be correct, even if it touches one of the biggest international authorities, can also be recognized by the international mainstream academics. This would have been unthinkable even 10 years ago, but it is now happening. The world is indeed moving forward.

2 Piaget’s Stages of Child’s Cognitive Development Famous Swiss educational psychologist Piaget (Jean Piaget), as early as 1952, put forward child’s cognitive development, according to the fixed, irreversible phases. The important thought [2], in his 1970, representative works The Principles of Genetic Epistemology [3], which has more systematic discussion on this issue, and has formed Piaget’s unique theory of child’s cognitive development stages. It has made a pioneering contribution to the research in this field.

2.1 Basic Contents of Piaget’s Theory of Child’s Cognitive Development Stages Piaget believed that child’s cognitive development could be divided into four stages of operation. Here, the operation is not operation in formal logic, nor is it the operation in general mathematics, but refers to the psychological operation, that is, the operation carried out psychologically and internalized through images, representations, or symbols. This psychological operation has two main characteristics: • Reversibility—it can go either in one direction or the other.

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• Conservation—as a result of operation, the external form of the object will change, but its original property will remain unchanged. Such immutability is called conservation. For example, narrow x high can be equivalent to wide x low (the area remains unchanged). Piaget, marked by performance, divided the child’s cognitive development from infancy to adolescence into the following four stages:

2.1.1

Sensory-Motor Stage

From birth to two years old, sensory-motor level lies roughly at this stage. The child’s cognitive development in this stage is mainly the gradual differentiation of feelings and actions. Babies are born with innate genetic unconditional reflexes and then gradually develop the ability to cope with external environmental stimuli by organizing their feelings and actions. By the late stage of this stage, feeling and action are clearly differentiated, means and ends gradually differentiated, and thinking begins to sprout. The sensory-motor stage (from birth to two years old) is divided into six substages: • The first sub-stage (birth ~ 1 month)—reflex practice period Its characteristic is to adapt to the external environment through the innate unconditional reflex. If feeling hunger and thirst it will cry and seeing the nipple it will suck. • The second sub-stage (1 ~ 4.5 months)—habitual movement formation period Based on innate unconditional reflex, two or more actions are linked together to form a certain habitual action, to adapt to the external environment more effectively. If you hear a sound, immediately look for the source of the sound with your eyes and follow the moving object with your eyes. • The third sub-stage (4.5 ~ 9 months)—purposeful movement formation stage After entering this stage, purposeful action begins to form, such as wanting to drink milk it will go to the bottle. • The fourth stage (September ~ November, December)—coordination period between means and ends The concrete manifestation is that the action schema is increasingly rich: raising hands means to hug mother, mouth sucking means to want to eat milk, cart with fingers means to take a car…. • The fifth child stage (from 11 or 12 month ~ 1/2 years old)—accidental discovery stage For example, there is a doll on the bed, the baby cannot reach out to scratch, accidentally he grabbed a corner of the sheet, found the relationship between the bed and the doll position, so he pulled the sheet, took the doll. It is a big improvement in the cognitive development of babies. • The sixth sub-stage (1 and a half to 2 years old)—purpose-built discovery stage

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This stage is characterized by the baby starting to look for a solution to a problem in certain goal or direction, such as opening the candy box in order to eat the candy in the box. In the first three sub-stages of the above six sub-stages (reflex practice period, habitual action formation period, purposeful action formation period), for the baby there is no stable object, only the image of the sensation appears and disappears, the subject seems to be the center of the world, but it is still not aware of its own existence. With the development of action schema, infants gradually realize the separation between the subject and the object, and begin to regard themselves as just an object in the world composed of many objects. Piaget spoke highly of the emergence of this self-centered infant consciousness, believing that it was the Copernican revolution in child’s cognitive development and the greatest achievement of the whole perceptual motor stage. This Copernican revolution was generally completed only gradually after the fourth sub-stage (the period of reconciliation of means and ends).

2.1.2

Preoperational Stage

Children between the ages of 2 and 6 are roughly at this stage. In this stage, child’s sensory-motor schemata gradually internalized into images or image schemata, especially the emergence and development of language, so that children increasingly use images and words to represent external things; however, their words or other symbols cannot represent abstract concepts, and can only be used in situations that do not break away from real objects and actual situations, that is, thinking is still limited by concrete and intuitive representations. This stage is divided into two sub-stages. The first sub-stage of preparation (2~ 64 years old)—the establishment stage of the representation system Piaget pointed out that with the further development of child’s intelligence, a series of actual activities, each occurring at a particular moment, can be reflected by some representational system. Such a representational system can present the past, future, and present activities or events in the mind in an almost simultaneous manner, as well as the distant and near activities and events in the space. By representational system, Piaget refers to the representation system, and does not include other representational systems (such as language). This is because only a three-dimensional visual representation system can reproduce past or future activities and events in a simultaneous manner. The linguistic symbol system is one-dimensional and can only be presented in a linear order.

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The second stage of preparation-performance (5 ~ 6 years old)—self-centered Release period As noted above, between the first and second stages of the sensory-motor stage (roughly from the fourth sub-stage), there is a Copernican revolution—egocentric disengagement; a similar phenomenon occurs between the first and second stages of the preoperational stage (roughly starting from the second sub-stage)—egocentric dissolution. The difference is that the former refers to the separation between the cognitive subject and the object; that is, children no longer regard themselves as the center of the world, but as one of the objects that make up the world. The latter refers to the subject in the process of cognitive objective things, self-centered cognitive way to give up or remove. Piaget believed that before the age of 5, child’s cognition was usually self-centered. Only by observing from their own perspective can they understand objective things, instead of considering problems from the perspective of others. He used the following three mountains experiment to prove this point: The so-called Three Mountains experiment refers to: A mountaintop—with the Red Cross; A mountain top—covered with snow and ice; A mountain top—there are houses. Ask the child to sit on one side of a mountain model and place the doll on the other side of the mountain. Ask the child to describe the scenery the doll sees (before the age of 5, the child usually describes the scenery the doll sees instead of the scenery he sees). The preoperational stage has the following main characteristics: • It mainly reflects objective things with the representation system rather than language system, and has not really formed a concept (as Piaget said, children at this stage only have the pre-concept), so they only have the thinking based on the representation (namely the representative thinking and intuitive thinking), without logical thinking based on language concepts; • The cognitive mode is mainly self-centered, until the later stage (after the age of 5) gradually give up or remove this self-centered cognitive mode; • Thinking has not yet reversibility; • Thinking has not been conserved; • Thought is not yet transmissible. Transitivity refers to the fact that the cause-and-effect relationship between things, due to their interaction, is often transmitted through intermediaries. Children in the preoperational stage do not recognize this transitivity. For example, children under the age of six were shown three different shaped glasses A, B, and C. In A we have red liquid, in C we have blue liquid, in B we have nothing; Then, under the cover of A curtain, the liquid in A is poured into B, the liquid in C is poured into A, and the liquid in B is poured into C (to make A and C exchange). When the curtain rises,

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the children will say, A is poured directly into C, and C is poured directly into A, without realizing that B is needed for transmission.

2.1.3

Concrete Operational Stage

Children aged 7–10 are generally at this stage. Concreteness is the main characteristic of this stage. In this stage, with the formation of abstract concepts, children have begun to develop logical reasoning ability; however, children’s logical reasoning at this stage cannot be separated from the support of concrete things; otherwise, reasoning is difficult to proceed, so this kind of logical reasoning ability is only preliminary. This stage is also divided into two sub-stages: • The first sub-stage of the operation (7 ~ 8 years old)—reversible and conservation formative period; • The second sub-stage of the specific operation (9 ~ 10 years old)—causal relationship exploration stage. • The specific operation stage has the following characteristics: (1) The most important characteristic is its concreteness. In this stage, with the formation of abstract concepts, children have begun to have logical reasoning ability. But at this time, logical reasoning cannot be separated from the support of concrete things. For example, if the following reasoning problem, based on transitive relation, is presented: Suppose A > B, B > C, which is bigger, A or C? Children at the specific stage of operation are generally unable to give correct answers. But try another question: Mr. Zhang is taller than Mr. Li, and Mr. Li is taller than Mr. Wang. Which is taller, Mr. Zhang or Mr. Wang? (Zhang, Li, and Wang were all familiar to the subjects), they could answer correctly. In other words, they need the representation of the relationship between concrete things in the actual situation as the basis for the above reasoning, so this kind of logical reasoning ability is only preliminary. • Thinking has not yet reversibility; • Thinking has not been conserved; • Thought is not yet transmissible. (5) There is often a state of cognitive imbalance (the original cognitive structure cannot assimilate or conform to the information provided by the new thing).

2.1.4

Formal Operation Stage

Piaget believed that children begin to enter the formal operational stage when they are 11–12 years old. The main characteristics of this stage are: starting to distinguish between thinking form and contents, being able to use propositions and assumptions to make all kinds of logical reasoning, and having specific structural forms of formal operation. This stage has the following three characteristics:

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• Form of thought and contents of thinking begin to be distinguished—the most important characteristic of form operation is that thinking has been able to get rid of the constraints of concrete things, distinguish content from form, and begin to believe in the effectiveness of formal reasoning. The previous operations had been directly related to the object (the concrete thing); that is, contents and forms had not been separated. • The ability to use propositional hypothesis for all kinds of logical reasoning— another major feature of formal operational stage is that children have the ability to deal with hypotheses rather than simply dealing with real objects (only on the basis of being able to distinguish between the form of thinking and contents of thinking, can they use hypotheses for all kinds of logical reasoning). Piaget made it clear that formal operations are characterized by the possibility of reasoning through assumptions. In short, Piaget believed that after entering formal operational stage, children have gradually formed abstract logical reasoning based on various propositional hypotheses. • Specific form of operation structure—Piaget thought that operation stage has a specific form of structure (a whole structure), and he proposed that it can be summarized by the combination system and INRC quadrature transformation group, which are based on binary proposition operation: Identity transformation (I), inversion Transformation (T), Reciprocity transformation (R), Reflective transformation (R) A binary proposition is a compound proposition with two sub-propositions (p and q), in which each sub-proposition has two values of true and false. The so-called ITRR quaternion transformation group is defined in consideration of reversibility between various forms of operations. As mentioned above, both concrete operation and formal operation have the characteristics of reversibility, conservation, transfer, etc., and reversibility, conservation and transfer themselves can be converted to each other. According to different properties of participating transformations, all transformations can be classified into four types (ITRR): identity transformation (I), inversion transformation (T), reciprocity transformation (R), and reflection transformation (R). This constitutes a complete transformation structure, the ITRC quaternion conversion group. ITRC conversion group is a mathematical realization of Klein 4~group. It is a creation of Piaget to reflect the transformation law of form operation.

2.2 Piaget’s Contribution to the Research on Child’s Cognitive Development Piaget’s contributions in the field of child’s cognitive development are outstanding, mainly including the following aspects:

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Adhering to the Concept of Materialist and Dialectical Cognitive Development, and Opposing the Concept of Idealist and Mechanical Cognitive Development

For a long time, the origin and development of fundamental problems about cognition have always been two big schools of thought, one of which is the idealist a priori views, such as talent theory and all kinds of a priorists insist, think main entity naturally has generated some internal structure, and put these structures upon object [3]. The other is mechanistic-materialist view, which, as propagated by various empiricists, holds that the entity is taught in things other than himself [3]. Piaget made a profound criticism of the above two thoughts from the materialist-dialectical point of view.

2.2.2

Introduction of Child Psycho-Genesis into the Field of Epistemology for the First Time and Made a Pioneering Contribution to the Establishment of Generative Epistemology

Piaget believed that the study of psycho-genesis of cognition is an indispensable part of the epistemology analysis [3]. It is just like the study of human origin. Due to lack of relevant information about prehistoric humans, the only way forward is to learn from biologists and ask them for knowledge of embryology to supplement the lack of knowledge of human ethnology-genesis. For epistemology research, and for the origin of human knowledge, this means that we can do what we want by studying what happens in the mind of an infant. Traditional epistemology, on the other hand, deals only with the higher level of human knowledge and ignores the lower level, that is, only considers the ultimate development of knowledge. The result has often been the opposite of what was intended—a prolonged period of stagnation in epistemology research.

2.2.3

It Reveals for the First Time That Child’s Cognitive Development Has Stages and Gives a Relatively Accurate Description of Some Stages

Many researches and practices have proved that the law of child’s cognitive development has stages revealed by Piaget is universal. From occurrence to maturity, a child’s cognitive ability goes through several stages of development from a lower to a higher level, and this developmental sequence is unchangeable and insurmountable. To understand and master this law is of direct significance to the reform of basic education and the improvement of education quality.

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2.2.4

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Creation of a Set of Unique Research Methods on Child’s Cognitive Development—Clinical Method

Piaget’s lifelong study on child’s cognitive development made contribution not only the above-mentioned aspects—developing a new child’s cognitive development theory (or children’s thinking development), but also created a whole new unique method on child psychology; namely clinical method (the combination of interview method with experimental method). Clinical method is the main research method of Piagetian school.

2.3 Main Defects of Piaget’s Theory on Stages of Child’s Cognitive Development Through our own theoretical research in the field of creative thinking for many years and our reform and exploration in the field of primary school in Chinese education in recent years, we find that Piaget’s theory, while making outstanding achievements, also has some serious defects, which are mainly in the following three aspects: • Making a fixed division of development stages of child’s thinking and overemphasizing the inherent role, while ignoring the influence of language environment and the role of education. This view is particularly pernicious in the information age. As is known to all, with the popularization of television, multimedia, and the Internet, the means for people to obtain information and knowledge is increasingly fast and convenient, the quantity and quality of information and knowledge are also greatly improved, and the development of children’s thinking has been significantly accelerated. Piaget failed to recognize that the stages and sequence of a child’s cognitive development, though immutable, could be greatly compressed and advanced by the right education and information technology environment, rather than fixed. If we use the fixed age groups defined by Piaget (0–2 years old, 2–6 years old, 7–10 years old, and after 11 years old) to view the development of children’s thinking, our basic education, especially primary education, will be greatly restricted and confined. • It is believed that in the preoperational stage (2–6 years old), there is only representative thinking, but no logical thinking based on language concepts. In the concrete operational stage (7–10 years old), it is impossible to have abstract logical thinking based on propositional hypothesis, only thinking based on images and preliminary logical thinking inseparable from concrete things.

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In other words, preschoolers aged 5–6 years have a weak language foundation and lack sufficient verbal concepts to support abstract logical thinking. The direct corollary of this is that the Chinese subject in the lower grades of primary schools (the same is true for other subjects) can only emphasize the cultivation of intuitive teaching and representative thinking rather than abstract logical thinking. Even in the higher grades of primary schools (Grades 5–6), it can only involve the cultivation of preliminary logical thinking that cannot be separated from concrete things, but not the cultivation of high-level abstract logical thinking. This view is extremely harmful to the language teaching in primary schools and the development of language ability of pupils. As we all know, language and thinking are closely related. On the one hand, language is the expression form of thinking, without which it is impossible to have high-level abstract logic thinking. On the other hand, the development of thinking ability also has a decisive restricting effect on the formation and development of language ability. If to the elementary school higher grades (Grade 5–6) stage, only preliminary logical thinking is inseparable from the support of concrete matters, so, to be sure, the primary school students the language ability of reading and writing must be low (later we will use the contemporary child psychology and linguistics research results to prove that this view of Piaget does not tally with the actual situation completely). • In the process of child’s cognitive development, if only the development of logical thinking ability is considered, without considering the development of thinking ability based on representation at all, artificially separate logical thinking, and representative thinking, it is very harmful to the cultivation of child’s creative thinking. In fact, if operation is taken as the standard to divide stages of cognitive development, and representative thinking, logical thinking is the standard of cognitive development, without considering representative thinking and intuitive thinking. In fact, logical thinking based on language concepts and representative thinking are interdependent and inseparable, and always develop synchronously. It can be seen from many composition materials of primary school students that the excellent works are often the product of good combination of the two (logical thinking and representative thinking). Artificial separation of the two is not conducive to the development of representative thinking and logical thinking. Without fully developed logical thinking and representative thinking (i.e., representative thinking and intuitive thinking), there is no way to cultivate creative thinking and innovative talents. Only by organically combining the two can we effectively cultivate innovative talents with highly creative thinking.

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3 Contents, Significance, and Influence of the New Theory of Children’s Thinking Development 3.1 Background of a New Theory on Children’s Thinking Development We believe that two factors of thinking ability should be considered when considering the division of child’s cognitive development stages: one is thinking processing ability; the other is thinking processing materials. The processing ability of thinking is the internal psychological operation ability, while the processing material of thinking refers to the symbolic representation system of different forms such as the appearance of things and the language concept. Piaget only considered the first factor and made an extreme understanding of this factor, which caused a great bias. This extreme understanding displays in: the psychological skills just understanding of internalization for this kind of logic thinking ability (the image thinking and intuition thinking ability, that is, using image processing of psychological skills basic excluded), rather than the internalization of psychological skills as an integrated embodiment of its three kinds of thinking ability. The basic thinking forms of human beings are logical thinking, representative thinking, and intuitive thinking. There is neither one more nor one less [8]. Therefore, the internalized psychological operation ability must include the ability of these three aspects at the same time, in order to reflect the objective reality of child’s cognitive development; otherwise, there will be a great bias. It is well known that two of most thorough international studies of the division of cognitive development in children have been made by Piaget and J. S. Bruner. Piaget seizes the first factor of thinking process—internalization of psychological operations (i.e., thinking process capability), and restrictions of reversibility and conservation of psychological operations (in fact, operation is not a new concept, because it is a reversibility and the conservation of the internalization of psychological operations). Based on the concept of operation, Piaget established his theory of child’s cognitive development stages. Bruner, on the other hand, focuses on the concept of representation, by focusing on the second factor of thinking—the processing materials, the symbolic representation systems of representations, concepts, and so on. The term representation is not a new concept in English, but it is new in Chinese. Looking through Modern Chinese Dictionary, Chinese Verb Dictionary, and Kangxi Dictionary, and you will not find the term. On second thought, it suddenly dawned on me that this is the creation of Chinese psychologists during their translation of the word representation. As is known to all, with this English word representation directly the corresponding word in Chinese is said, but said all difficult to reflect the actual connotation of representation, because it has a symbol, and our mental world in translation is indication and symbol these two words together, create a new word representation in Chinese to correspond to the English words.

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Bruner used the concept of representation (in fact, he used the symbolic representation system; namely the thinking processing material) to establish his theory of child’s cognitive development stages [9]. He believes that the development of children’s cognition is reflected in the change of representational mode, which is the way to represent (or reproduce) the subject’s knowledge and experience about the outside world. Different levels of cognitive development led to different patterns of representation or representation of knowledge and experience in the external world. According to Bruner, there are three ways to represent knowledge and experience in children. These three ways occur and develop sequentially from infant to adolescence, which can be successively divided into enactive representation, iconic representation, and symbolic representation. Accordingly, child’s cognitive or thinking development process will also go through three stages: Enactive representation stage (0 ~ 2 years old) mainly represents the cognitive subject’s knowledge and experience of the external world with movement, which is similar to Piaget’s perceptive motor stage; Iconic representation stage (3 ~ 11 or 12 years old) refers to the representation of the cognitive subject’s knowledge and experience about the external world by the concrete images or representations of things; Symbolic representation stage (11 or 12 ~ 15 years old) refers to the symbolic system designed by human beings to represent the cognitive subject’s knowledge and experience about the external world. Language is the most important symbolic representation system (also known as the conceptual representation system), but it is not the only symbolic representation system, because the dumb language, flag language, and so on also belong to this category. Bruner’s stage of enactive representation is Piaget’s stage of perceptive motion. The stage of iconic representation is equivalent to Piaget’s stage of preparation + concrete operation, while the stage of symbolic representation is equivalent to Piaget’s stage of formal operation. Although the standards of Bruner and Piaget are different, the results are similar without essential difference. Why do results like this happen? It is because they fall into the same fault or bias. Both have grasped one aspect of it, although Bruner did not go to extreme on one aspect of the factors like Piaget, but also made a similar mistake to isolate and separate the aspect of the factors and failed to see the nature of representation. It is the basic feature of animal thinking to take the concrete image of things as the thinking processing material. And only in the human mind sensory-motor stage (i.e., Bruner action characterization phase) is the basic characteristics of the animal thinking—to specific image processing materials as thinking, and in other cognitive development stages, the basic feature of human thinking is representation and concept (that is, the symbolic representation) as the main processing materials of thinking. The three kinds of representations should be concrete-imagery representation, symbolic representation, and symbolic representation (or conceptual representation). From the perspective of

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child’s cognitive development stage, concrete-imagery representation is equivalent to Bruner’s enactive representation, while symbolic representation is equivalent to Bruner’s imagery representation. Why did Bruner insisted on creating an action representation to replace the concrete-iconic representation? In fact, according to the original meaning of representation (namely representation and symbol), it should obviously refer to some symbolic symbol used in the brain to reflect the cognitive subject’s knowledge and experience about the external world. Action is an explicit behavior made by the body and can be sensed by the sensory organs, of course, it is not a symbolic sign inside the brain, so it is clearly inconsistent with the logic and the original meaning of the word representation to propose motion representation. Bruner, it should be said, did not see the nature of the concept of representation. What is more regrettable is that he has isolated and separated these three representations from each other and reduced them to things that have nothing to do with each other. In fact, appearance representation and language representation (that is, conceptual representation) are interdependent, mutually supportive, and inseparable [8]. The artificial division of children’s intellectual development into three stages in the sequence of enactive representation, figurative representation, and symbolic representation means that children can have separate and pure figurative representation or symbolic representation at a certain stage, which is completely inconsistent with the actual situation. In fact, after children have language, pictorial representation and symbolic representation (that is, conceptual representation) are always interdependent, indivisible, and synchronously developed. When conceptual representation is at a lower stage, iconic representation is at a lower level. As conceptual representations develop to a higher level, iconic representations will develop to a higher level. It should be noted that the second stage of intellectual development, as defined by Bruner here, should not be exactly iconic representation but symbolic representation. It is not permissible to confuse representational representation with figurative representation. In short, we should treat the two different representational systems of representation and symbolic representation from the perspective of interconnections and interdependence, instead of isolating and separating them, which is in line with the true features of child’s cognitive development.

3.2 Main Contents of the New Theory on Children’s Thinking Development Based on the above analysis and combining the two aspects of thinking ability, we propose a new theory about child thinking (cognitive) development. According to this theory, child thinking (cognitive) development stage can be divided as follows: – Animal thinking stage (0 years old—before the onset of initial verbal ability); – Primary thinking stage (initial verbal ability—before proficient oral ability);

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– Intermediate stage of thinking (proficient in oral ability—before the formation of complete thinking quality); – Advanced stage of thinking (after the formation of a complete quality of thinking—). Here thinking includes logical thinking, representative thinking, and intuitive thinking. The thinking quality is including profundity, flexibility, originality, agility, and critical thinking quality of five aspects according to the defined of Professor Zhu Zhixian and Professor Lin Chongde [5]. It is different from Piaget defined, only considered reversible and conservative thinking quality. In the above division stage of children’s thinking development, it involves the question of how to define initial verbal ability and proficiency in spoken language. In order to make a scientific explanation, we need to understand the development process of child language. According to a large number of domestic and foreign experimental studies on child language development so far [1, 6, 7], we believe that children generally experience the following four periods from birth to proficiency in spoken Language.

3.2.1

Vocalization Practice Period (From Birth to About 6 Months)

During this period, babies have no verbal ability; that is, they can neither speak any words nor understand any words, but they can make a variety of sounds. At first the sound is relatively simple, and then the sound produced by imitation becomes more and more varied. The sound produced in this period is only used to express the infant’s hunger, thirst, joy, pain, and other feelings, or some kind of demand and desire, but not phonetic symbols representing specific meanings (concepts), so it still belongs to the first signal system rather than the second signal system.

3.2.2

Verbal Preparation Period (7–11 or 12 Months)

At this stage, although babies cannot speak words yet, they have begun to have a preliminary understanding of words (e.g., when babies hear the words give an apple to mother, they can respond by giving an apple to their mother [10]); in addition, babies can communicate with adults through simple body language (e.g., raising your hands to indicate that you want to be held, and sucking on your mouth to indicate that you want to drink). According to Professor Li Yuming’s research [7], for infants in the second half of this period, there are about 200 words that they can roughly understand (that is, they can basically understand but cannot speak), among which nominative words and verbal words account for roughly half. This is the period when the second signal system begins to be established, and the primary verbal abilities begin in the second half of this period, around 11 or 12 months.

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Verbal Development Period (From 1 Year Old to About Two and a Half Years Old)

During this period, children have been able to actively participate in speech communication activities; that is, they can hear, but also speak. However, the language used by children in this period is still immature, incomplete, which belongs to the special child language, and the development of this special language can be further divided into three sub-stages: single word, double word, and telegraph sentence. According to the theory of language perception (see reference [10]), children are born with semantic perception—that is, the innate ability to recognize sounds and meanings. Studies in literature [7] have also confirmed this point—children aged 7–12 months can already understand about 200 words and simpler sentences. During this period, children could only express themselves in fragments of words or telegram-like sentences rather than in complete and coherent sentences. It was only because the number of words and grammatical rules they mastered was still very limited, and it was not because they had problems understanding the meaning of the whole sentence. For example, in order to express two complete sentences, I want my mother to hug me and I want my sister to play with me in the car, there are three different expressions in different age groups of children: From one-year old to about one and a half years old, it is often said that hug, car—the word stage; One and a half to two years old is often said mother hug, play car—double words stage; The 2 years old to about two and a half years old is often said my mother hug, sister playing car—telegraphic sentence phase. For the words of one-word sentence, double or telegraphic sentence, if in isolation, is ambiguous and even incomprehensible, but under the background of a certain language communication (i.e., there is a certain context), and with the appropriate gestures, posture, facial expressions, and children with such incomplete language communication with others will not have any obstacles.

3.2.4

Verbal Maturity Period (Two and a Half Years Old to 4.5 Years Old or 5 Years Old)

After two and a half years old, due to increasing practice activities (play, study, etc.)the scope of communication with others gradually expanded, children’s verbal ability has been rapidly developed; the national oral language is mastered gradually and achieved proficiency and perfection. In the 1980s, Chinese psychologists once counted the total vocabulary of more than two thousand preschoolers in ten provinces and cities, and the results showed that there were 1,730 common words (oral vocabulary) for children aged 3 ~ 4, 2,583 common words for children aged 4 ~ 5, and 3,562 common words for children aged 5 ~ 6 [4]. At the same time, children’s grasp of the grammatical rules of their own national language and their

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understanding of language phenomena are also increasing [7]. Professor Li Yuming studies the process of learning and mastering language [7], for example, Chinese interrogative system—the subsystem of the language. Questions were chosen as the research object, because asking questions is a major means of individual and social information communication, children by understanding question and answer the questions. 1–5 years old infants and young children in China can rapidly improve the understanding of discourse, restructuring experience, ability to express thoughts and feelings and so on many aspects, so the question system in the development of children’s language and thinking has a special importance. In addition, questions system in Chinese belongs to the more complex patterns, there are more than 20 different question sentence patterns, children’s learning of questions subsystem and compared to other general patterns of learning more difficult for about 1 ~ 5 years old infants and young children to learn. The research concludes that questions subsystem in the case of Chinese learning has larger representative in mastering the whole language system. Li Yuming points out: after the age of three, children’s question system has entered a period of improvement. During this period, the forms of children’s questions gradually appeared, the non-interrogative usages of rhetorical questions and special interrogative words emerged in large numbers, and syntactic organization became fluent. Especially after the age of four, the reason questions are used a lot, which indicates that children’s cause-and-effect awareness is gradually strengthened (while Piaget mistakenly believed that children cannot enter the cause-and-effect exploration period until age of 9–10). And there are more problem-solving questions. This shows that the function of children’s questions has been developed and matured, and the important task in the future is the development of question use. Although Li Yuming’s research involves only questions—a language subsystem, but as mentioned above, the subsystem in the development of children’s language and thinking has a special importance with representation, so the process of learning and mastering language subsystem should be, to a large extent, reflect children’s whole process of learning and mastering of national language. In other words, according to the research Professor Li Yuming, it can be concluded that after the age of 4, children’s mastery of various sentence patterns of their own national, spoken language has gradually become perfect and mature, and in the future, it will mainly develop toward the direction of pragmatics. In fact, today’s linguistics (both Chinese and international linguistic) acknowledges a basic fact that any one of the four or five years old of child can be self-taught to command national oral language with its countless grammatical rules (only for why children are able to self-taught and master native spoken language with just a few years’ time—such a problem, at present, still has a variety of different answers in linguistic theory and debate). From the above analysis, the beginning of the initial speech ability is in the second half of children’s speech preparation period, that is, around 11 or 12 months. Proficiency in spoken language is in the second half of children’s maturity of speech period, that is, at the age of four and a half or five years. As for the definition and measurement of thinking quality, and how to cultivate child thinking quality through the teaching of various subjects in primary and

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secondary schools, so as to gradually reach the ideal and perfect state, etc., there are detailed discussions in the relevant works of Professor Lin Chongde and Professor Zhu Zhixian (see literature [5, 11]), which will not be repeated here. In Professor Lin and Professor Zhu’s works, there is no clear definition of when a more complete quality of thinking can be formed. We believe that this attitude is objective and scientific, because the formation of various ideal or complete thinking qualities of teenagers depends, to a large extent, on the education methods of primary and secondary school teachers. If the education is well done, the formation of such ideal thinking qualities can be greatly advanced. If not, it may be pushed back.

3.3 New Theory of Children’s Thinking Development Against Negative Effect of Piaget’s Theory It should be stressed here that we put forward the above new theory on children’s thinking development, not only for the purpose of theoretical discussion, but also more importantly for the purpose of truly understanding the objective laws of child’s thinking development, so as to effectively promote the development of children’s thinking and language ability. As language is the expression form of thinking, language and thinking are inextricably linked. Whether the understanding of the development process of thinking and the relationship between it and language is scientific will play a crucial restrictive role in the teaching of national language (namely the teaching of mother tongue, which is also the teaching of Chinese). If the understanding is scientific and objective, it will play a good role in promoting the teaching of language. Otherwise, it will seriously reduce the quality and efficiency of Chinese teaching, and greatly delay and block the process of Chinese teaching reform. It is a great pity that Piaget’s theory of child’s cognitive development stages (it has been pointed out before that it is the theory of children’s logical thinking development stages) has produced negative rather than positive effects on our language teaching. This negative effect is mainly reflected in: Conclusions on mother tongue learning derived from Piaget’s theory of children’s cognitive development As mentioned above, Piaget’s theory of children’s cognitive development stage holds that children in the preoperational stage (2 ~ 6 years old) only have thinking based on images, but do not have logical thinking based on concepts. In the concrete operational stage (7 ~ 10 years old), children only have preliminary logical thinking based on concrete things, but not abstract logical thinking based on propositional hypothesis. Since language is the expression form of thinking, the development of thinking is closely related to the development of language. According to the above theory, it is reasonable to draw the following conclusions about mother tongue learning: the mother tongue foundation of preschool children aged 5–6 is very weak. They do not have enough vocabulary and do not have a variety of sentence patterns

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to support logical thinking. Pupils aged between 7 and 10 can hardly write with abstractness and generality. This is because: • Preschoolers aged 5 ~ 6 do not have the logical thinking based on speech concepts, so they still lack enough vocabulary to support logical thinking, like analysis, synthesis, abstraction, generalization, and other psychological processing activities. Vocabulary includes content words and function words. The number of function words is very small, and most of them are content words. Each content word represents a concept. But the concept is essential material for each kind of psychological processing activity to realize logical thinking. Therefore, if it were not for lack of adequate vocabulary (that is, concepts), it would be impossible for children in this age group to have no basic logical thinking based on speech concepts. • Preschoolers aged 5 ~ 6 years do not have logical thinking based on speech concepts, so they have not mastered a variety of different sentence patterns to support judgments and reasoning of logical thinking. A judgment is a statement, reasoning can be realized based on judgments. There are many forms of reasoning, such as categorical reasoning, hypothetical reasoning, compound reasoning. We must master more sentence patterns in order to judge and reason logically. Therefore, it is impossible for children in this age group to have basic logical thinking without speech concepts and enough sentence patterns. Before age 10, children can only have preliminary logical thinking based on concrete things, and it is impossible to have abstract logical thinking based on propositional hypothesis, so in this age group children generally are difficult to write with a certain abstractedness and generality in their mother tongue. Writing an article involves author’s language ability and various thinking abilities (including logical thinking, representative thinking, and intuitive thinking), while the abstractness and generality of written contents are mainly determined by author’s abstract logical thinking ability. Therefore, it is impossible for middle and lower grade pupils (before 10 years old) to write abstractly and generically, since they only have preliminary logical thinking based on concrete things and have not yet developed abstract logical thinking based on propositional hypothesis. The above conclusions about mother tongue learning, derived from Piaget’s theory of child’s cognitive development, are not in line with the objective reality and are not scientific If we admit that child’s cognitive development of Piaget’s theory is scientific, we can only be derived from this theory a logical conclusion to guide our mother tongue teaching (5 ~ 6 years old preschool children, the native language foundation is very weak, they still lack of enough vocabulary, has yet to grasp a variety of different patterns to support the logical thinking; 7 ~ 10 years old pupils are generally difficult to write with certain article of abstractness and generality). This is exactly what has

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been done in language teaching in China for decades, and it is still being implemented to the letter as the golden rule. What is the actual situation? As mentioned above, in the late 1980s of the twentieth century, Chinese psychologists studied more than 2,000 preschool children to master oral vocabulary [4], ten provinces and cities, the results of which show that 3 ~ 4 years old children used 1,730 words, 4 ~ 5 years old children 2,583 words; 5 ~ 6 years old children 3,562words. This suggests 5 ~ 6 years old preschool children have rich vocabulary (rather than a lack of enough vocabulary) to support the analysis of logical thinking and comprehensive generalization, abstraction, and other psychological processing activities. At the same time, children’s mastery of language rules and understanding of language phenomena are also increasing. As mentioned above, Li Yuming, a linguist, once took the interrogative sentence system as an example and made an in-depth study on the language development of infants aged from 1 to 5 in China [6]. As pointed out earlier, as a result of interrogative system in the development of children’s language and thinking has a special importance and representative, so according to Li Yuming’s conclusion: children after the age of 4, all kinds of sentence pattern of native spoken language has gradually become perfect and mature, further development is in the direction of how to use. This shows that preschoolers aged 5–6 have a variety of sentence patterns in their hands (as opposed to not having a variety of different sentence patterns in their hands) to support logical judgment and reasoning. In addition, by literature [1] listed in Chapter 2, section fourth one, grades 1and 2 experimental classes of many online assignments demonstrated that students 6 ~ 8 years old (less than 10 years of age) with proper education can have preliminary ability using concepts of abstract, generalization, and judgment, and can also have a certain proposition-based assumption of logical reasoning, even more complex, advanced composite reasoning). In our hundreds of pilot schools, dozens of first-and second-grade students’ works have been published so far (their authors are around 6 ~ 8 years old). In these works, there are many images full of association and imagination, vivid details description, a lot of bright arguments, the full evidence to persuade, and has reached a certain level of abstraction and generality (including more than a dozen young authors published their special personal collection of works). This shows that learners of 7 ~ 10 years of age as long as there is proper education, can write with abstractness and generality, capable of embodying advanced abstract logical thinking (rather than most pupils find it is difficult to write with abstractness and generality). The above facts fully demonstrate that Piaget’s conclusion on mother tongue learning of preschool and primary school students aged 7 ~ 10 is completely inconsistent with the objective reality and indefensible. It is based on these facts that the new theory of child’s thinking development holds a different view with Piaget’s above viewpoints. Piaget’s theory of child’s cognitive development has a serious negative impact on Mandarin Chinese teaching in China

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The quality and efficiency of traditional Chinese teaching in China are low precisely because of the direct influence of Piaget’s theory of child’s cognitive development. This kind of influence is both extensive and deep, almost permeates every field of Chinese teaching. Over the years, for example, a first-grade language teaching in China has been emphasized from the perspective of the literacy (concentrated literacy in the 1960s, 1980s phonetic literacy, ahead of time to read and write, to the new embedded literacy teaching method in recent years), and negative, from the perspective of the reading, writing, its root lies in Piaget’s theory of child’s cognitive development. This is because the theory stipulates that the development of children’s thinking and language before the age of 6 (i.e., preschoolers) is still in the preoperative stage, in which thinking is only based on images, and has no logical thinking based on speech concepts. As mentioned above, according to the conclusion derived from Piaget’s theory, preschool children at this stage are very poor in terms of words and sentence patterns, so they can only be taught word for word for first graders, but cannot directly start teaching of reading and writing, otherwise it will violate Piaget’s law of child thinking and language development. Another example, Chinese teaching in primary schools in China has always strictly followed the teaching sequence: first grade to teach literacy, second grade to pay attention to reading comprehension in the second semester, third grade beginning writing, writing sentences, until the fourth grade writing paragraphs and essays; if you want to say the second and third graders can do novel reading, completing structure, and smooth and fluent writing, then according to Piaget’s strictly agelimited division theory of thinking and language development, it was an incredible fantasy (and we are in the hundreds of different type test of the school teaching practice have proved that for most of the second and third graders, this can be done). Again, such as, for decades, Mandarin Chinese teaching in elementary school almost formed such an unwritten rule in other disciplines teaching (elementary school): the low-intermediate sections of elementary school (i.e., before the fourth grade), only intuitive visual teaching is commonly stressed, as well as representative thinking; only to senior grades (5 and 6) began to involve logical thinking, but also the preliminary logical thinking with the support concrete matters, rather than proposition-based assumption of abstract logical thinking. Because, according to Piaget’s theory, the concrete stage does not begin until seven years old. If you want to combine the cultivation of visual thinking with logical thinking in the teaching of Mandarin Chinese in the lower and middle grades of primary schools (especially in the first and second grades) or if you want to train not only the preliminary logical thinking supported by concrete things, but also the abstract logical thinking propositional hypothesis-based in Mandarin Chinese upper grades of primary schools (Grades 5 and 6), it will be regarded as deviant and contrary to science. There are many cases like these and most of them have to do with Piaget’s theory. In fact, due to the influence of Piaget’s theory of child’s cognitive development and cause serious situation in national language teaching, which is slow, poor, less cost, quality, low efficiency, happening not only in our China, but all countries in the world of mother tongue teaching is the same. They all begin with literacy teaching in the first

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and second grades, grades of three and four began to focus on reading and writing; and hesitate to start, from the first grade, with literacy, reading, writing together. This is because, up to now, the theories of educational psychology that dominate the field of basic education in the world are Piaget’s theory of child’s cognitive development. While fully affirming and praising the positive effects of this theory, the academic circle fails to seriously analyze and criticize its negative effects, which is the root cause of this phenomenon. Over the years, Piaget’s theories have been criticized internationally, but more often than not some praises, some criticism, and some of them irrelevant. What is more, they only have a blind worship of international authority without the slightest doubt. Now is the time to change that—to move with the times, to be creative, not just to rest in the shade of trees planted by our forefathers, especially at this great historic moment when our entire nation is united in our efforts to build an innovative nation. New children’s thinking development is the critical inheritance of Piaget’s theory, according to the study of contemporary brain sciences and the new progress on the new features of child’s thinking and language development in the information age, the child’s thinking and language made new stages of development as described above, and gives basic processes of its development interpretation, in accordance with actual of contemporary children.

3.4 New Theory of Children’s Thinking Development Supportive of Mandarin Chinese Education For new, scientific, objective understanding child’s thinking development will play an important role in guiding our national language teaching (that is, Chinese teaching), on basis of which can potentially push the leap development of Chinese education in the country (that is, the realization of greatly enhancing language teaching quality and efficiency and theoretical basis (in fact, also for the world today, all ethnic groups of native language teaching quality and efficiency). Based on the above analysis of child’s thinking and language development, we believe that this new theory of child’s thinking development can provide theoretical support for the leapfrog development of Chinese education in at least the following three aspects.

3.4.1

It Is Emphasized That Preschoolers Have a Strong Foundation in Pronunciation, Meaning, and Sentence Patterns in Learning Their Mother Tongue

Preschoolers of about five years of age and children entering the first year of primary school (about six years of age) are not unprepared for mother tongue learning, but

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have a strong foundation in vocabulary and in the mastery of a variety of sentence patterns. As mentioned above, a survey conducted by Chinese psychologists in the late 1980s has shown that preschoolers aged 5–6 have mastered more than 3,500 oral vocabularies [4]. Li Yuming’s in-depth study on children’s learning and mastering process of interrogative sentence subsystem also shows that Chinese children’s mastery of various sentence patterns of oral Chinese after the age of 4 has tended to be perfect and mature [7]. We believe that the two research facts about the mastery of oral Chinese vocabulary and sentence pattern by preschoolers aged 5 ~ 6 years are extremely important and the objective basis for realizing the leapfrog development of Chinese education. As far as vocabulary in Chinese is concerned, its teaching objective generally requires mastering pronunciation, form, and meaning. As preschoolers aged 5–6 years have mastered more than 3,500 oral words, this means that they have mastered the sound and meaning of more than 3,500 words, but they are not yet able to recognize and write the characters associated with the words. This greatly reduces the difficulty of word teaching in Chinese; in addition, 5 ~ 6 years old preschoolers have mastered the mother tongue of all kinds of sentence patterns, so if the primary school students first learn Chinese pinyin, and the text and expanded reading materials with pinyin label, students can read, understand the text and expanded reading materials smoothly. Therefore, in one class, the teacher only needs to use less time to guide the writing methods of Chinese characters, and then let the students practice properly and explain the key points and difficult points of the text, which can basically achieve the teaching objectives and requirements of the text. In this way, each class can spare a lot of time for students to expand reading, to achieve leapfrog development of Chinese teaching to create necessary conditions. In fact, by adding Pinyin to the reading material, first-grade students can read popular books—including simplified versions of Romance of The Three Kingdoms and ordinary Tang and Song poems. Generally, the extended reading materials in the first semester should be generally annotated with Chinese pinyin (i.e., each word in the expanded reading materials should be annotated) to help reduce reading disability of primary school students. In the second semester, the number of characters and words annotated with Hanyu Pinyin can be greatly reduced (annotation is only for a few difficult words), and in the third semester, the number of characters and words annotated with Pinyin can be annotated for only few individual characters and words. By the fourth semester, all phonetic symbols will be eliminated. In this way, with the increase of amount reading, and reading ability of primary school students will have a leap development, which is the objective basis for primary school students to be able to read novels in general. Thus, extensive reading in each class is one of the essential conditions for realizing the leapfrog development of Chinese education. In order to make the expanded reading materials play a real role in consolidating, deepening, and expanding the requirements of the course standard, the collection of the expanded reading materials for each text should meet the following four conditions:

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• The content and theme of each reading should be closely related to the content and theme of the textbook; • The type of each extended reading should be like that of the textbook; • The difficulty level of the extended reading material should be commensurate with the cognitive development level of students who read the material; • The expanded reading materials must be of high interest, intelligence, and knowledge on the premise of making sure that they are not scientific and political wrong. 3.4.2

Stressing That Taking the Use of Language as the Center Is the Fundamental Way and Method for Children to Quickly Learn and Master Language and Characters

From what is described above, the process of child language acquisition of any nationality, as you can see, children are able to master this national oral language naturally, in a short span of a few years (before 4 ~ 5 years old), in addition to genetic factors that human beings are born with the speech center (such as Broca area for speech expression and Wernicke area for speech comprehension) but also because children are in the process of communication with others, that is in the process of language learning. The purpose of learning a language is to communicate (that is, to communicate ideas and express emotions). The purpose of learning a language is the same as that of learning words. So, we should use them immediately when we learn them. Even if you have little vocabulary, even if you do not know much about grammar rules of your national language, you should use it boldly. A typical example is the way children learn language during speech development period (between the ages one and two and a half years). Children in the same period, even if children use incomplete sentences (telegraph sentences) or just two words (two-word sentence), or even a single word (one word sentence), they should also strive to express their complete meaning with the help of context, plus gestures, postures, expressions, etc., so as to achieve the purpose of exchanging ideas and expressing emotions. There are two meanings that must be emphasized here: one, it is in the process of use that child learns language and written characters; even if a child has just learned a few words, phrases, or incomplete sentence, he/she wants to use immediately with others to exchange thoughts and express one’s affection. It is also because of this that children can quickly discover and correct their mistakes in pronunciation, writing, grammar, and semantic understanding in the process of using language, thus rapidly increasing their language knowledge in phonetics, words, sentence patterns, grammatical rules, semantics, and pragmatics. Two, even when children are in the stage of using single-word, two-word, or telegraph sentences, they are not practicing using certain word, phrase, or a sentence pattern, but trying to express the actual meaning of a complete sentence with the help of such words, phrases, or incomplete sentences. The actual meaning of a complete sentence refers to the nature, state, movement, and change of an objective thing as well as the internal connection between things that people want to express through

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sentences. The sentences are intended to explain semantic relations of what, how, what, how, who did, when and why, and so on. From the previous example, you can see when a child says car (one-word sentence), playing car (two words) or sister play car, such words, phrases, or incomplete sentences, but in the mind (that is, child’s language center in the brain) with the real meaning hope sister accompany to play the car. The above two layers of meaning can be summed up as one point: the process of child language learning and the learning methods is wholly use centered, learning in order to use, learning to use immediately; and try to use it in a certain context. So do not break away learning from the context for learning words and sentence patterns, do not use grammatical analysis-centered method to teach language and to learn language, because that is against the rules of child language learning. In a word, taking the use of language as the center is the fundamental way and method for children to learn language quickly. The approach and method of linguists to study language cannot be confused with child language learning; the former focused on grammatical analysis, the latter focus on language use. In order to implement the principle of “language use as the center” in the elementary school lower grades (Grades 1 and 2) of Chinese teaching, one must change the traditional teaching way—unlike the original practice of literacy-reading-writing sequence, the three steps of Chinese teaching isolated and fragmented, but efforts should be made to combine the three, in the teaching process of, as far as possible in the first and second grade no pure chars, nor make pure reading class, the composition. After teaching the literacy link, students should immediately turn to the expanded reading (each reading material should be accompanied by a Phonetic transcription of Chinese pinyin, in order to eliminate children’s reading obstacles). After reading, students are required to use a computer to write out their understanding, feelings, and experience of the text or the expanded reading material (using a computer composition). Thus, the literacy, reading, and composition of the three are organically combined, so that students learn the word, sentence, article, and a variety of language phenomena can be immediately applied, so that the language application as the center really falls into place. The lack of writing this link, literacy, reading, and composition will not be able to achieve the goal of the language use—centered teaching method will become a failure. Here, computer typing and writing is not only used as a writing tool to replace handwriting, but more importantly as a teaching tool to realize the organic combination of literacy, reading, and composition, as well as a cognitive tool to promote each student to think seriously, explore independently and conduct deep psychological processing. This is the objective basis for the first-grade pupils to write well-structured, smooth, and fluent articles. Thus, the use of computer typing and writing in each class and the organic combination of literacy, reading, and composition three links are to achieve the language teaching in the quality of the leap development of another indispensable important condition. Here it should be clear, in the first and second grades with a computer to write articles instead of writing by hand, is not to weaken or eliminate writing training— in our experiment, a leap-forward development for language education for first and second grades in elementary student’s writing instruction is still in strict accordance

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with the requirements of the new curriculum standards (curriculum standards require each lesson learning to write a few words, we will be writing in a framed square exercise book) and writing with fingers to practice writing words, never careless in the practice). For mastery of calligraphy, unlike the reading and writing ability, demand practice in advance; that is to say, the requirement to master handwriting ability (i.e., the requirement for the opponent to write 3,000 Chinese characters) will be dispersed to each grade of the whole primary school according to the new curriculum standards to gradually complete. As is known to all, writing ability mainly depends on language expression and thinking. The new theory on child’s thinking development holds that for primary and secondary school students, their oral language expression and thinking ability have been equipped with objective conditions for writing well-structured, smooth, and fluent articles. The thinking ability refers to logical thinking ability based on verbal concepts and thinking ability based on images (thinking based on appearances includes representative thinking and intuitive thinking [8]), rather than thinking based on appearances of first and second graders as Piaget’s theory suggests. The current primary and secondary school students are generally unable to write compositions, mainly due to the ability to write Chinese characters. In order to be able to write out the smooth coherent, at least with more than 2,000 Chinese characters, but for first-year children (that is, first- and second-grade elementary school students), in more than a year of time to learn to write out more than 2,000 different Chinese characters is hard to do (if required to achieve this goal, it will greatly increase students’ schoolwork burden). It is easy for pupils in grades one or two to learn typing in Pinyin, especially in combination with learning capital letters of Hanyu Pinyin to recognize the keyboard and practice typing—if students can read, they can type. In this way, it is possible to achieve the first and second graders’ writing ability and reading ability to synchronize in advance to a large extent, to truly achieve the quality of the leap development in primary school Mandarin Chinese instruction. In recent years, attracted much attention at home with a great impact in primary school Mandarin Chinese in lower grades (one to three grades and the fourth grade) is 2-1-1 teaching mode, which is the new child’s thinking development theory (that is, preschool children in language learning is a powerful bases—sound, meaning, and the sentence pattern and child language learning must be centered on language use), created in the trial practice. The so-called 2-1-1 mode refers to that the first half (20 min) of a lesson (each lesson in primary school is 40 min) is given to the teacher who plays a leading role—to inspire, guide, relieve doubts and solve difficulties, and clarify the key points and difficulties of the lesson, to basically achieve the teaching objectives of this lesson. The second half (also 20 min) is used to encourage the class to study and explore on their own, and the second half is further divided into two sections: the first 10 min are for extended reading and the second 10 min are for writing exercises. That is where the 2-1-1 pattern gets its name—from the scheduling of a lesson, first splitting it into half, then splitting the second half into two parts. However, if it is divided from the teaching steps, it can be called literacy, reading, and writing trinity teaching model; its implementation essentials are as follows:

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• The first 20 min or so of a lesson mainly through the teachers playing the leading role, to achieve the text teaching objectives of the basic requirements; • About 20 min of second half of a lesson mainly through students’ independent study, and exploration, to consolidate, deepen, expand the requirements of text teaching objectives. The first half of the last 20 min (about 10 min) is mainly used for extended reading, and the second half (also about 10 min) is mainly used for writing practice (for cognitive teaching objectives, the last 20 min can consolidate and deepen the understanding and mastery of the current knowledge and skills). For the moral objectives of the lesson, the last 20 min can promote students to complete the perception, reflection, experience, and internalization of emotion, attitude, and value, especially conducive to the cultivation of morality, sentiment, and comprehensive quality.

3.5 Cultivation of Language Ability Combined with Thinking (Creative Thinking) Classical writers of Marxism-Leninism believe that language is the expression form of thinking language is the basis for thinking development, without which it is impossible to have highly developed abstract logical thinking. This is one aspect of the problem; on the other hand, due to language ability does not entirely rely on genetics, it also relies on learning (listening, speaking ability is associated with genetics, reading and writing are completely on learning), which is associated with individual cognitive processes, so belonging to the category of cognitive thinking ability; in turn, also cognitive thinking has a lot of restriction to the development of language ability. Therefore, language and thinking are naturally inseparable. The development of language ability (including listening, speaking, reading, and writing) is closely related to the development of thinking. The combination of the cultivation of language ability and of thinking ability (especially the innovative thinking) will not increase students’ schoolwork burden, but achieve the ideal effect of complementing each other, promoting each other, and getting twice the result with half the effort. On the contrary, if the two are isolated, it is not only bad for the cultivation of language ability, but also bad for the development of thinking ability. It must be stressed here that, according to Piaget’s theory of child’s cognitive development, children generally have representative thinking before the age of six, and can only have abstract logical thinking based on propositional hypothesis after the age of 11 or 12. Traditional Chinese teaching is deeply influenced by this view. Therefore, as mentioned above, in the lower and middle grades of primary schools (Grades 1–4), students are generally taught with only intuitive visualization, while ignoring the cultivation and training of logical thinking. In the higher grades (Grades 5–6), although the cultivation of logical thinking has been considered in Chinese teaching, it is still limited to preliminary logical thinking based on concrete things,

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without involving high-level abstract logical thinking based on propositional hypothesis. The new thinking of child development criticizes harshly the attitude of traditional Chinese teaching ideas, thinking this is a kind of outdated ideas, which will be of very adverse impact to us in developing logic thinking in children and adolescents (and so also will the development of creative thinking), thus greatly constrained and limit our innovative talents of young generation—because by first and second grades leap-forward experimental class students, a large number of case studies and some daily life cases, and online work of students, it has been proved that proposition based on the assumption of higher abstract logical thinking ability (including multiple compound reasoning ability) does not need to wait till children up to 11 years old or later to master, but children aged 6 ~ 8 through science and education methods most are likely to reach the requirements. So the new emphasis on child’s thinking development, not only to the cultivation of language skills and of thinking ability, especially creative thinking ability) the two combine together, starting from the first and second grades (no need to wait until after four or five grades to begin this combination); otherwise, it will delay time, perpetuated this misunderstanding, ultimately cause irreparable heavy losses to the nation and to the state. From the above analysis, extensive reading and computer writing in each class are of two essential prerequisites for the leap-forward development of Chinese teaching in terms of quality improvement. From the first condition, it is obvious that extensive reading materials and sufficient reading time are needed to carry out extensive reading in class, and reading materials involve collection, arrangement, and processing of teaching resources. The reading time depends on the teacher’s organization and control of the classroom teaching process (that is, how the teacher implements Chinese classroom teaching design). Therefore, in order to make the extended reading of each class come true, we must grasp the two keys of teaching resources and teaching design. From the second condition, as mentioned above, typing and writing on computer is an organic combination of literacy, reading, and composition, which means to implement the teaching method centered on the use of language and characters, as well as a cognitive tool to promote each student to think seriously, explore independently, and conduct in-depth cognitive processing. Therefore, the pupil’s typing ability (that is, the ability to type with standard fingering) has a very important role and influence on Mandarin Chinese teaching, especially Chinese teaching of the first- and secondgrade students in the primary school. This is not only a new topic for primary school Mandarin Chinese education in the information age, but also a serious challenge to the traditional educational ideas and teaching concepts, which deserves our serious attention and reflection from the primary school Mandarin Chinese education circle and even the whole basic education circle. Of course, the primary school student’s computer typing ability cannot request the Mandarin Chinese teacher to go up in Mandarin Chinese class training, but should be in the parallel set up in the information technology class by the information technology class teacher to complete. In addition, we should also note that when we train students’ thinking ability in combination with the cultivation of language ability, we should not only consider

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logical thinking based on verbal concept, nor only consider representative thinking and intuitive thinking. The three basic forms of human thinking (logical, visual, and intuitive) should be closely combined. In fact, according to creative thinking theory [8], these three forms of thinking are interdependent, mutually supportive, and indivisible to children who have mastered the spoken language of their own nation. In order to achieve the task of Chinese teaching, at the same time completing both language ability and thinking ability, especially creative thinking ability, it requests a language teacher have a good grasp of the teaching methods and strategies of creative thinking (about the creative thinking training in Chinese education, see the next section). As to how to carry out language-use centered teaching and from the perspective of reading, writing (rather than traditional teaching perspective of literacy) to carry out innovation in primary schools Mandarin Chinese teaching, to realize leap-forward development objective of Mandarin Chinese teaching in the aspect of quality improvement, see literature New Thinking on Child Development— Application in Chinese teaching [1].

4 New Theory of Children’s Thinking Development Provides Theoretical Support for the Leapfrog Development of Chinese Education Due to the new theory of child’s thinking development having scientific stages of cognition and division of thinking and language development, thus it will play an important guiding role in Chinese teaching, so that it is possible, on this basis, to form a theoretical basis for the leapfrog development of Chinese education in China (that is, to achieve a significant improvement in the quality and efficiency of Chinese teaching). In fact, it is also to achieve the quality and efficiency of mother tongue teaching in all countries and nationalities in the world today the theoretical basis of amplitude lifting. According to the above analysis of child’s thinking and language development process, we believe that the New Theory can at least provide theoretical support the child’s thinking for the leapfrog development of Chinese education, from the following three aspects.

4.1 Emphasis of a Strong Foundation of Preschoolers in Pronunciation, Meaning, and Sentence Patterns in Their Mother Tongue Preschoolers around the age of five and children who have just entered the first grade of primary school are as good at learning their mother tongue as prepared with a strong foundation in terms of vocabulary and sentence patterns.

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As mentioned above, surveys conducted by Chinese psychologists in the late 1980s have shown that 4 ~ 6 years old preschool children have mastered more than 3,500 oral vocabularies [4]; Professor Li Yuming in an in-depth study on child’s learning and mastering process of interrogative subsystem shows that Chinese children after age 4 have mastered various sentence patterns in oral Chinese [7]. In our opinion, it is very important to be informed about Chinese oral vocabulary and sentence pattern by preschool children aged 5 ~ 6. It is also the objective basis for us to realize the leapfrog development of Chinese education. As far as Chinese vocabulary is concerned, the teaching objective is generally to master three aspects of words: sound, form, and meaning. Due to 5 ~ 6 years of age, preschoolers have mastered more than 3,500 spoken words, which indicates that they are sensitive to the sound and meaning of the words that have been mastered. But the Chinese characters related to the words have not been recognized in writing, this has already greatly reduced the difficulty of vocabulary teaching in Chinese. Children of 5 ~ 6 years old have mastered all kinds of sentence patterns in their mother tongue, so they learn Chinese Pinyin first, and the text students can read, understand, and expand the text by themselves reading materials. So, in a class, the teacher needs to use less time to point out the writing method of Chinese characters, and let students practice, and focus on the text, difficult points with necessary explanation, they can reach the teaching objectives of the text requirements. In this way, each class can free up a lot of time for students to expand reading, to achieve the leapfrog development for creating necessary conditions for Chinese teaching. In fact, just add Pinyin (Chinese phonetic symbols) to the reading materials, the first-grade pupils can smoothly read popular books, such as Romance of The Three Kingdoms abbreviated version and Tang and Song poetry. Usually, extended reading materials in the first semester are generally annotated with Hanyu Pinyin to help reduce reading disabilities in primary school students. By the second semester, the number of words annotated with Hanyu Pinyin can be greatly reduced (only adding a few difficult words). In the third semester, Pinyin can be added to only individual words. And by the fourth semester Pinyin can be completely canceled. In this way, with the increase of extended reading, primary school students’ reading ability will be developed greatly. This is the objective basis for the first-grade students to read novels. It can be seen that extensive reading in each class is one of the essential conditions for the leapfrog development of Chinese education. In order to consolidate, deepen, and expand the requirements of curriculum standards, the collection of extended reading materials for each text should meet the following four conditions. 1. 2. 3.

The content and theme of each text should be closely related to the content and theme of this text. The style of each extended reading material should be like that of the text. The difficulty of the extended reading material should correspond to the cognitive level of the students using the reading material.

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The extended reading material must be able to achieve a better reading under the premise of making no scientific or political mistakes with interest, insight, and knowledge required.

4.2 Emphasis on Mandarin Chinese Characters Use as the Center: The Fundamental Approach and Method, Children Learn and Master Language Quickly The language acquisition process introduced above shows that children of any nationality can, in just a few years (before the age of 4 ~ 5), master the spoken language of their own people without instruction. Humans have innate speech centers (such as the Broca’s area for speech expression and the Wernicke area for speech comprehension) a genetic factor, and because children are in the process of communication with people, namely we learn the language by using it. The purpose of learning a language is to communicate (to exchange ideas and express feelings), the purpose of learning words is the same, so learning to put it to immediately use—communicate ideas and express feelings. Even if the vocabulary size is still very small, even if the grammar rules of our own language are not fully understood, but still use it boldly. The way language is learned with children in the speech development stage (one-year old) is a good example. During this period, children even use less than a whole sentence (telegraphic sentence), or just two words (two-word sentence), or even a single word (one-word sentence) try to use the context to express complete meaning with gestures, body gestures, facial expressions, etc. to achieve the purpose of exchanging ideas and expressing emotions. What must be emphasized here has the following two meanings. First, children learn language and written words entirely through the process of using it, even if they have just learned a few words, phrases, or incomplete sentences, they should also use them immediately to communicate ideas and express emotions. Because of this, children can quickly discover and correct themselves in the process of using language and self-correct errors in pronunciation, writing, and grammar. Secondly, even when children are at the stage of using one-word, two-word, or telegraphic sentences, they are not practicing using a word, a phrase, or a sentence pattern; they are trying to express the actual meaning of a complete sentence. A complete sentence means the nature, state, and movement of an objective thing that people want to express through the sentence and inner connections between things. The sentence is intended to illustrate “what,” “how,” “do what, how, who, when, why, etc.” Previous examples show that when children say “che che” (one-word sentence), “play-che” (two-word sentence), or “sister play-che” in the child’s mind (i.e., in the child’s language center) already exists the actual meaning of the complete sentence “I hope my sister will ride with me.” The meanings emphasized above can be boiled down to one point: the process and methods of child’s language learning center on the use of language and written characters. Learning in order to use, learn to immediately use, and try to use it in

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a certain context. So do not recite words, sentence patterns out of context; do not use grammar analysis as central method of teaching and learning language. Because it is against the law of language learning children. In short, to the use of language to be the center is the fundamental way and method for children to learn language quickly, while the grammar-centered analysis is the way and method that linguists study language. The two should not be mixed up. In order to implement the “use of language as the center” in Mandarin Chinese teaching in the lower grades of primary schools, we must change the traditional way of teaching—not to separate literacy, reading, and composition, but to unify the three in the teaching process. In the first and second years of primary school, there should be as little pure literacy, reading, and composition as possible. After teaching the literacy section, one should move immediately to extend reading (every word in the reading material should be accompanied by Chinese Pinyin, to eliminate child’s reading disorders). After reading, students are required to use computer to type their writings out, showing what they have learned from the lessons or own understanding of reading materials, feelings, and experience. This combines literacy, reading, and composition, which causes students to learn the word, sentence, text, and each kind of language phenomenon, and put to immediately to use. The notion of languageuse-as-the-center can be really put into practice. It should be noted that there is a lack of writing a composition in this link, the goal of combining literacy, reading and composition will not be realized and the teaching method of language-use-as-thecenter can become a bubble. Here, use of computer to type is not just a replacement for handwriting as a writing tool; it is more important to realize the organic combination of literacy, reading, and composition, and as a cognition tool to promote serious thinking, independent inquiry, and deep psychological processing. This is the objective reason why first-grade students can write well-structured, smooth, and fluent articles. Every class uses computer to typewriting, putting literacy, reading, and composition into an organic combination of Mandarin Chinese teaching, realizing the quality of the leap-forward development of other indispensable important conditions. It should be noted here that in the first and second grades of elementary school, writing on a computer instead of writing by hand is not to weaken or eliminate handwriting training. In the leapfrog development experiment of language education project, to one or two the writing teaching of grade pupils is still strictly in accordance with the requirements of the national curriculum standards (curriculum standards require in each lesson pupils learn to write a few words, writing in lined exercise books). This is unlike reading and writing skills, which require a great deal of learning in advance. In other words, writing ability requirements (that is, 3,000 Chinese characters), according to the national curriculum standards scattered in each grade step by step in the learning stage. As we all know, writing ability mainly depends on language skills and thinking ability. Child’s thinking development the new theory believes that for grade-one/two pupils, their verbal language skills and thinking ability have been the objective conditions for writing well-structured, smooth, and fluent compositions. Thinking ability is based on speech logical thinking ability of speech and speech iconic thinking

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ability (iconic thinking includes imagery thinking and intuitive thinking [8]), as opposed to Piaget’s theory that first and second graders can only have representative thinking ability. The reason why the current grade one or two pupils generally do not write a composition is mainly limited by the ability to write Chinese characters by hand. In order to be able to write smoothly by hand, you must be able to write in calligraphy at least write more than 2,000 characters, but for young children in school, it is hard to learn to write more than 2,000 different characters by hand in less than a year (if required). To achieve this goal, it will greatly increase the workload of students. And let grade one or two students learn typing, especially combined with learning the Hanyu Pinyin to recognize the keyboard and practice typing in Pinyin. If the student can read, he can type. In this way, it is possible to develop writing and reading ability synchronous advance, to truly achieve the high quality of primary school Chinese teaching for leapfrog development. In recent years, the “2-1-1” teaching mode of primary school Chinese in the middle and Low-aged (grades 1 to 4) has attracted extensive attention and great influence in China. It is created in experimental practice under the guidance of the above two new viewpoints of the new theory of children’s thinking development (i.e., “preschoolers have a strong foundation of pronunciation, meaning and sentence patterns in their mother tongue learning” and “children’s language learning must be centered on language use”). The so-called 2-1-1 teaching model refers to the first half of a class (each class in elementary school is 40 min); the teacher plays a leading role—to inspire, guide, solve doubts, and clarify the difficulty of the lesson to basically achieve the requirements of the teaching objectives of the lesson. The second half of a lesson is devoted to promoting self-directed learning and independent inquiry. And the second half is further divided into two parts: the first 10 min for “extended reading” and the second ten minutes were devoted to writing exercises. That is where the “2-1-1” model got its name—from a class time arrangement to look at teaching: first divide a class into two halves, and then divided the latter half into two parts. If looking at teaching from what is contained, it can be divided into literacy, reading, and writing—three teaching modes. The main steps of implementation are as follows. 1. 2.

In the first 20 min or so of a class, teaching is mainly achieved through the teacher’s leading role to reach basic requirements for the learning objectives. In the last 20 min or so of a class, students mainly consolidate their knowledge through independent study and independent inquiry to deepen and expand the requirements of text teaching objectives. The first half of the last 20 min is devoted to reading expansions, the second half is mainly used for writing exercises. For cognitive goals, the last 20 min are used to consolidate and deepen the understanding and mastery of current knowledge and skills. For emotional teaching objectives, this last 20 min can be used to promote students feelings, reflection, experience, and internalization of emotions, attitudes, and values. It is conducive to the cultivation of good moral character, sentiment, and comprehensive quality.

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4.3 We Should Combine the Training of Language Ability with That of Thinking Ability Language is the material shell of thinking. Language is the basis for the development of thinking highly developed abstract logical thinking is part of the problem. On the other hand, because language ability does not depend entirely on innate inheritance, but also on acquired acquisition (listening and speaking ability is related to innate inheritance, while reading and writing ability is completely acquired), that is, it is related to the individual’s cognitive process, so the thinking ability belonging to the cognitive category also has a great restrictive effect on the development of language ability. So language and thought are both the natural and indivisible link between language development (including listening, speaking, reading, and writing) and thinking the development of competence is closely related. The cultivation of language ability and thinking ability (especially creative thinking ability) not only will not increase students’ academic burden, but also can achieve the two complementary, promoting each other and getting twice the result with half the effort. On the contrary, if they are isolated, it is not only bad for language the cultivation of speech ability is not conducive to the development of thinking ability. It must be emphasized here that, according to Piaget’s view of the stages of child cognitive development, children they generally have image-based thinking only until the age of 6, and do not have basic thinking until the age of 11 or 12 abstract logical thinking based on propositional hypothesis. Traditional Chinese teaching is deeply influenced by this view, so in the middle and low grades (grades 1 ~ 4) of primary school, it generally only uses intuitive visualization teaching and ignores the cultivation and training of students’ logical thinking. In the senior grade (Grades 5 ~ 6) of primary school, although the cultivation of logical thinking has been considered in Chinese teaching, it only stays in the preliminary logical thinking based on specific things, and dare not involve the advanced abstract logical thinking based on propositional hypothesis. The new theory on the development of children’s thinking holds a strict critical attitude toward this traditional concept of Chinese teaching and believes that it is a stale concept, which will have an extremely adverse impact on the development of logical thinking (and therefore the development of creative thinking) of our children, thus greatly constraining and limiting the growth of our young generation of innovative talents. Because it has been proved through a large number of online exercises and some daily life cases of students in the leapfrog experimental class in grade one and grade two of primary school. The ability of advanced abstract logical thinking based on propositional hypothesis (including the ability of multiple complex reasoning) is not unique children between the ages of six and eight are taught through scientific methods most are likely to meet the requirements. Therefore, the development of children’s thinking new emphasis, not only to the language the cultivation of ability and the cultivation of creative thinking ability of both together, and from the first and second grades of primary school don’t wait until after fourth or fifth grades to begin this kind of bonding will delay the good opportunity, mislead people’s children, and eventually cause

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irreparable major loss to the nation and the country. From the above analysis, we can see that each class needs a lot of extensive reading and application as well as computer typing and writing are two essential prerequisites to realize the leapfrog development of Mandarin Chinese teaching in quality improvement. Let us start with the first condition—there’s obviously a lot of extensive reading to do in class extended reading materials and enough reading time support, and reading materials involve the collection of teaching resources and processing. Reading time depends on the teacher’s mastery and control of the classroom teaching process (i.e., how teachers implement the teaching design of Chinese classroom). So, to make each lecture’s extended reading really fall into place in practice, we must grasp the two keys of teaching resources and teaching design. From the second condition—as mentioned above, computer typing and writing is to achieve literacy, reading, and composition three the organic combination, namely the implementation of the “language use as the center” teaching means, but also to promote each it is a cognitive tool for students to think seriously, explore independently and conduct deep cognitive processing. So, elementary school students typing ability (that is, the ability to type on a computer with standard fingering) for primary school Chinese teaching, especially for primary school the Chinese teaching of students of grade one and two plays an extremely important role and influence. This is the information age versus primary school Chinese education is a new subject which is also a serious challenge to traditional educational thought and teaching concept the war is worthy of our primary school Chinese education circle and even the whole basic education circle serious attention and reflection. Of course, the small students’ computer typing ability should not be trained by Chinese teachers in Chinese class, but should be taught in parallel the information technology class is completed by the information technology teacher. We should also pay attention to: while training students’ thinking ability with the training of language ability, neither logical thinking based on speech concept nor image thinking and straightness based on representation can be considered only we should combine the three basic forms of human thinking (logical thinking, image thinking, and intuition). Thinking closely integrated. In fact, according to the theory of creative thinking [8], these three kinds of thinking for children who have mastered the spoken language of their own nation, the form of dimension itself is interdependent and mutual supportive, indivisible. In order to achieve the task of cultivating language ability as well as thinking ability (especially creative thinking ability) in Chinese teaching, Chinese teachers are required to master the teaching methods and strategies of creative thinking (for the contents of “cultivation of creative thinking in Chinese education,” see the next section for details). As for how to implement the teaching thought of “focusing on the use of language and writing” and carry out innovative primary school Chinese teaching from reading and composition (instead of just starting from literacy like traditional teaching), so as to achieve the leapfrog development goal of Chinese teaching in quality improvement, please refer to the document “new theory of children’s thinking development and its application in Chinese teaching” [1].

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5 Cultivating Creative Thinking in Mandarin Chinese Education [12] 5.1 The Crux of Mandarin Chinese Education—Suffocating Creative Thinking As is known to all, since the 1990s, Chinese education in China has received fierce criticism from parents, teachers, and the society in many aspects, which has aroused great concern from the whole society, and has caused many national discussions on the reform of Chinese education in the press. Among them one of the biggest nationwide discussion began in November 1997 Beijing Literature on the column observation of the century, published a set of three articles about sorrow of Chinese education (writer Zou Jingzhi Daughter’s Homework, Wang Li, a middle school teacher Middle School Chinese teaching’s Note and Xue Yi, a university teacher, Sadness of Literature Education). These three articles have made a profound analysis and a sharp criticism on the problems in the standard examination, teaching materials, methods as well as the purpose of literature education in Chinese teaching in middle schools in China, respectively. These articles have aroused great resonance and repercussion in the society. Since then, China Youth Daily, Guangming Daily, and newspapers in many provinces and cities have reprinted or published articles discussing the issue. Chinese education Report also published five reports by Li Jianping, from February 26, 1998, to March 16, within twenty days, about language education in primary and secondary school present situations, the contents involving the function and purpose of Chinese education, literacy teaching, reading teaching, and the existing problems in composition teaching and reform of examination method and so on many aspects, analyze the current situation of Chinese education in China panoramic scanning, and at the deeper level to inspire people to analyze and think, this pushing the big discussion gradually to a climax. For a more profound understanding and reflection Chinese education of our country, starting in April 1998, one of the above three articles the author Wang Li had interviewed nearly 20 Chinese education experts and scholars in Beijing, Shanghai at own cost (a total of 11interviews) has published in Beijing Literature, July and October issues, to further the big discussion. A comprehensive review of the discussion shows that it is unprecedented in scale and far-reaching in significance. In terms of its breadth and depth, it is unprecedented not only in the field of Chinese education, but also in the whole field of basic education. As reporter Li Jianping pointed out in his series of special reports, the contents of the discussion involve the purpose and function of Chinese education (the debate focuses on the nature and function of Chinese as a discipline, whether it is instrumental or humanistic, or both). There are many problems in the teaching of reading, literacy, and composition (especially the impact of standardized examination on reading teaching is more criticized by people) and the reform of

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examination methods. However, as far as the critical spearhead of this National Congress is concerned, we think it mainly points to the following three aspects:

5.1.1

Overemphasis on Instrumentality of Chinese While Neglecting Its Humanism

Many experts point out that both instrumentality and humanism are the basic nature of Chinese, and they are two sides of a unity. They are interdependent and cannot be mechanically separated. Without humanistic spirit, Chinese education will lose its soul and become meaningless word games that arrange and combine language symbols. On the contrary, if we break away from the specific expression and application of language and talk about humanity abstractly, it will make the flesh-and-blood, colorful, extensive, and profound traditional national culture become rigid dogmas, which cannot reach the effect of the humanistic education, move people emotionally and develop reasoning, gradually teach students how to behave. Over the years, however, due to various reasons, some experts think it mainly due to the introduction of Chinese teaching experience and language teaching material from the Soviet Union in the early years of the liberation, for a long time the linguists’ material writing affected by too much such influence), in the actual language education of primary and secondary schools in China, the two are often in opposition to each other, the one-sided emphasis on the instrumental and ignore the language discipline humanities; this is very noticeable bias in the language education. What are the humanities of Mandarin Chinese? Why should we attach great importance to the humanism of Mandarin Chinese subject? Teacher Yu Yi, a famous Mandarin Chinese teaching expert, has made an incisive explanation. She pointed out: to learn Chinese is to learn to be a man. With the training of reading, writing, listening, and speaking, cognitive education, emotional education, and personality education are permeated. Language is not simply a system of symbols, but a system of meanings and values for a nation to understand and interpret the world. It is linked to profound national culture. This is the humanistic nature of Chinese teaching, does not recognize this humanistic nature, only one-sided emphasis on the tool of Chinese, using a scalpel to dismember the article, only piecemeal symbols left in students’ mind [13]. The result is to tie students’ minds, turn them into robots, and knock out their personality and aura [13].

5.1.2

Too Much Emphasis on Standardized Tests Suffocates Students’ Creative Thinking

Since the 1990s, the Chinese college entrance examination has examined reading as an independent ability. This practice can effectively promote the cultivation of students’ reading ability, so it is a progress. However, how to test reading comprehension ability, test-design is the key and also a difficult point. At present, the test-design method adopted is the standardized multiple-choice format; that is, to list four kinds

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of analysis of a paragraph in the text, let students choose the most accurate choice that reflects the author’s intention and the text expression. As only one of the four choices is correct and the other three are distractions (but with only slight differences in the expression of meaning), a judgment must be made after careful comparison and consideration. Obviously, it is not easy to make such multiple-choice questions scientifically, accurately, and under scrutiny. In addition, due to different life experiences, different thinking perspectives, and different understandings and views of things, it is difficult for a test taker to choose a single standard answer. At present, there is a great controversy about multiple choice in Mandarin Chinese education circle. Those who support the use of standardized multiple-choice questions to test reading ability (such as the National Education Examinations Authority) believe that this type of questions emerged after the use of computers to mark the papers, in order to pursue accuracy and fairness in grading and avoid the arbitrariness of manual marking. Before that, the random errors were large, according to a survey by psychologists at Beijing Normal University, when several teachers separately rated the same paper, the difference could be as much as 35 points, creating de facto inequality. But the machine reads the paper, does not have the influence of human subjective factor that is relatively fair some. Those who oppose standardized multiple-choice tests of reading ability argue that, unlike math and science, Chinese is a collection of writers’ thinking, feelings, and efforts, rather than abstract concepts, definitions, and formulas. Chinese lesson itself has ambiguity and polysemy; the meaning of a sentence or a word may vary from person to person, and it is difficult to make a simple judgment of either right or wrong. In fact, too much emphasis on standardized tests is bound to result in rote memorization, limiting and even stifling students’ creative thinking. For example, the Chinese test in a certain college entrance examination requires that the phrase thinking together and working together be translated into an idiom. The standard answer is combined effort (“同心协力”). The phrase vividly depicted is required to be expressed in an idiom. The standard answer is vividly lifelike, and if just lifelike it is judged a wrong choice. This is a typical example of the serious disadvantages of this kind of standardized examination. There are many examples of this kind, especially in all kinds of reference books and college entrance examination review materials. As Liu Bin, former deputy head of the State Education Commission, points out: cramming has a lot to do with standardized testing methods. Standardized test questions are also called objective questions, the benefit is objective, accurate, easy to score; the disadvantage is rigid, mechanical, easy to lead the students to the direction of reading dead books, reading blindly. Our standardized tests have moved from Gaokao (college entrance examination) to the senior and junior high school entrance examination. Now primary schools have standardized tests as well. The pros and cons of objective testing need to be weighed.

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5.1.3

Overs Emphasis Training of Writing Skills While Neglecting Cultivation of Observation and Imagination

Many teachers believe that under the influence of exam-oriented education, our composition teaching has gradually become a rigid and mechanical training mode. Composition teaching should emphasize observation, accumulation, and thinking at ordinary times, and encourage students to use language full of personality to express their own thinking truly and accurately; we should encourage the telling of the truth, encourage the writing of genuine feelings, and ensure that the style is the person. However, under the guidance of the baton of the college entrance examination, teachers now only emphasize the training of writing skills, only requiring the writing have a clear point of view, sufficient arguments, logical, be able to justify themselves, get a good score, and to be charged to the second grade of writing. As to the truth or lies, truth or hypocrisy is not a concern. Near the exam, the teacher is busy guessing test topics or items, students busy to recite model essays; some schools, in order to strengthen the training, almost every day, require students to write compositions with frequency. So gradually students’ composition has become almost a complete collection of falsehood, false impressions, and false stories; almost all students wrote about helping the handicapped cross streets, giving their teachers umbrellas, and all children talked like radios. They make up the same story together, just changing different time, places, characters, and then hand in to the teacher and get a good grade. A teacher who attended the marking college entrance examination papers said with regret that the students’ compositions are all the same. The story is the same and the writing method is the same. The examination is tasteless. Some experts and scholars once cried out: Where is the observation and imagination of the Chinese youth? The answer is clear—how can we talk about observation and imagination when a generation of teenagers do not have to see with their own eyes or to think with their own brains? As mentioned above, there are three main points of criticism in this national discussion: 1.

2.

3.

The result of overemphasizing the instrumentality of Mandarin Chinese and neglecting humanism is that the personality and spirit of the students are destroyed, making the living students become robots. Too much emphasis on standardized multiple-choice questions to test reading ability results in rote memorization, which limits and even suffocates students’ creative thinking. The consequence of overemphasizing the training of writing skills is that most young students lose the most basic and important abilities—observation and imagination.

In the great discussion three arguments that the criticism points to, the second points explicitly to creative thinking (suffocating creative thinking), the other two points to personality and nimbleness, and the other to observation and imagination. Because personality and nimbleness refer to rich imagination and creativity, which is different, unique, quick thinking, broad vision; keen observation and rich imagination

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are the prerequisite for the formation of creative thinking. This suggests that, big discussion about current situation of Mandarin Chinese education and reform in China’s, critical grievance on three aspects, but the focus of criticism, in fact, only on one aspect; that is that the current Mandarin Chinese education is stifling the growth of the innovative talents—it is just the crux, over the years, of the fundamental problems that exist in Mandarin Chinese education in China. Although since 1999, after the third national education congress, because to implement in order to cultivate students’ innovative spirit and practical ability as the key point of quality education, Mandarin Chinese teaching should be how to develop the students’ ability of creative thinking, has increasingly aroused the concern of the school principals and teachers (because the key to cultivate innovation spirit and innovation ability is to cultivate students’ creative thinking), so that the above situation gradually changed. However, from the overall perspective of Chinese education, the above fundamental problems can only be said to have a preliminary understanding, beginning to reform; there is still a considerable distance from truly achieving the goal of quality-oriented education. Then, how should we shorten this distance to realize the goal of effectively cultivating students’ creative thinking in Mandarin Chinese education as soon as possible? We think we must first correct two aspects of understanding: first, about the relationship between language and thinking (including language ability and thinking ability); the second is the understanding of the components of creative thinking (i.e., the structure of creative thinking). Only based on correct understanding of these two aspects, can we find the right way and method to solve the above fundamental problems, and it is possible to cultivate students’ creative thinking effectively through Chinese teaching. Sections 5.2 and 5.3 discuss how to correctly understand these two aspects of cognition.

5.2 Correct Understanding of the Relationship Between Language and Thinking What is the relationship between language and thinking? It has always been a controversial issue in academic circles. For a long time, linguists, psychologists, and philosophers have debated on this question, but they have not reached a consensus so far. Here are some typical views.

5.2.1

Linguistic Determinism [14]

This is the view that language determines thinking, which is generally called linguistic determinism, put forward by B. L. Whorf, an American anthropologist. Whorf’s ideas are based on a comparative study of English and various American Indian languages. In his opinion [15], language is a kind of background knowledge for speakers, and everyone is using this background knowledge when thinking

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in their mother tongue. The background knowledge of a language is its grammar. When people use significantly different grammars, these grammars indicate that there are different types of observation and ways of evaluation to observe similar external behaviors, so that the observer can draw different opinions and form different views of the world. Whorf also makes it clear [16] that: language is, in general, the most important factor influencing speaker’s world outlook and thinking process. Clearly, Whorf’s point is that language determines thinking; language is the dominant force in thinking, and that different languages determine different ways of knowing and form different worldviews. This understanding of language and thinking can be traced back to W. Humboldt, a German linguist, who said [17] that language of a nation is the spirit of a nation, and the spirit of a nation is its language, and language is inextricably linked with the spirit of a nation. But it was E. Sapir who had a direct impact on Whorf. In 1931 Sapir taught an anthropology course at Yale University, and Whorf, as a student of Sapir’s, conducted investigations in a variety of Indian languages under his guidance. In the process of research, Sapir stressed [15] that people do not live in the objective world in isolation, for the most part subject to the dictates of language. The real world is built, to a large extent, on people’s language habits. Whorf’s view of language dominating thinking is directly derived from Sapir. This linguistic determinism is also known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis because it is not supported by rigorous scientific reasoning. Different languages are related to different social and cultural backgrounds, and each ethnic group has its own way of language expression, which is the common understanding of people. However, it cannot be concluded that language can determine people’s thinking and determine people’s worldview. As linguist Professor Gui Shichun has pointed out [18], the first thing that determines people’s consciousness is their social existence. Today, people from different social groups and classes, according to their different economic status, form different worldviews. If language could determine the worldview, there would be no hierarchies. Since capitalists and workers speak the same language and view of the world the same way, there will be naturally no labor dispute. Linguistic determinism is groundless and untenable in theory.

5.2.2

Unification of Language and Thinking [15]

According to this view, although language and thinking belong to different categories, they are interdependent and inseparable. There is no language that is separate from thinking, and there is no thinking that is separate from language, so the two are unified. The representative figure of this view is J. Watson, who believes that [15]. Thinking, like language, is also a habit of language, or the thought of language form. The act of thinking is the inner speech movement. Thinking is silent speech; speech is vocal thought. According to this view, when people are thinking, they are also speaking in a voiceless way. This kind of silent speech, which is not used for communication but for self-thinking, is commonly called internal speech. Internal

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speech can be transformed into external speech (explicit speech with phonetic form that can be sensed by hearing). People sometimes talk to themselves or cannot help shouting out; this is a sign of this shift. This phenomenon suggests that thinking in many cases does depend on language. The psychologist E. Jacobson used electrodes to measure the lower lip and tip of the tongue of his subjects [14]. He had them read poetry and arithmetic, first aloud (external speech) and then silently (internal speech), and the pulses of electricity were essentially the same. This seems to prove that internal speech does accompany people’s thinking all the time. Through further study, it is found that there are two kinds of internal speech: one is extended, the other is simplified. Extended internal speech is silent self-talk, which is characterized by complete syntactic structure and is different from external speech except that it does not produce sound. Characteristic of simplified internal speech is incomplete sentence structure, often only composed of the predicate, while subject and many other ingredients are omitted; sentences only dulled, which reflects the process of thinking, so concise, enrichment are the basic characteristics of the inner speech, also because of this, it has a prominent advantage—at a relatively short period of time to complete the process of thinking, which has high efficiency of thinking. This theory of unified language and thinking was not only influential internationally (there were many psychologists in the United States and the former Soviet Union), but also supported by many linguists in China. Some people even go so far as to turn unification into equivalence, regarding language and thinking as the same thing. For example, Professor Zhu Shaoyu, Northeast Normal University, believes, that [19] Chinese is a subject of language and a subject of thinking. Based on agreeing with Zhu Shaoyu, Professor Wei Canjin, and Professor Tao Benyi from Shanxi Normal University further pointed out that it is not scientific to regard the four abilities of listening, speaking, reading, and writing as mere language abilities. What is language ability? In the past, it was summed up as listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Just think for a while, these four words can include the whole connotation of language ability? Can they even contain the main meaning? I do not think so. Listening, speaking, reading, and writing are just external forms. The core is to inspire students’ ability to think with the tools of language. Under the guidance of unity theory or equivalence theory, the subject of Chinese has become a subject of thinking. Even listening, speaking, reading, and writing ability is no longer the main content of language ability. Such arguments are probably unconvincing. In fact, not only equivalence theory unacceptable to the academic world (which will be further elaborated in the fourth part of this section, Scientific Understanding of the Relationship Between language and thinking), but unification theory also has loopholes. One basic fact that it is well known and sufficient to refute such theory—that the born deaf has been deprived of speech since childhood—can still use sign language, body language, etc., to carry out general human thinking. Although such thinking cannot be as rich and complex as thinking with speech concepts, you must admit that they have the same thinking ability as normal people, and it is a relatively advanced thinking ability.

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Determinism [18]

On the relationship between language and thinking, there is another view opposite to Whorf’s linguistic determinism—mental determinism. This view holds that language and thinking, though closely related, are not homologous (meaning that species have the same origin in the process of evolution), certainly not uniform or equivalent, but have their own developmental rules. In the process of human growth and development, cognitive ability precedes verbal ability, and thinking is the main content of cognitive process, so it is thinking that determines language, rather than the other way around. Although this view acknowledges that, in addition to thinking with language as the outer shell of matter, there exists thinking without language as the outer shell of matter, so long as thinking with language as the outer shell of matter, it must be determined by thinking. Because this view emphasizes that cognitive development precedes verbal development, this type of mental determinism is also known as the cognitive hypothesis. At present, this view has been more and more widely accepted by academic circles at home and abroad. The representative of this view is I. Vygotsky, a scholar of the former Soviet Union [18]. Vygotsky, after reviewing four years of extensive experimental research on animal thinking conducted by the German psychologist W. Kochler, pointed out [21] that chimpanzees have a certain intelligence. It can, for example, use a slender twig as a tool, plunge it into a deep ant hole, and draw out the ant to eat live ants; it could tie one twig to a thicker hollow one and make a long one to strike fruit on a higher ground; it can also be dipped into paint to make a paintbrush—not a real painting, of course, because of its lack of form, but equivalent to doodling by a human one- or twoyear-old. These facts suggest that chimpanzees have developed a rudimentary ability to use simple tools to solve problems. And this intelligence has nothing to do with spoken language, because chimpanzees are known to be unable to speak, suggesting that they can think without the use of language (albeit at a lower level). So, Vygotsky believes there is a pre-linguistic stage in the development of the chimpanzee’s mind. In addition, chimpanzees have their own language. For example, they can understand each others facial expressions, gestures, and voices, so they can use each others facial expressions, gestures, and voices to communicate. The problem is that these expressions and gestures are always associated with specific actions; while sound is a way to express desires and feelings, it is not a symbolic representation of objective things. Although chimpanzee can produce sound, which is not a spoken language, it has no connection with thinking. So, Vygotsky believes there was also a pre-thinking stage in the evolution of chimps toward spoken language. Vygotsky looked not only at the origins and pathways of thought and sound language from the evolutionary perspective of apes, but also at the development of human infants and young children. He found that there are also pre-linguistic and pre-thinking stages in the development of thinking and the development of spoken language in infants and young children, similar to those in chimpanzees. For example, babies and toddlers typically begin to speak simple words around the age of 1. By then, even before they can speak (not even simple words like mom and dad), they have reached a level of intelligence similar to or even higher than that of chimpanzees,

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known as the pre-linguistic stage. In the first few months after the birth of a baby, they have been able to make all kinds of sounds—cry and shout, called and imitations of adult speech (once) and so on, but these sounds are mainly express joy, anger, feelings, such as hunger, thirst, and desire or imitation, not the symbolic representation of objective things, which has nothing to do with thinking activity process, this is the similar stage as chimpanzees before thinking. Vygotsky has studied the thinking and language development processes of apes and human infants and found great similarities between the two–there are prelinguistic stages and pre-thinking stages, in which language and thinking do not occur simultaneously, but thinking precedes spoken language. It is based on this understanding that Vygotsky makes the claim that thought determines language and not language determines thought. It should be pointed out here that because of the pre-linguistic stage, we can indeed conclude that spoken language and thinking did not come into being at the same time—for in this stage there really was no language and there was already thought (albeit of a lower order). But from the existence of the pre-thinking stage, we can make a similar judgment, but the meaning is not the same—for it is not a stage in which there is no thinking but there is already spoken language. On the contrary, it is still thinking, but it is not yet connected with sound. Since this connection has not yet been established, it is naturally impossible for a true spoken language to emerge. So, the existence of these two stages suggests the same thing—that language and thinking did not come into being at the same time. Vygotsky chose to distinguish these two stages simply because of different perspectives: one from the development of the mind and the other from the development and evolution of spoken language. On the relationship between language and thinking, Vygotsky, on the one hand, emphasized that thinking determines language rather than the other way around, but he also acknowledged that the development of thought is also subject to language. On the other hand, he felt that the two should not be equated, that they were not necessarily related. He pointed out that [21], language and thinking are like two circles, they partly overlap; that is where language and thinking are consistent, which can be called verbal thought; but verbal thinking cannot include all forms of thinking.

5.2.4

Scientific Understanding of the Relationship Between Language and Thinking

• Vygotsky, theoretical defects. Through the above analysis, it is not difficult to see that the first two theories (Language determinism and the unity of language and thinking) are obviously biased, while the third theory represented by Vygotsky emphasizes that cognitive ability precedes verbal ability, that is, thinking determines language, but also recognizes that language plays an important role in thinking—the development of thinking should be subject to language. Obviously, the third theory is more in line with objective facts and more convincing, so it is widely supported by the international academic community. However, this theoretical viewpoint represented by Vygotsky is not the essential understanding

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of the relationship between language and thinking. Because although Vygotsky correctly describes the relationship between language and thinking, this is just a belongs to the category of phenomenon of external links (verbal ability can be directly observed the overt behavior, thinking ability and can be used to determine through its external performance of thinking and the verbal ability and thinking ability of the relation between the two comparisons, through the observation of external phenomena can be realized), has not been involved in internal links essence category. In other words, the fundamental flaw of Vygotsky’s theory lies in its failure to really elucidate the nature of the relationship between language and thinking. For this reason, the proposal of this theory has not only failed to end the confusion and controversy about the relationship between language and thinking in academic circles, on the contrary, it has also led academic circles into another time-consuming and ineffective debate. For example, it revolves around Vygotsky’s claim that verbal thinking does not include all forms of thinking. (This claim is originally correct, but Vygotsky fails to further answer the question Why not all forms of thinking?) And how many forms of thinking should there be? Linguists J. Foder, Z. Pylyshyn and B. McLaughlin, and others begin from 1975 to 1989, ten years has published many papers [22–27], specifically discuss the question that since there is no language of thought, and then thinking in what way do appear in us? [18]. For this reason, Fodor et al. proposed a hypothesis about The Language of Thought (abbreviated as LOT), believing that thought exists in the brain in the form of LOT (i.e., thought language). LOT hypothesis includes two aspects [18]. First, belief, will, and other intention states are the real psychological and physical representations in the brain, which are the basic causes of explicit behavior. Second, these intention states and intention objects have similar organizational structure characteristics.

5.2.5

New Questions Brought by LOT Hypothesis

• The hypothesis was originally proposed to answer questions that Vygotsky’s theory failed to explain, but in fact, it not only failed to give correct answers, but also made relevant concepts more confused. As Professor Gui Shichun pointed out [18], the hypothesis brought many new questions, such as: • What kind of language is thought language? Fodor thinks that this is a psychological language rather than a natural language, so how much is it like a natural language? • What is psychological language (that is, thinking language)? Some people think of it as an image. But all things that are represented by images have appearances, and things that are thought in the psychological language of Fodor can have no appearance (or that we do not know what it looks like) and, therefore, do not look like images. • If psychological language is not natural language, then the following questions should be answered: What is the relationship between psychological language and

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natural language? Can the learning of natural language promote the development of psychological language? Or can the learning of natural language be improved or transformed into psychological language? But Fodor has always insisted that mental language should be independent of any language we speak, and that the expressive power of natural language depends on the expressive power of mental language, not the other way around. In short, there are many opinions on the hypothesis of language of thinking (LOT) in academia at present. This hypothesis put forward the relationship between language and thinking, which has not made things clearer, or more in-depth understanding of the issue; on the contrary, the problem is further confused, more chaotic, more confused. Obviously thinking and language are of two different categories, Fodor artificially created the concept of a language of thinking, squeezing them together, and leading to an academic debate about it. The argument that came up with is something neither fish nor flesh, lasting for more than a decade, which is really unnecessary, doing more harm than good. • In fact, the defects of LOT hypothesis and Vygotsky’s theory both come from the same root: lack of understanding of the internal connection between language and thinking and the nature of thinking. Vygotsky realized the relationship between language and thinking through comparison of the external manifestations of the two abilities, without a serious analysis of the internal structure of thinking itself. Therefore, this kind of understanding is only superficial and it is impossible to grasp the intrinsic connection between the two. Fodor makes the issue more simplified, not discussing in depth the occurrence and development process of thinking and language, respectively, nor analyzing the comparison of external performance of both (not to mention analyzing and comparison of basic nature of both); only by adding the two different concepts directly to have created a new concept—language of thinking, treating it as a panacea to solve the problem, so, of course, one cannot grasp the internal relations of both. In order to truly understand the essential relationship between language and thinking, and to thoroughly clarify the various erroneous ideas existing in this aspect in the academic circles for a long time, it is necessary to start from the analysis of the basic nature of things, and avoid looking at problems only from the surface. Therefore, we should first make an objective and scientific analysis of the connotation and structure of thinking (namely the constituent elements of thinking) and find out the internal connection between thinking and language, to find out the crux of the problem. Analysis of the connotation and component elements of thinking according to system theory According to the viewpoint of system theory, everything in the objective world exists and changes in the form of a system, and a system is always composed of several elements. Thinking is no exception. The research results of thinking science show that [8], as a system, there are four components in thinking:

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processing material, processing mode, processing buffer cache, and processing mechanism. As for thinking, psychologists and philosophers believe that it is a unique function formed by the long-term evolution of human brain, defining it as [28]: the general and indirect reflection of human brain on the essential attributes of objective things and the laws of internal connections between things. It is said to be indirect because it is done indirectly through the symbolic representation system (such as concepts, images, semiotics, gestures), rather than directly reflecting things like a camera. It is said to be generalization, because this kind of reflection is not all the attributes of objective things and their external phenomenon of original copy, but the objective things of all kinds of properties and external phenomenon of abstract (abandoning its essential attributes and external phenomenon), on the basis of the inner link between what law of generality. Only by truly understanding the above definition and connotation of thinking, can we further understand the structure of thinking, namely its constituent elements. As mentioned above, the thinking of the reflection of objective things is done indirectly through symbolic representation system, human symbolic system used in the process of thinking has the following [8]: based on the concept of language, reflecting the attributes of representation of objects (also known as attribute representation); representation of internal relations between things; and sign language, semaphores, etc. The symbolic representation system in the thinking process is the specific object of mental processing in the thinking process, which is also the first element in the above-mentioned elements of thinking, i.e., thinking processing material. In other words, mental processing materials include language-based concepts, attribute representations, relational representations, sign language, flag language, and so on. However, the reflection of objective things by symbolic representation system in the process of human thinking is realized by the following three psychological processing modes [8]: One, using verbal concepts for analysis, synthesis, abstraction, generalization, judgment, reasoning processing—this is logical thinking. Two, the processing mode of decomposition, combination, abstraction, generalization, association, and imagination (imagination is divided into two types: recreating imagination and creating imagination) by using attribute representation—which is imagery thinking. Three, the processing mode of intuitive perspective, spatial integration, pattern matching and instant judgment using relational representation—this is intuitive thinking. The three mental processing modes listed here are different types of thinking processes, which is the second element of the above-mentioned thinking components—processing methods. From the above analysis, different types of thinking and thinking modes are completely different.

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To truly realize the advanced, complex thinking process, namely to complete, responding to the generalization of objective things and indirect, through a variety of ways of psychological processing, should also obviously need a working memory area, so that the original material used for temporary thinking processes, the intermediate result, and the final result, that is, what is said above, the third elements of the elements—thinking processing buffer zone (also called working memory in psychology). Since thinking is a special function of the human brain after a long evolution and formation, its function has natural material foundation, namely in the cerebral cortex, there must be corresponding neural physiological mechanism, to support the thinking process of psychological processing modes and the functional requirement of the cache; these are the thinking elements mentioned above in the fourth element of thinking—processing mechanism. Thinking, which exists as a system, consists of four elements: processing material, processing mode, processing buffer cache, and processing mechanism.

5.2.6

Scientific Understanding of the Relationship Between Language and Thinking

• The relationship between elements and systems. After analysis of the thinking structure of constituent elements, the relationship between language and thinking became clear: the development of cognition (thinking), whether from the evolution of primate species, or from the human individual growth and development process, should be prior to the development of verbal ability, so is the development of thinking ability certainly affect verbal ability of learning and development; namely thinking decided language, not the other way round. However, from the above analysis of thinking structure, we can see that language will greatly influence and restrict thinking in many aspects. As mentioned above, processing materials include language-based concepts, attribute representation, relational representation, sign language, flag language, etc., among which the most important one is language-based concepts. Language-based concepts refer to concepts expressed by a word or phrase in a language (a word means a single concept, and a phrase means a compound concept). The word is the smallest language unit that represents a certain meaning, with a fixed phonetic form and can be used independently. Words can be divided into content words and function words; content words have real meanings, acting as sentence components, answering questions alone, so can be used to express concepts; they are content words; function words have no real meaning and cannot answer questions alone. Function words cannot be used as sentence components, but to express the relationship between sentence components and assist content words to express meaning. A phrase is a unit of two or more notional words that have not yet become a sentence. In other words, the most basic unit (word) of language and the combination of basic units (phrase) are the carriers of the main processing materials (concepts) of

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thinking. Since the concept and its carrier (word or phrase) are inseparable from each other, it is impossible to establish a scientific conceptual system without language; that is to say, it is impossible to form a high-level human thinking on this basis, so the academic community often regards the relationship between concept and thinking as the relationship between language and thinking. It is based on this understanding that Marxist classical writers have made a conclusion that language is the expression form of thinking. Since the relationship between language and thinking is equivalent to that of concept and thinking, and from the above analysis of thinking structure, we can see clearly that the relationship between concepts and thought belongs to the relationship between elements and system (concepts are main materials of thinking, and processing materials are a factor of thinking system). It can be seen that the relationship between language and thinking is “the relationship between elements and systems.” Since this is based on the viewpoint of system theory and the careful analysis of the basic nature and internal structure of thinking, it can be concluded that this is the internal essential relationship between language and thinking, rather than the relationship between external phenomena. Seeing clearly this internal essential connection, our understanding of the relationship between language and thinking can be established based on comparative science, so as to clear up all kinds of puzzles that have been diffusing in this field of academia for a long time and solve many controversial problems. For instance, since based on the view that concepts of language processing materials are just one of ways of thinking, then they can leave language, thinking by using other materials of thinking representation (such as property, the relationship between representation and sign language, semaphores), so the Whorf linguistic determinism is obviously untenable (of course, at this moment the processing way of thinking will change accordingly, but it is by no means without thinking). Since the relationship between language and thinking belongs to the relationship between elements and system, according to system theory, system and elements are of categories of different levels, and different connotation, then, to unify the two, even to identify both as equals, naturally fail, because their ideas directly conflict with system theory. Since according to the views of system theory, the various elements in the system are not isolated, unrelated, piling up together, but an organic whole of mutual contact and mutual effect (e.g., the element of language concepts, as thinking process materials, is not isolated, playing the role of the element of materials, but has a great influence on the other three elements when processing material uses concepts, the corresponding processing mode, the storage mode and processing mechanism in the cerebral cortex are quite different, processing materials using attribute representation or relationship representation; in fact, this view has been confirmed by the research results of contemporary brain neuron-science [29]), which shows that Vygotsky’s view that not only thought determines language, but also thought is subject to language (that is, language also has a great influence and restriction on the development of thinking) is correct and scientific. Since the relationship between language and thinking belongs to the relationship between elements and system, as mentioned above, systems and elements are two

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categories with different levels and connotations; and system level is higher than the element level; according to system theory various elements interact (rather than isolated); obviously, the system made up of elements is much more than the role of an element. In general, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, (that is, the elements in synchronous coordinate). This shows that Vygotsky’s claim that thinking determines language and not the other way around is also valid. Because of this, Vygotsky’s theory will be more generally accepted in the international community. Its shortcoming lies in its failure to elucidate the relationship between thinking and language from the essence and internal structure of thinking. Thus, although Vygotsky’s description of the state of the relationship between the two is basically correct, it is difficult to answer questions such as Why is there such a relationship? And Is there any other form of thinking than verbally based thinking? What other forms of thinking are there? This kind involves deeper questions of thinking domain.

5.3 Understanding Relations Between Language and Thinking: Guiding Significance for Mandarin Chinese Teaching Through the above analysis of the connotation and constituent elements of thinking, it enables us to really grasp the essence of the inner relation between language and thinking, clarifying muddy views of the two areas in linguistic and psychological circles for many years on, which is very valuable not only to thinking research, especially for creative thinking structure of the exploration of its constituents, and with important guiding significance on how to effectively teach Chinese to cultivate students’ thinking. This guiding significance is reflected at least in the following four aspects.

5.3.1

Importance Attached to the Cultivation of Intuitive Thinking

The basic types (or forms) of human thinking are logical thinking, imagery thinking, and intuitive thinking, respectively, (the basic feature of intuitive thinking is that relational representation is the processing material of thinking). This requires teachers to pay attention not only to the cultivation of logical thinking and imagery thinking, but also to the cultivation of intuitive thinking, which is an essential component of the structure of creative thinking. However, this point is precisely ignored by Chinese teaching for many years. Many facts show that it is impossible to cultivate innovative talents with high creative thinking ability by ignoring the cultivation of intuitive thinking. It is regrettable, however, that so far this issue has not attracted much attention in the field of Mandarin Chinese education. The ability of intuitive thinking is not only closely related to the discovery of natural laws (such as Archimedes’ law), but also of great significance for the study

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of humanities and social sciences. In fact, there is no lack of cases in the middle school Chinese textbooks. An excerpt from Zuo Zhuan (Annals of Zuo) tells a story of Lu Zhuanggong in the 10th year of his reign, when Qi attacking Lu. Cao Gui volunteered to advise Duke Zhuang. On what qualifications are you ready to fight against Qi? Asked Cao Gui. I dare not enjoy such things as food and clothing alone. I will certainly share them with those around me, said Lu. We shouldn’t defer to the common people until such small favors and counsellors reach out to us, Cao Gui said. Lu Zhuanggong said, I never exaggerate the number of pigs, cattle, sheep, jade, silk or other sacrificial offerings. I will be honest and trustworthy. (公曰: “衣食所安, 弗敢专也, 必以分人。”对曰: “小惠未遍, 民弗从也。”公曰: “牺牲 玉帛, 弗敢加也, 必以信。”对曰: “小信未孚, 神弗福也。”公曰: “小大之狱, 虽不能察, 必 以情。”对曰: “忠之属也, 可以一战。”)

Lu Zhuangggong said three aspects as the bases. One is to do favors to subordinate officials; the other is to offer sacrifices earnestly and pray for the protection of gods; the third is to handle all cases fairly and reasonably and never accuse a good person unjustly. Cao Gui started from an intuitive thinking with an overall perspective and ignored all the minor things related to the war, but only grasped the key factor which could decide the win or lose of a war—the popular feeling, so he rejected the first two of Lu Zhuanggong’s arguments and only affirmed his third one. This point has been fully affirmed by Chairman Mao Zedong, that this can win the trust of the people. In the following battle, Cao Gui said, It takes courage to fight, Cao GUI replied. The first beat of the drum refreshed the soldiers, the second weakened them, and the third dried up. The enemy’s morale had dried up and ours was strong, so we defeated them

This is done by visualizing and synthesizing the situation of the enemy and us on the battlefield, and comparing it with the relevant examples in the past (pattern matching). Cao Gui’s strategy proved to be correct. Therefore, Cao Gui polemic is not only a classic work reflecting historical materialism, but also a good example to use intuitive thinking to make correct strategic and tactical decisions. Another example is Zou Ji satirizes the advice of the King of Qi, which is selected from the State Policy of Zhan Guo. It seems to tell the story of Zou Ji comparing with Xu Gong in the north of the city. In fact, it reflects how Zou Ji discovered an important philosophy of state governance through intuitive thinking. He said to his wife, “Who is more beautiful to me than Xu Gong in the north of the city?” His wife said, “You are wonderful. Xu Gong can’t match you!” Xu Gong, from the north of the city, was a handsome man of the state of Qi. Zou Ji did not believe he could be more beautiful than Xu Gong, so he asked his concubine: “Who is more beautiful, Xu Gong or I?”

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My concubine said, “Xu Gong is no match for you!” The next day, a visitor came from outside and Zou Ji sat and talked with him. Zou Ji asked his guest, “Compared with Xu Gong, who is more beautiful?” The guest said, “Xu Gong is not as beautiful as you.” (邹忌问其妻: “我孰与城北徐公美?”其妻曰: “君美甚, 徐公何能及君也!”邹忌不相 信, 又去问其妾, 妾曰: “徐公何能及君也!”第二天有客人来, 邹忌又提出这个问题, 客 曰: “徐公不若君之美也。”)

To ask a question and get the same answer from his wife, maid, and friend, is to believe it; if they do not believe it, they will only doubt it for the time being, and leave it in their minds to think no more about it. And Zou Ji was different, he did not stay on the surface, but rather through intuitive perspective, spatial integration, pattern matching (he compared their words and deeds with their usual modes of speaking), found different implicit relationship, hidden in them the same words—his wife is siding with him, my maid is fear of him, a friend has favor to ask for. Zou Ji also thought that if a king of a state, surrounded by concubines, maids, and ministers, what the king hears are all lies, it will be very dangerous; so he decided to use the experience to persuade the king, and finally, the king accepts the advice of Zou Ji, decided to listen to different opinions, and put up a notice on the city gate of encourage and reward men who offered good advice. There are many similar examples. In fact, intuitive thinking is a powerful weapon not only in natural and social sciences, but also in our daily lives. In the critical juncture of facing predicament, in the occasion that needs to make a choice instantly, because time is urgent, cannot allow you to carry on logical analysis and reasoning slowly, at this time one can only use intuitive thinking, making accurate judgment in the instant, otherwise one may incur catastrophe. For the leaders of administrative departments and enterprises, as well as military leaders, it is more necessary to have this kind of intuitive thinking ability, which is to look at the big picture, get the overall picture and grasp the whole situation. It is more necessary to be familiar with intuitive perspective, spatial integration, and pattern matching and other intuitive thinking processing methods. This needs to be nurtured from an early age, and Chinese education and Chinese teachers shoulder a particularly important responsibility in this regard. Through the above two examples, we can get some enlightenment on how to cultivate intuitive thinking in Chinese teaching.

5.3.2

Cultivate Thinking According to Different Thinking Types Involved in Teaching Contents

As mentioned above, processing modes of thinking commonly used by human beings includes analysis, synthesis, abstraction, generalization, judgment, reasoning, association, imagination…, etc. If the processing mode of thinking is further divided according to the types, then we have logical thinking; using the concepts we have analysis, synthesis, abstraction, generalization, judgment, reasoning, and other psychological processing modes; the methods of mental processing, we have imagery

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thinking (including decomposition, combination, abstraction, generalization, association) and imagination (including reconstruction imagination and creation imagination). Intuitive thinking includes using relational representation to carry out intuitive perspective, spatial integration, pattern matching, instant judgment, and other mental processing methods. This indicates that in order to comprehensively cultivate students’ thinking ability in Mandarin Chinese teaching, different thinking types involved in current teaching contents should be taken into consideration, and different teaching strategies and methods should be adapted to their respective psychological processing methods adopted to carry out corresponding thinking ability cultivation.

5.3.3

Not to Confuse the Cultivation of Thinking Ability with Language Ability

Since the relationship between language and thinking are elements and systems, the relationship between elements and systems is a pair on different levels and different connotation, so in Chinese teaching, we should not confuse language with thinking (of course, nor should take language as thinking), also not to take language ability (i.e., reading, writing, listening and speaking) training and thinking ability as one thing. As mentioned above, we should actively cultivate students’ comprehensive thinking ability (including the three basic forms of human thinking) in Mandarin Chinese teaching. To achieve this goal, however, different types of thinking by its respective psychological processing method corresponding to the different teaching strategies and teaching methods should be emphasized according to the above discussion, instead of cultivating language ability in reading, writing, listening, and speaking method to replace the logical thinking ability, representative thinking, and intuitive thinking ability; nor is it the other way around—to replace the ability of reading, writing, listening, and speaking with the method of cultivating various thinking abilities.

5.3.4

Paying Attention to the Training of Logical Thinking at Lower Grades of Primary School

As mentioned above, children, before schooling, have initial mastery of native language listening and speaking skills, according to psychologists, 5 ~ 6 years old preschoolers can hear and speak a vocabulary of 3,500, and has mastered various sentence patterns, and it is showed that primary school students from grade one start thinking not only based on the representation (i.e., representative thinking and intuitive thinking), but also has concepts of logical thinking based on words. Of course, this kind of logical thinking is still relatively low in the lower grades of primary school, but low is not non-existent, just as the image-based thinking is also relatively low in the middle and lower grades of primary school, but people do not deny that it exists in the minds of pupils. Unfortunately, it is generally believed,

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not only at home but also abroad, that only the cultivation of representative thinking can be considered in the middle and lower grades of primary schools, and logical thinking can be considered only in the higher grades of primary schools. It seems that the primary school students in the middle and lower grades (especially the first and second grades) only have image-based thinking, but no logical thinking based on verbal concepts. This kind of understanding is very harmful to the cultivation of pupil’s creative thinking. The root of the problem lies in the influence of Piaget’s theory of child’s cognitive development, which must be thoroughly criticized and corrected.

References 1. He, K. (2004). A new theory on child’s thinking development—And its application in chinese teaching. Beijing Normal University Press (何克抗, 儿童思维发展新论——及其在语文教 学中的应用, 北京师范大学出版社, 2004年3月). 2. Piaget, J. (1952). The origins of intelligence in children. W. W. Norton. 3. Piaget, J. (1972). The principles of genetic epistemology. Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. (W. Mays, Translated from French in 1970). 4. Zhu, Z., & Lin, C. (1991). Developmental psychology of thinking. Beijing Normal University Press (朱智贤, 林崇德, 思维发展心理学, 北京师范大学出版社, 1991年9月). 5. Zhu, Z. (1998). Child psychology (1993 revision). People’s Education Press (朱智贤, 儿童心 理学 (1993年修订版), 人民教育出版社, 1998年2月). 6. Li, Y. (1995). The development of child language. Central China Normal University Press (李 宇明, 儿童语言的发展, 华中师范大学出版社, 1995年6月). 7. Li, Y., & Chen, Q. (1998). Understanding and occurrence of language. Central China Normal University Press (李宇明、陈前瑞, 语言的理解与发生, 华中师范大学出版社, 1998年5月). 8. He, K. (2000). Creative thinking theory: The construction and demonstration of DC model. Normal University Press (何克抗, 创造性思维理论——DC模型的建构与论证, 北京师范 大学出版社, 2000 年11月). 9. Zhang, Q. (1999). Learning theory. Hubei Education Press (张奇, 学习理论, 湖北教育出版 社, 1999年5月). 10. He, K. (2004). Language perception: A New theory on child language development. People’s Education Press (何克抗, 语觉论——儿童语言发展新论, 人民教育出版社, 2004年12月). 11. Lin, C. (1992). Learning and development. Beijing Education Press (林崇德, 学习与发展, 北 京教育出版社, 1992年10月). 12. He, K. (2004). On the development of creative thinking in Chinese education. China’s Basic Education (1, 2) (何克抗, 论语文教育中的创造性思维培养, 中国基础教育, 2004年第一、 二期). 13. Wang, L. (Ed.). (1998). Reflections on Chinese language education. Educational Science Press, 11 (王丽编, 中国语文教育忧思录, 教育科学出版社, 1998.11). 14. Chang, B.-R. (1990). Psychology of Chinese language. Knowledge Press, 10 (常宝儒, 汉语语 言心理学, 知识出版社, 1990.10). 15. Wang, G. (1985). The foundation of general linguistics. Hunan Education Press (王刚, 普通 语言学基础, 湖南教育出版社, 1988.5). 16. Houston, S. (1972). A survey of psycholinguistics (p. 185). Hague. 17. Korduhov (Trans. Chang Bao-Ru). (1987). General linguistics (p. 35). Beijing: Foreign language teaching and Research Press (柯杜霍夫著, 常宝儒译, 普通语言学, 外语教学与 研究出版社, 1987年, P35). 18. Gui, S. (2001). Psycholinguistics. Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2 (桂诗春编 著, 新编心理语言学, 上海外语教育出版社, 2001.2).

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19. Zhu, S. (1988). Middle school Chinese teaching method (p. 16). Higher Education Press (朱 绍禹, 中学语文教学法, 高等教育出版社, 1988, P16). 20. Wei, C. (1997). The cultivation of Chinese thinking. Chinese Publishing House, 7 (卫灿金, 语 文思维培育学, 语文出版社, 1997.7). 21. Vygotsky, L. (1962). The genetic roots of thought and speech. The MIT Press. 22. Forder, J. (1975). The language of thought. Harvard University Press. 23. Forder, J. (1980). Methodological solipsism considered as a research strategy in Cognitive Science. Behavioral and Brain Science, 3, 63–109. 24. Forder, J. (1987). Why there still has to be a language of thought? In Psychosemantics: The problem of meaning in the philosophy of mind. MIT Press. 25. Forder, J., & Pylyshyn, Z. (1988). Connectionism and cognitive architecture: A critical analysis. Cognition, 25. 26. Forder, J., & Mclaughlin, B. (1989). Connectionism and the problem of systematicity: Why Smolensky’s solution doesn’t work. Cognition, 35, 183–204. 27. Forder, J. (1994). The elm and the expert. In Mentalese and its semantics. MIT Press. 28. Smith, Edwars, E., & Jonides, J. (1995). Working memory in humans: Neuro-psychological evidence. In M. S. Gazzaniga (Ed.), The cognitive neurosciences. VIII Thought and Imagery. The MIT Press.

Chapter 7

Theory of Child Language Development for Foreign Language Teaching: Theory of Semantic Perception

Based on the research of the existing language, we have adopted the practice of the study of English leap-forward teaching, and put forward a new theory of child language development—speech-sense theory [1], which is the main theoretical basis for deepening reform of the second language teaching (usually referring to foreign language teaching).

1 Speech Sense and Semantic Perception Theory 1.1 Speech Sense (Semantic Perception) Speech sense (semantic perception) is not a fabricated concept, but the sixth sense perception that exists objectively. It is unique to human brain and specially used to perceive and identify various semantic relationships in spoken language. Since it involves oral language, the corresponding semantic recognition can only be carried out based on speech perception and discrimination, so speech sense has two functions: perception and discrimination of speech, and analysis and recognition of semantics. Speech sense involves not only semantic relations in spoken language, but also speech sounds in spoken language. This suggests that the input channel of speech sense (i.e., the sensory organ receiving external stimuli) must be related to the auditory organ (the ear). This is the fundamental reason why all circles of society (including academia) confuse speech sense with hearing sense. Language and hearing, in fact, are just peripheral sensory organs and the same with afferent nerve channel, but speech sense and lower auditory nerve center and advanced nerve center are completely different, and the peripheral sensory organ, afferent nerve channel, lowlevel nerve center, and advanced nerve center are four elements any human sense

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 K. He, Innovative Education Informatization with Chinese Characteristics, Bridging Human and Machine: Future Education with Intelligence, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0622-0_7

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perception system must have, so they are two different perceptual channels that cannot be confused with. Since ancient times, it has been thought (including in academia) that humans have only five sensory perception systems. As early as more than 2,000 years ago, the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle divided sense into five categories: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. With the progress of modern brain neuroscience research, the division of human sensory system has become more and more fine-tuned. For example, some psychologists believe that there are ten sensory systems, namely vision, hearing, smell, taste, touch, pain, motion, temperature, position, and balance. Some other psychologists think that there are three categories of sense perceptions, subdivided into seven groups: sight and hearing (the two “distant senses”), taste, smell, skin (the three “close senses”), kinesthesia and balance (the two “internal senses”). However, whether they divided senses into seven or ten kinds, psychologists consider, if according to leading roles in the perceptual sense organs, they are in favor of the five senses—eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and body—i.e., the perceptual system is divided into five kinds: visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, and somatic sensations. In short, at present, no one in academia at home and abroad (including psychology, education, and philosophy) has proposed that speech sense (namely semantic perception) be listed as the sixth sense perception of mankind (the sense perception of speech and semantics is generally classified into the auditory category, but not recognized as speech sense). The semantic perception theory is a new theory which proves this proposition scientifically and discusses the relationship between speech sense and second language teaching (esp. foreign language teaching). Then, is there any scientific basis for this proposition? Of course, it is by no means easy to argue that language sense is human’s sixth sense perception; to demonstrate this proposition, we must first comb and analyze concepts about perceptions of present academia and the neuro-physiological mechanism of the perceptual system, and its components of many theoretical viewpoints. On this basis, we need to refer to many brain science research accomplishments since 1990s and physiological anatomy of new achievements in the brain, thus it is likely to make a convincing proof. Due to the limited space, the argument of this proposition is not repeated here, for interested readers, please refer to my monograph The Theory of Speech Sensation published in 2004 [1]. Here is only a brief introduction to the basic contents of the book.

1.2 Basic Contents of the Semantic Perception Theory The basic contents of the semantic perception theory mainly involve the following four aspects.

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Speech Sense Is the Unique Sense to Human Beings and the Most Essential Difference Between Human Beings and Animals

The most essential difference between humans and animals is not that humans can make and use tools. Simple tools can also be made and used by chimpanzees. Only the sense of speech, which is directly related to oral language, is unique to humans. Of the three primates, mammals at the top of animal classification code, only humans have speech sense based on spoken language. The other two, chimpanzees and monkeys, cannot be trained to grasp spoken language or have speech sense, no matter how long you train them. Because the neuro-physiological anatomy of the brain showed that there was no such thing as Broca’s area or Wernicke area in the brain.

1.2.2

Listening and Speaking Ability and Reading and Writing Ability Are Two Fundamentally Different Verbal Abilities

After analyzing the three psychological processes of pronunciation, grammar, and semantics involved in speech comprehension (listening) and discourse generation (speaking), the Semantic Perception Theory draws the following conclusions. Phonological mental processing ability (including phonological perception and speech discrimination) is mainly inherited by nature. The psychological processing ability of grammar (including the ability of lexical analysis and syntactic analysis) is completely acquired and mastered after a long time of learning. Semantic processing ability (refers to the semantic analysis and recognition) is also mainly inherited; that is innate or inborn. On this basis, it can be proved that listening and speaking ability is mainly inherited by nature, while reading and writing ability is mainly learned, so that the two can be clearly distinguished as two fundamentally different kinds of speech ability. Therefore, the teaching methods of these two kinds of speech ability are quite different (for example, the teaching of foreign language in primary school must emphasize the teaching of listening and speaking ability and not on listening, speaking, reading, writing at the same time, but not simply with stress on reading, writing).

1.2.3

Adolescent Sensitivity Curve of Sense of Language—First Discovered and Proposed

Based on many cases of children and adults learning languages under various conditions (including cases of mother tongue learning and second language learning, both normal children, adults, and deaf learners), the curve of child semantic perception sensitivity can be drawn, as shown in Fig. 1 [1].

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sensitivity of child speech sense

age Fig. 1 Child’s semantic perception sensitivity curve

As can be seen from Fig. 1, the optimal sensitive period for child language acquisition is before the age of 9, which starts to decline after the age of 9, dropping to about 1/2 at the age of 12, and to 10–15% at the age of 14. On the surface, this curve seems to be similar with Lenneberg’s critical period of language development (2–12 years old), but its meaning and shape are completely different, so its guiding significance for language teaching is also different. The curve of semantic perception sensitivity plays an important role in guiding child second language acquisition, especially in English teaching for primary and middle school students. Second language is, in addition to the first language, an influential language in society (usually refers to a foreign language of relatively popular in the country or region); and the first language refers to the use of language in official documents and basic education field; mother tongue refers to the language used in the family a person born into; that is the national language. In most cases, mother tongue is often the first language, such as English in the UK, Japanese in Japan, German in Germany, Mandarin in the Han nationality areas of China; but in some cases, mother tongue may also become a second language. For example, in Singapore, the first language is English, and due to the existence of three major ethnic groups (Han, Malaysian, and Indian), there are three mother tongues namely, Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil. There are similar situations in other ethnic areas other than Han in China. For example, in Tibet, the first language is Mandarin, while the mother tongue is Tibetan. A similar situation exists in the Uygur region of Xinjiang. According to the curve of semantic perception sensitivity and the model of speech comprehension and production mentioned below based on the semantic perception theory, the leapfrog development of English teaching in primary school can be realized (the English listening and speaking ability of primary school graduates may reach the level of junior high school graduation level or even the level of senior high school grades one or two).

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Under the Guidance of the Semantic Perception Theory, a New Model of Speech Comprehension and Production Based on the Theory Is Proposed by Criticizing and Inheriting the Research Results of Contemporary Child Language Development Theory (see Fig. 2)

This model is in line with the semantic perception theory, by means of semantic perception through perceptual channel with neural physiological mechanism. After an in-depth analysis of this model, we can understand thoroughly the psychological process of understanding speech (that is, hearing) and generating words (i.e., speaking), and also truly understanding the nature of listening and speaking; so the Fig. 2 is also called psychological process in listening, speaking ability model. It should be noted that the semantic perception theory introduced above in the introduction of basic contents, in addition to the second and the third point (that is, the essence is difference between hearing and speaking ability and the ability of reading and writing, and language sensitivity curve of children) is mainly aimed at children, the other two points have theoretical significance for foreign language learners at any age, including children, teenagers, and college students. In particular, the fourth point (speech understanding and generation model based on the sense of language theory) is the main theoretical basis for human learning of a second language, so it is closely related to foreign language teaching in schools at all levels and plays a vital guiding role. In the next section, we will further elaborate on the connotation of this model and the relationship between this model and English language teaching. In our opinion, the semantic perception theory has the following practical guiding significance for current English teaching in China: English teaching must hold fast to the critical period of primary schools As can be seen from Fig. 1, there is a critical period for the growth and development of speech sense with innate genetic characteristics; that is, the period most conducive to child acquisition of language listening and speaking ability. This critical period is around the age of 0–12, roughly equivalent to birth until primary school graduation. The optimal sensitivity (the highest level of speech sensitivity) is before the age of 9. It goes down from about 9 years old to about half by 12 years old; after the age of 14 (puberty), it drops to about 15–20%. Therefore, second language teaching (as far as China is concerned, second language teaching mainly refers to English teaching) must firmly grasp this critical period in primary school (especially the best age is between the first to fourth grades). Listening/speaking ability and reading/writing ability: two fundamentally different speech abilities The semantic perception theory in words comprehension (i.e. hearing) and speech production (i.e. speaking) involved in phonetics, grammar, semantics—three kinds of different psychological processing processes. After analyzing the theory concludes: verbal ability of listening and speaking is mainly innate, while reading and writing

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Fig. 2 Speech comprehension and production models

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is mainly learned, so the nature of two kinds is completely different abilities. Therefore, English teaching in primary school should not put forward the requirements of listening, speaking, reading, and writing side by side. As for the four kinds of abilities—listening, speaking, reading, and writing, special emphasis should be laid on the cultivation of listening and speaking in the critical period of language learning (especially in the optimal age group). The abilities of reading and writing is mainly learned and is not limited by the critical period of speech sense growth and development. Therefore, it is not too late to put off the training of reading and writing ability until higher grades of primary school or junior high school. To effectively cultivate child English listening and speaking ability, a good language environment must be created for children to learn English during the critical period, and this language environment should be able to support both listening and speaking training requirements. Foreign language classroom teaching must emphasize verbal communication as the center Based on the following three arguments, we believe that foreign language teaching must emphasize verbal communication rather than grammar analysis, nor listening training, nor reading and writing training. These three arguments are: (1) perceptionbased speech understanding and generation model; (2) the laws revealed by internal and external feedback mechanism based on speech understanding and generation model; and (3) real-time two-way verbal interaction by real communicators is a necessary and sufficient condition for language learners to form and master listening and speaking abilities. Innovative primary school English teaching theory based on theory of sense of language Under the guidance of the semantic perception theory, we have formed a unique set of theories for new primary school English teaching under the information environment. As we will see later, this set of innovative English teaching theories includes brand-new English teaching ideas, teaching concepts, teaching design, teaching modes, teaching methods, and teaching strategies. The significance and notable effects of this theory on current English teaching in China have been confirmed by many cases and facts of experimental research on English leapfrog teaching based on the theory of sense of language, which has been implemented in hundreds of primary and secondary schools (counting many rural primary and secondary schools) since 2002. Because of the remarkable effect of English teaching under the guidance of the semantic perception theory, it has attracted the attention of relevant scholars around the world. For this reason, Springer, a famous international academic publisher, has agreed to publish and distribute the book Semantic Perception Theory—A New Theory on Children’s Language Development as my third monograph in English. The English version of this book has already been published in 2019.

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2 Model of Speech Comprehension and Production in English Language Teaching The model of speech comprehension and generation is the mental processing model in the processes of listening and speaking, and its process is shown in Fig. 2. The figure includes two parts, speech comprehension and speech generation (the upper part involves speech understanding and the lower part involves speech generation).

2.1 Psychological Processing of Speech Understanding It can be seen from Fig. 2 that the mental processing of speech understanding goes through the following five stages.

2.1.1

Speech Sound Perception

This stage refers to the beginning of the sound signal of speech received by the peripheral sensory organs (ears), amplifying the mechanical energy of air vibration caused by sound wave through the outer ear and middle ear, and converting the amplified mechanical energy into nerve impulse in the form of electrical pulse by the inner ear, and then transmitting the nerve impulse reflecting speech information to the lower center under the cortex by the long axon of spiral ganglion cells. Then carry out step-by-step processing: the first level (cochlear complex nucleus) → the second level (superior olivary nucleus) → the third level (inferior colliculus) → the fourth level (occipital pillow), so as to complete the process of perception and spectral analysis of the current input speech.

2.1.2

Speech Sound Discrimination

This stage refers to the process of identifying and distinguishing words from the currently input speech strings. Because this process is only realized by comparing and matching the phoneme feature information in the input speech string with the phoneme dictionary in the Wernicke area of the speech center (also known as “phonological lexical representation corpus”), the continuous input speech string is transformed into a group of phonetic unit sequences arranged and combined according to the phoneme feature, which does not involve the understanding of the meaning of words.

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2.1.3

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Word Recognition

It refers to the process of identifying the meaning of each word using the semantic bank of the conceptual center.

2.1.4

Lexical Chunk Generation

Lexical chunks are phrases or phrasal structures. Lattice chunks refer to chunks that represent different lattice relations. On the basis of word meaning recognition, the phrase composition analysis can be completed by using the ‘grammar knowledge base’ stored in another speech center Broca’s area, and the lattice chunks contained in the input speech string can be determined.

2.1.5

Semantic Identification

Finally, the semantic relations composed of case chunks contained in the current input speech strings are matched and compared with semantic relations stored in the semantic relation structure pattern bank, so as to realize semantic analysis and recognition and finally complete the process of speech understanding.

2.2 Psychological Process of Discourse Generation It can be seen from Fig. 2 that the mental processing process of discourse generation also goes through five similar stages.

2.2.1

Semantic Matching

To translate the intended meaning (semantics) into the corresponding semantic relation structure pattern, it can be accomplished by searching and matching the semantic relation structure pattern bank of the concept center.

2.2.2

Language Chunk Separation

It refers to the separation of case chunks that constitute patterns from the searched semantic relation pattern (as mentioned above, case language chunks refer to language chunks representing different case relations, and each case language chunk is a phrase or phrase structure, so the separation of case language chunks is also the analysis of phrase composition).

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Word Recognition

It refers to the process of determining the meaning of relevant words in each language chunk and their sequence.

2.2.4

Phonological Planning

It refers to the determination of phonological representation of each word based on word meaning recognition by using the phonological dictionary (also known as lexical phonological representation bank) preserved in Wernicke area.

2.2.5

Pronunciation Planning

It means that the Broca’s speech center, according to phonological representation of words, forms corresponding control instructions and then controls the oral cavity and vocal cords to issue the specified speech, to finally complete the process of speech generation.

2.3 Feedback Mechanism in Speech Comprehension and Production Model From Fig. 2 speech comprehension and generation model, the sound input feedback there are two lines: one from semantic identification module (we call it internal feedback line); another line from speech generated from the system output, also is the output of speech signal system (we call it external feedback line). Internal feedback is only related to the mental processing of speech comprehension (listening), while external feedback is related to the whole process of speech comprehension and discourse generation (listening and speaking). The essence of language is communication. Considering this fundamental functional feature, both internal and external feedback cannot be separated from communicator (i.e. the other party involved in the conversation). Once the communicator is lost, not only external feedback will be interrupted, but also internal feedback will be interrupted. It can be seen that this will have a decisive influence on the choice of foreign language teaching methods and strategies, and even the whole design of foreign language teaching. This is because the above two kinds of feedback are extremely important for language acquisition (especially foreign language learning). First let us look at the internal feedback.

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269

Internal Feedback

For a language beginner, verbal ability has not been formed due to the accumulation of very limited vocabulary (in Wernicke center vocabulary is only preserved with individual words’ phonological features in lexical bank), and lack of grammar knowledge. After hearing sound input string and preliminary, complete speech perception, discrimination, word recognition, and language chunks are generated. It is often difficult for the current series of speech input is in line with relations of some specification of semantic structure mode, for a language beginner who is unable to make the right semantic identification, which is frequent. What to do then? Verbal expression ability, has not been formed due to a beginner at this moment, so it is hard to make a correction, through request of words repetition, or explanation of certain words. Beginners can only make corrections to the psychological processing links, such as speech perception and discrimination, word recognition, and chunk generation of the speech string (the result is to correct the chunk division of the current input speech string), and finally make a correct judgment on the semantic relationship mode determined by the current input chunk division, so as to complete the semantic recognition process of the current input speech string. Thus, the semantic recognition process of the current input speech strings is completed. Therefore, for a language beginner, information such as tone, intonation, gesture, or posture of communicators is a necessary condition to complete the process of semantic recognition; that is, to truly understand speech. And it all depends on internal feedback. When language learners form initial verbal expression ability, because one can directly use verbal communication to communicate with each other (not necessarily relying on gestures, posture, and other information). The communication through words becomes a necessary condition to master the language, which does not only depend on the internal feedback, but also associate with external feedback. Then let us look at external feedback.

2.3.2

External Feedback

The return of the whole speech signal system to the input end of speech sounds (i.e., external feedback) is to achieve self-monitoring function. This function can be used in language learning process to enable language learners to timely discover and correct their incidental errors (including pronunciation, grammar, and semantic errors) in the process of speech. Using this function, language learners can use speech expressions and life experience in the brain (norms, correct expression), also use the current interlocutors’ (i.e., the communicator) tone, intonation, gestures, or postures to make more accurate judgments of the applicability and appropriateness of their current speech expression. In other words, through self-monitoring function of external feedback, language learners can make judgments on the accuracy of the pronunciation, grammar, and semantics of the utterances (whether they conform to the norms and correct expressions), but also make judgments on the correctness of the context of the utterances. If a grammatical sentence is not suitable for the current

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language environment (for example, it does not match the context), it will not achieve the purpose of communication, so it is useless. Thus, for language learning, external feedback is a necessary and sufficient condition for language learners to acquire not only phonetic, grammatical, and semantic knowledge, but also contextual knowledge.

2.4 The Key Role of Two-Way Interaction (Verbal Communication) in Language Learning The above discusses the significance and role of internal and external feedback in speech understanding and generation model in children’s language acquisition. It can be summarized as follows. (1) Internal feedback is not only a necessary condition for language beginners to gradually form a preliminary language understanding ability from scratch, but also a necessary condition for language learners to gradually master language understanding ability from entry to proficiency. (2) External feedback (which includes internal feedback) is not only a necessary and sufficient condition for language learners to form and master speech comprehension ability, but also a necessary and sufficient condition for language learners to form and master discourse expression ability. From the above analysis, internal and external feedback is a sufficient and necessary condition for language learners to form and master the ability of verbal understanding (i.e., listening) and speech expression (i.e., speaking); thus, it is of vital significance for child language learning (especially foreign language learning). However, it can also be seen from the above analysis that in order to make internal and external feedback truly become a sufficient and necessary condition for the formation and mastery of listening and speaking ability, there must be a premise—the sound input at the input end of child language acquisition model should be a real communicator (preferably a skilled speaker of the language). The provision of sound input by such a real communicator (preferably the current learner of the language being studied, as described above) is not comparable to the provision of input by a tape recorder (or other digital audio–video system). The fundamental difference between the two is that in the former condition, language learner can achieve real-time two-way verbal interaction, while the latter can only send one-way language materials (although the materials are sound, grammar, and semantics) to the language learner. It is such a difference that makes the internal and external feedback in the tape recorder (or other), digital audio and video system for sound input conditions impossible to form; this is any high-quality input from tape recorder (or other), digital audio, and video system could help language learners form and master listening, speaking ability, the root cause of the sufficient and necessary conditions, and real root cause of any quality recorder (or other digital audio and video system) can never replace the communicator. This suggests that to master spoken language, humans need not only an environment to listen, but also an environment

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to converse with the speakers. In other words, you can only learn it if you can both hear and converse (i.e., communicate verbally).

2.5 Significance of Speech Comprehension and Production Model for English Teaching The significance of speech comprehension and production model for English teaching can be summarized as follows.

2.5.1

Verbal Communication

Verbal communication is a sufficient and necessary condition for learning language knowledge and mastering speech ability, while autonomous listening and autonomous speaking are only necessary conditions for learning language knowledge and mastering speech ability.

2.5.2

Dialogue

There are two main forms of verbal communication in classroom teaching: teacherstudent dialogue guided by the teacher, and two-person dialogue between the students sitting next to each other.

2.5.3

Autonomous Listening

Although autonomous listening is not a sufficient and necessary condition for learning language knowledge and mastering speech ability, it still plays a central role in training listening and speaking ability, and should be paid enough attention to. The autonomous listening environment can be provided by relevant teaching resources.

2.5.4

Autonomous Speaking

Although autonomous speaking is not a sufficient and necessary condition for learning language knowledge and mastering speech ability, it also plays an important role in training speech ability, which should be paid enough attention to. And the environment of autonomous speaking must be created through classroom teaching design.

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3 Ways of Altering Effects of ‘Deaf-Mute’ English Teaching 3.1 Reasons for the Failure of Traditional English Teaching Through the above model of speech comprehension and production based on the semantic perception theory, especially through the internal and external feedback mechanism, the model reveals the law—real-time bidirectional communicators and real speech interactive language learners are the necessary and sufficient condition to form and master listening and speaking skills, which gives us serious thought on the current status of current foreign language teaching, and very beneficial enlightenment for foreign language teaching reform: Since real-time two-way verbal interaction (that is, speech communication) is a necessary and sufficient condition to achieve listening and speaking abilities, so our foreign language teaching design (whether it be for a beginner level or for language learners that have certain basis) must be done with communication as the center, rather than syntactical analysis as the center, nor listening practice centered, nor on reading centered and writing centered. Over the years, the foreign language teaching in China has taken more than ten years from primary school, middle school to university, and most of the learners still cannot understand English (deaf English) and cannot speak English (dumb English). The fundamental reason is that English teaching does not focus on “verbal communication,” but overemphasizes grammar analysis or word explanation, and often adopts the methods of explanation, demonstration, practice, imitation, activities, games, and so on. However, students are rarely encouraged to communicate in real scenes. In English teaching, Chinese teachers pay more attention to reading and writing, but ignore the training of listening and speaking (whether practice in class or in tests). This kind of guiding ideology and teaching mode of English teaching must not continue. Adhere to the teaching idea of taking verbal communication as the center and carry out the teaching model of taking communication as the center is the only way out for English teaching reform.

3.2 What Is the Communication-Centered English Teaching Mode? In the end, how can we implement communication-centered English teaching mode in classroom teaching? Based on our experience with experiments conducted in many schools in recent years, this model should generally include the following elements.

3.2.1

Teacher-Student Dialogue Guided by Teachers

This is the way to teach both new words and sentence patterns. This is one of the best ways to implement communicative teaching in the classroom—because on such

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occasions, as one of the communicators, the teacher is a skilled master of language, and he can correct the students’ pronunciation, grammar, or semantic errors in the communication process at any time. In the process of teacher-student dialogue, the teacher can talk with individual students, also with the whole class students. Teachers should pay attention to both sides when talking with individual students; that is, they should choose both good students and poor students to have a dialogue: choosing the former can play a teaching demonstration role; choosing the latter can help poor learners.

3.2.2

A Dialogue Between the Students Sitting Next to Each Other

The advantage of dialogue between the two neighboring learners increases participation (every student has the opportunity to participate in communication), while the disadvantage is that both parties are beginners and often cannot correct each other’s mistakes in the communication process. Students’ dialogue and teacherstudent dialogue each have their own merits, so the two should be combined in order to draw on each other’s strengths and complement each other.

3.2.3

Expand the Listening-Reading Related to Text Materials (Autonomous Listening)

In order to make students enhance the hearing effectively, through extensive reading and listening, one can provide guarantee for the listening materials, considering both quality and quantity. Listening materials can closely cooperate with the textbook and should be informative, vivid, instructive, and effectively stimulate students’ interest in learning, and each text should cooperate with at least four to five pieces of this kind of material. The second thing to ensure is that there is sufficient time for students to listen to and read these materials through the teaching design.

3.2.4

Ask Students to Give Oral Description (Speak Independently)

Ask students to look at a picture (or watch an animation or a video), and then request them to describe the situation in English. This is a good way to practice oral English. From the point of view of learning and mastering language knowledge and verbal ability, although this kind of autonomous speaking is not as effective as verbal communication, it still plays an important role in improving speaking ability. Singing English songs and reciting proverbs and idioms are another form of autonomous speaking. Proper use of these methods is also beneficial to the improvement of students’ speaking ability.

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Organize Role Playing Appropriately According to the Needs of Teaching Content

For some texts or extra-curricular reading materials with strong stories, students can be organized in groups on the platform to role-play in English. Such activities are conducive to the training of students’ listening and speaking and deepen their understanding and memory of the texts or extra-curricular reading materials. Appropriate role playing is a good way to implement communicative English teaching. But they must be carefully organized, not too much, not language-centered (pure study of words and unrelated to communication activities had better not be done), otherwise the gain is not worth the loss. According to our experience, communication-centered English teaching model is the most important key activity in the previous three (that is, the teacher-guided dialogue between teachers and students, two neighbor dialogue, and independent reading and listening). In the English classroom teaching in order to implement communication as the center, the three activities must work together, on one is short of. Communication-centered English teaching mode, in class teaching classroom arrangement usually adopts a “1-1-1” teaching mode. The “1-1-1” mode here is to emphasize the importance of the above three links in an English class, and pay equal attention to the three links. The implementation of each link can not be less than 10 minutes in a class, while other links are optional. Others are optional (optional). In the process of implementing the model, we must have a clear understanding of it.

3.3 Implementation of Communication-Centered English Teaching Mode Although communication-centered English teaching (CCET) model can be applied to students of different backgrounds and levels, the specific requirements and strategies in the implementation process are different. Different school periods involve lower years of primary school, middle and upper years of primary school, middle school, high school, and university. The learning stage involves the lower stage of primary school, the middle and upper stage of primary school, junior middle school, senior high school and University, and there are many different levels of foundation and level. Therefore, although the main teaching links of the communication-centered English teaching model are roughly the same, there will be great differences in the specific implementation for students of different learning stages, different foundations, and levels. If we do not consider the complexities of learning period just on the basis of the original English ability level, and only roughly divided into primary and advanced two grades, so, in CCET model three main steps—teacher-guided dialogue between teachers and students, the neighbor-talk between two students, and independent extensive reading and listening should be considered in the process of implementing different requirements as the following.

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Main Differences Between Elementary and Middle and Advanced Years of Teacher-Guided Teacher-Student Dialogue

Teacher-guided dialogue between teachers and students should be adopted when teaching new words and sentence patterns to the teaching objects whose original English foundation and level are elementary or middle and advanced, and teacherguided dialogue between teachers and students should be avoided. And in the process of using teacher-guided dialogue between teachers and students, three key points should be well grasped; that is, efforts should be made to: The combination of new knowledge and old knowledge (i.e., the combination of new words and old sentence patterns, and the combination of new sentence patterns and old words); Language communication should be closely combined with life situation; The teaching of new knowledge should be hierarchical and progressive. In the implementation of the teacher-student dialogue mode, the following differences should be noticed for the middle and advanced level students and the beginner level students. For middle and advanced level students, the proportion of teacher-student dialogue in the three most important teaching activities can be reduced appropriately. As mentioned above, due to the equal emphasis placed on the three teaching steps, the implementation of each step usually (especially in the lower years of primary school) should not be less than 10 min in one class; the so-called time scale is appropriately reduced; that is, the implementation time of this can be reduced to less than 10 min, such as only 8–9 min—because for junior students, teacher-student dialogue should simultaneously complete tasks of teaching new lessons and demonstrating for the subsequent neighboring students. For middle and advanced level students, teacherstudent dialogue basically only needs to complete the task of teaching new lessons (teachers are not required to demonstrate), so the time required can be reduced. The time saved can be used to increase the expansion of listening and reading, two people sitting next to each other speaking or writing exercises. Please refer to the following proportion for the specific schedule. The time proportion of the three main teaching activities in the primary stage is roughly 40% (teacher-guided dialogue); 30% (pair talk); and 30% (autonomous listening and reading). In the middle and advanced years, the three main teaching links occupy roughly 25% of the time (teacher-guided dialogue); 35% (pair speaking); and 40% (extended listening and reading). Or 20% (teacher-guided dialogue); 40% (pair talk); 40% (for autonomous extended listening and reading and a small amount of writing exercises, among which extended listening and reading should account for 34–35%, while writing exercises only accounts for about 5–6%; writing exercises must not take up too much time, so as not to affect the listening and speaking training).

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The Main Difference Between Junior and Senior in the Teaching of Pair-Dialogue

The dialogue between the two neighbors of junior-level students is allowed to have more imitation elements; for middle- and upper-level students, pair-dialogue emphasizes expansion and transfer (and even creation) rather than imitation. Therefore, teachers are required to provide scaffolding (a constructionist teaching strategy) for students in the implementation process, and this kind of scaffolding should be layered so that students can gradually go on their own. For example, Step 1: The slides can be used to display key sentence patterns or full text (sentence patterns or full text hints) in the dialogue between teachers and students; Step 2: The slides can be used to show the main components of key sentence patterns (clues and hints) in the dialogue between teachers and students. Step 3: Instead of the slides, use a picture or animation related to the conversation between teachers and students (no words, only diagrams to evoke association); Step 4: Instead of a slide presentation, create a situation (no words, no pictures or charts, just a situation, such as shopping or traveling). The scaffolding described above ranges from easy to difficult, from low to high, and provides effective support for students in their dialogue. In the actual implementation process, appropriate adjustments can be made according to specific circumstances—the first step is mainly used for junior level students; then Step 2 is used (Steps 3 and 4, scaffolding is not generally used for beginners); Steps 3 and 4 or Steps 2, 3, and 4 scaffolds are used for intermediate and advanced students (Step 1 scaffolds are generally not used for intermediate and advanced students). The dialogue between pairs of the juniors usually revolves around one or two sentence patterns in the lesson; for middle and advanced students, the pair dialogue emphasizes the practical use of language, so it often involves a variety of sentence patterns. This should be clearly recognized when designing the two dialogue prompts for students, and implemented in the teaching process.

3.3.3

The Main Differences Between Elementary and Middle and Advanced Years of Autonomous Extended Listening-Reading Teaching

• For primary level students, the expanded listening and reading materials generally emphasize the combination of pictures, texts, sounds, and images, and emphasize multimedia, that is, pay more attention to the form of expression. For middle and advanced level students, the expanded listening and reading materials pay more attention to the content rather than the form. Whether there are pictures and animation doesn’t matter, but there must be standard English dubbing.

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• For students at the elementary level, to expand the content of listening-reading materials in addition to emphasis on fun, imagery, but also close to daily life. For intermediate to advanced level students, in addition to fun, also with instructive significance, materials or anecdotes with a sense of humor create a strong interest in learning; concern is not confined to the content of daily life, also involved in a wider range of social life, including culture and sports, work and learning, interpersonal, etc., advanced period of extensions to contents of the reading materials should be able to reflect these characteristics. • For students at elementary level, the length of extended listening-reading material is short (generally only 100 words, 20 or 30 sentences); at advanced level, the length of the reading material is longer, as long as the material has interest, intelligence, humor of or celebrity anecdotes. Even if the text is a little longer, and if the students are keen to listen-read it, we should dare to increase in the advanced of the expansion of listening-reading. The above three points are of vital guiding significance for how to select extended listening-reading materials for middle and advanced years, as well as specific implementation of the extended listening-reading for middle and advanced years. As long as it can be carried out according to these points, it will achieve a better effect to the middle and senior years, the form does not have to be multimedia, text materials will be okay. It should cover a wider range of social life and the length a little larger.

4 Ways to Integrate Information Technology and English Teaching In today’s information age, information technology plays an important role in every field in the national economy and also profoundly affects people’s study, work, and life. The world is promoting education informationization for education reform and development as major strategic initiatives (in recent years by reform and innovation of education informationization to promote education of all types and at all levels are also stressed). Therefore, since the 1990s (especially since the beginning of the twenty-first century), the application of information technology in the field of education (including the application in English teaching) has also made great progress. However, as far as foreign language teaching in universities is concerned, the role of information technology in teaching is not ideal. Some experts even think that there is some kind of deviation, or misunderstanding. For example, when it comes to the application of multimedia technology in English teaching, the main concern seems to be that schools should invest more money to build multimedia and network classrooms. However, most teachers have changed only from traditional classroom teaching to teaching in multimedia room and network classroom. The roles and status of teachers and students have not changed fundamentally, nor has the traditional teaching mode, nor the teaching quality effectively improved. In fact, this cannot be called foreign language teaching using information technology, because

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foreign language teaching requires oral communication and learners need to have a real communication experience. The reason for the above phenomenon lies in the fact that most English teachers are not familiar with the application of information technology in English teaching, especially how to apply it effectively. To solve this problem, we need to understand the following three aspects.

4.1 Connotation of Deep Integration Between Information Technology and Subject Teaching The deep fusion of information technology and subject teaching (or deeper integration) is through fusing information technology effectively in the teaching process of various disciplines to build an information-based teaching environment, to achieve both can give full play to teachers’ leading role, but also highlighted students’ cognitive status, characterized by autonomous, inquiry, and cooperation of the new way of teaching and learning, and make students’ initiative, enthusiasm, and creativity fully play. In the end, the traditional teacher-centered classroom teaching structure will be fundamentally reformed—the teacher-centered classroom teaching structure will be transformed into teacher-student combination classroom teaching structure, so as to achieve the goal of significantly improving the subject teaching quality and comprehensive quality of students, that is, the goal of cultivating innovative talents. It can be seen from the above definition or connotation that deep integration contains three basic attributes: creating information-based teaching environment, realizing new teaching and learning mode, and reforming traditional classroom teaching structure. The so-called classroom teaching structure refers to the stable structural form of teaching activities under the guidance of certain educational thoughts, teaching theories, and learning theories, which is the concrete embodiment of interaction between the four elements of the teaching system (teachers, students, teaching contents, and teaching media). The reform of teaching contents, means, and methods may not touch the deeprooted problems such as educational thoughts and teaching concepts. The change of classroom teaching structure will inevitably touch these problems. We believe that only by grasping the above three basic attributes can we correctly understand the connotation of deep-integration of information technology and curriculum and truly grasp the essence of deep-integration of information technology and subject teaching. This is because: The meaning of the concept environment is wide (teaching human factors and nonhuman factors outside the main body all belong to the category of teaching environment), in terms of application of information technology in the field of education, the meaning indicates computer is the core of information technology only a tool and

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means, compared with CAI or CAL, obviously much more comprehensive, profound, and its practical significance is much more important. The three basic attributes are not parallel with each other: building informationbased teaching environment is the basic content of the integration of information technology and curriculum; its target is to realize the new way of teaching and learning (the so-called information-based teaching environment is able to support real situation creation, inspire thinking, information acquisition, resources sharing, multiple interactions, the requirements of the independent exploration, co-operative learning aspects of teaching and learning of the new teaching environment), and its ultimate goal is to change the traditional classroom teaching structure, the teacherdominated classroom teachers as the center of the traditional classroom teaching structure, change both give full play to teachers’ leading role. It can also highlight teacher-student combination classroom teaching structure that reflects students’ cognitive status (while the reform of teaching structure is not abstract and empty, it should be actually reflected in the change of the status and function of the four elements of the teaching system). Therefore, the goal of cultivating innovative talents can be realized. Evidently, the essence of integration is to change the traditional classroom teaching structure, teachers-dominated classroom teaching structure changing to giving full play to both teachers’ guiding role, and the students’ cognitive status— the combination of both classroom teaching structure. This makes the students’ initiative, enthusiasm, and creativity fully play, so as to significantly improve the discipline teaching quality and students’ comprehensive quality goal, namely the goal of innovative talent training. We believe that only in this way can we correctly understand the connotation of deep integration between information technology and subject teaching—this is the specific answer to “What is the exact connotation of deep integration between information technology and subject teaching?”. What kind of teaching mode do we need to support implementing deep-integration of information technology and subject teaching? The essence and goal of deep integration is to change the traditional classroom teaching structure—to change the teacher-centered classroom teaching structure, and to create a new teacher-student combination classroom teaching structure, which can give full play to the leading role of teachers and highlight the cognitive status of students. Then, of course, deep integration of information technology and subject teaching should be carried out closely around the creation of new teaching structure. Only in this way can the goal of effectively cultivating innovative talents be achieved and substantial results of deep integration be achieved. Otherwise, it will lose the direction of integration and turn a profound educational revolution (deepening reform of teaching process) into simple and mechanical application and operation of technical means. There is not much point in using and operating such technologies. In fact, many of the so-called integration classes of information technology and subject teaching (especially in English), called models or demonstrations, are in

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fact mostly information technology competence classes, or classes that simply use some form of information technology. While such class is of some importance and help to breaking through difficult points in teaching, but to improve the quality of English teaching and students’ comprehensive quality, especially to improve the students’ English ability, especially listening and speaking effect is not big, because such integrated lesson did not touch the classroom teaching structure, the traditional relationship between teachers and students, and teachers’ and students’ status has not changed; as a result, students’ initiative and enthusiasm (not to mention creativity) is difficult to play. So, such an integration course is only a shallow integration at best, rather than deep integration. If we want to change the traditional classroom teaching structure, it is possible only with the support of innovative teaching mode—because the change or creation of any teaching structure always needs to be achieved through certain teaching methods and strategies (and often requires more than one method and strategy). The teaching mode belongs to the category of teaching method and teaching strategy, but it is not equal to the general teaching method or teaching strategy. The general teaching method or teaching strategy refers to a certain method or a certain strategy adopted in the teaching process. The teaching mode refers to the stable combination of two or more teaching methods or strategies. In the process of teaching, in order to achieve a desired effect (for example, to create new class teaching structure), we tend to use of a variety of different methods and strategies, when these teaching methods and strategies of combination can always achieve the desired effect, or goal, these methods combined with the stability of strategy have become an effective teaching mode. There are various types of teaching modes, and the teaching mode based on integration of information technology and curriculum is no exception. Because classroom teaching involves various factors such as different disciplines, different teaching strategies, and technical support environments, there are various categories of integrated teaching modes. For example, if divided into subjects, there are mathematics, physics, chemistry, Mandarin, history, and geography. The integrated teaching mode of different subjects; If divided by teaching strategies, there are self-inquiry, collaborative learning, demonstration, teaching, discussion, debate, role playing, and other different strategies of the integration of teaching mode. If divided by technical support environments, there are network-based, multimedia-based, software-toolsbased, simulation-experiment-based, and other different technologies support the integrated teaching mode of the environment. According to this classification, the communication-centered English teaching model we introduced above is an abbreviation of the English subject teaching model based on multimedia and network and involving various strategies such as presentation, teaching, discussion, collaboration, and inquiry. The following is a further analysis of how this communicative-centered English teaching model supports the dominant-subject classroom teaching structure, and how to give full play to the role of information technology marked by multimedia and network in English teaching.

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4.2 Important Role of Communication-Centered English Teaching Mode in Deep Integration The communication-centered teaching model can provide effective support for teacher-student combination teaching structure. As mentioned above, communication-centered English teaching model consists of three essential and important links; namely teacher-guided dialogue between teachers and students, pair dialogue between two students sitting next to each other, and students’ independent expansion of listening and reading. Let us take a look at how this teaching model provides concrete support for the two aspects of teacher-student. A.

Giving full play to the leading role of teachers

The leading role of teachers can be given full play in the above three links. For example, • Embodiment of the leading role in the dialogue between teachers and students: – The topic and sentence pattern of each class shall be determined by the teacher according to the teaching contents and teaching objectives of this lesson; – The whole teacher-student dialogue process is completely guided and controlled by the teacher. • The embodiment of the leading role in pair dialogue: • For elementary level students, the dialogue between teachers and students to complete the new and at the same time two tasks for subsequent pairs demonstrate pairwise dialogue (for senior level students, the task for dialogue between teachers and students is basically just teach new lesson; namely can do without demonstration), this suggests that for beginners, pairwise dialogue, and even students also cannot leave teacher’s leading role play; • In both of the two stages of dialogues, teachers must scaffold for students (a constructionist teaching strategy), and the scaffolding with layers is progressive, from easy to difficult, from low to high, so that students climb step by step; thus we can provide strong support for students of both two dialogs (as mentioned above, scaffolding with full text tool tips, point hints, clues, use of a chart cause a variety of ways such as association, creating a certain life situation). • The embodiment of the leading role in the autonomous listening and reading: – Expansion of contents of listening and reading, which is completely selected by the teacher in advance according to teaching contents and teaching objectives of this lesson; – At the beginning of the extensive listening and reading, in order to make this part of the learning more effective, the teacher will give a number of thinking questions, ask the students questions they think as they carry out the extended listening and reading.

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The prominent embodiment of students’ cognitive status

The cognitive status of students is mainly reflected in the second and third links mentioned above (namely, pair dialogue of the students sitting next to each other and students’ independent expansive listening and reading). This is because in the implementation of these two links, in addition to pair dialogue or extensive listening and reading, the content is determined or selected in advance by the teacher according to the teaching contents and teaching objectives of a lesson; the rest is completed by the students through independent learning, construction, exploration, and perception. Therefore, the cognitive status of students can be reflected more prominently in this communication-centered teaching mode.

4.3 Communication-Centered Teaching Mode Enables Multimedia and Network Technology to Play an Important Role in English Teaching 4.3.1

How to Make Multimedia Technology Play an Important Role in English Teaching Under the Communication-Centered Mode

In the communication-centered teaching mode, the role of multimedia technology is mainly embodied in the first and second links mentioned above (i.e., teacher-guided dialogue between teachers and students and pair dialogue between students sitting next to each other). The role of multimedia technology in the teacher-led dialogue between teachers and students is mainly reflected in: • With the help of multimedia technology, create a real situation with pictures and pictures for teacher-student dialogue guided by teachers; • Present the full text or key-points of the current teacher-student dialogue through PPT document, so that the whole class can better understand and master the sentence structure and contents of the current teacher-student dialogue (especially on occasions when teacher-student dialogue needs to complete the task of teaching a new lesson, such PPT document presentation is more necessary). • The role of multimedia technology in pair dialogue is mainly shown in the following aspects: Using multimedia technology, create a real situation with pictures and pictures for the dialogue between two students sitting next to each other; Using multimedia technology to set up the constructionist scaffolding for pair dialogue between two students—as mentioned above, scaffolding includes full text hints, key points, clues, drawing associations, creating certain life situations, and many other ways, and each of them is inseparable from the application and support of multimedia technology.

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How to Make Network Technology Play an Important Role in English Teaching Under the Communication-Centered Mode

In the communication-centered teaching mode, the role of network technology is reflected in the above third link. By establishing an Internet-based teaching resource database, it is entirely possible to provide students with high-quality extended listening and reading materials that are not limited by time and space, can be obtained instantly and infinitely rich for students’ autonomous learning, autonomous construction, autonomous inquiry, and autonomous perception provide strong support, so as to lay a solid foundation for significantly improving students’ English listening and reading comprehension ability.

4.4 Conclusion To sum up, we have sufficient reasons to believe that the theoretical basis of this experiment is reliable and scientific, and the implementation plan we put forward is effective and can be promoted through years of experimental research in different schools. Because of the guidance of scientific theory, the guarantee of effective and operable mode methods and strategies, and the support of multimedia teaching resources, the goal of “communication-centered” English teaching mode based on language sense theory is to realize the leap-forward development goal of English teaching in terms of quality improvement, that is, to greatly improve students’ listening and speaking ability, so as to fundamentally solve the problem of “deaf English and dumb English.” A large number of statistical data and many successful cases have fully proved that this point is fully capable of achieving success, around ten years, in experimental school. Currently, communication-centered English teaching experiment is not only based on network environment (in this environment, the experimental class has network classrooms for public use or available network classroom) for more in-depth research, in order to promote the quality of compulsory education balanced development, which started from the second half of 2004, we are also on the network environment in the rural middle and mid-west (i.e., rely mainly on rural distance education project to provide simple information facilities and TVS, DVD players and other audio-visual equipment teaching environment) exploring English teaching leapfrog experiment. Therefore, since April 2004, the Institute of Modern Education Technology of Beijing Normal University has established the first rural leapfrog teaching experimental area in Fengning County, Hebei Province (state-level poverty-stricken county), and later in the remote poverty-stricken mountainous areas such as Ningxia, Gansu, Xinjiang, Yunnan, and Guizhou. At present, there are a total of 17 rural counties’ leapfrog experimental zones, with more than 300 experimental schools. This indicates that under the guidance of the theory of sense of language, communication-centered leapfrog English teaching innovation will be extended to a deeper and broader direction in both the network environment and the non-network environment.

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5 Effects of Innovative Experiments on English Teaching Based on the Semantic Perception Theory Since 2002, we have carried out innovative experimental research of the Leapfrog Development of English Teaching (LDOET) based on the semantic perception theory (SPT) in primary school, middle school, and college English classes, aiming at learners with different English foundations and levels, and achieved satisfactory teaching results. For example, over the past ten years, we have been conducting innovative experimental research on LDOET based on the theory of SPT in 164 primary and secondary schools in 12 experimental areas across the country. To test project implementation effect, in June 2006 the project team used sampling tests and English comprehensive ability contrast tests administered to numerous experimental schools, the results show that since elementary schoolers in Grade One mastered what the fourth graders should learn, their English listening and speaking ability and vocabulary reached a new standard level of Grades 1 and 2. The listening and speaking ability and vocabulary of the experimental class students, after primary school graduation, can generally reach the level of senior middle school Grades 1 and 2 required by the new curriculum standard.

5.1 Comparative Tests of Beijing-Guangzhou Rural Experimental and Urban Elite Schools At the end of June 2007, the project group conducted a comparative English test for first-grade primary school students in a group of rural experimental schools in the suburbs of Beijing (Yanqing, Changping) and two famous schools in the urban areas of Beijing (Dongcheng and Xicheng, respectively). At the end of September 2007, the project group conducted a comparative test of English (including listening, speaking ability and vocabulary) with the same test in a group of rural experimental schools in the suburbs of Guangzhou (Panyu Shawan Town) and pupils in the urban areas of Guangzhou (one school in Yuexiu District and one school in Liwan District). The students there had just entered the third grade of primary school (that is, just finished the two-year experiment). The test results show that after one year of the innovative experiment of LDOET, based on the theory of SPT, the results are almost the same (there is no significant difference; that is, after about one year of leapfrog development experiment, the students of the experimental classes in the rural weak schools can catch up with the English level of students of the same grade in the urban elite schools). After two years of testing, the average English scores (including listening, speaking, and vocabulary) of the students in the experimental classes in the rural schools were significantly higher than those in the same grade in the urban elite schools (the average score exceeded 10.8 points).

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5.2 A Comparative Test in College Public English Classes During the summer and winter vacations from 2005 to 2007, we conducted eight short-term trainings (two weeks in the winter vacation and 26 days in the summer vacation) in the communication-centered English teaching mode for undergraduates and postgraduates of Beijing Normal University and Northeast Normal University. The vast majority of college students who have participated in this short-term training report that their listening, speaking ability, and vocabulary have been significantly improved and expanded. From September 2005 to July 2006, we also experimented in the Northeast Normal University undergraduate course in public English classes for a year, based on the theory of SPT communication-centered model of the English teaching mode. After pre-test and post-test, the test results show that through one year trial with college students, their vocabulary, listening, and speaking ability has been greatly promoted, especially compared with the control classes having significant differences. The following is a brief description of the experiment.

5.2.1

Basic Conditions of the Experiment

From September 2005 to July 2006, we conducted a one-year experimental study on the communication-centered English teaching model based on the theory of SPT. The students participating in this experiment were first-year college students, who take public English course in Northeast Normal University. There were 6 classes with about 45 students in each class. It was based on the score of the English test at the time of entry namely, level 1, level 2, and level 3. There were two levels participated: two level 2 classes and four level 3 classes in this study. The score of the students in level 2 classes was higher than that of level 3 classes, so it could be considered that the English foundation and the level of level-2 classes were higher than that of level-3 classes. The teachers were three professional teachers from the School of Foreign Languages, Northeast Normal University. Each teacher was responsible for two classes. One teacher teaches the second-level class once a week, while the other two teachers teach the third-level class once every two weeks. All classes were in the network classroom, each student had a computer; each class 90 min. Before the test, the teacher had been briefed the research, understanding, and mastering ways to develop the test training, and were trained in the summer English shortterm training in the Northeast Normal University, based on the theory of SPT and communication-centered model, the guiding ideology, teaching mode of the experiment, the utilization of teaching resources, and related operation of the network classroom facilities and management.

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Organization and Implementation of Project Contents

In order to make the teaching contents close to life and make students more interested in learning, in the experiment project, we first summarized 23 topics based on the unit content in the textbook, and divided these topics into two categories namely, daily life expressions and daily topics. Daily life expressions include: Meeting, Weather, Family, Shopping, Dining, Computer and Internet, Jobs, Hospital, Going Abroad, Emergency, Animals; Daily topics include: College life, Hobbies, festivals, Movies, Health, Social problems, Examination, Women, Culture shock, Happiness, Overcoming Obstacles. Daily life focuses on communication on various occasions, and flexible use of common expressions (such as what activities do new students have when entering school, how to ask for directions when arriving in a strange city, etc.). The topic category focuses on understanding the background of topics and conducting relevant discussions, such as social problems. Students are not only required to describe common social problems such as pollution and crime, but also required to express their opinions and come up with measures to deal with them. Another example is festivals, which require students not only to understand the cultural background of traditional Western festivals, but also to understand the customs of Westerners in festivals, so that they can do as the Romans do, and further discuss the differences between Eastern and Western festivals and the integration of Eastern and Western cultures. After determining the teaching topic, in order to implement communicationcentered English teaching mode, which emphasizes three links, i.e., dialogue between teachers and students, pair talk, and independent reading and listening, we recommend that the project teacher should further in-depth design the teaching and learning materials to meet the requirements of the relevant teaching subject, based on the characteristics of different themes, effective implementation of the dialogue between teacher-guided teacher-student dialogue, pair dialogue, and independent reading and listening such as the specific teaching activities.

5.2.3

Multimedia Teaching Resources Used in the Experiment

The multimedia teaching resources used in the experiment include supplementary teaching materials, extensive listening and reading materials, and teachers’ slides lectures. Supplementary teaching materials are usually used to strengthen and enrich students’ language expressions, and the content is mainly a variety of useful expressions related to each topic, including sentences, phrases and words. For the contents that are more difficult to understand add Chinese interpretation; finally, it is printed into a booklet for each student to prepare before class and review after class. Extensive reading materials are collected according to the requirements of each topic and teaching objective and closely related to the topic, but also consolidate, deepen, and expand the teaching objectives related to the source of reading and

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listening, these extension materials come from a variety of ways, including: domestic English learning websites, the domestic English websites, foreign English websites, the domestic English learning materials, teaching software, English movies, English TV programs, etc. The contents of the extended listening and reading materials should be expressed in authentic English, and presented in multimedia forms such as text, animation, audio, and video. Keywords should be provided for video materials that are difficult to understand and without English subtitles. Standard English dubbing should be added to text-only materials. Course-ware is integrated in the form of web pages according to the category of activities (there is a separate course-ware for each topic). Teachers’ slides speech outlines are both the teaching contents and the supporting materials for organizing classroom teaching. In addition, it provides speech context for the subsequent communication between the pair of students and supports for the students’ independent learning and independent construction. Each topic has a set of lecture notes, including the subtopics covered by the topic, relevant teaching activity guidance, models, sentence patterns, scenarios, teaching requirements, and speech situation materials for students to practice. These contents are presented in the form of PowerPoint presentations on the teacher’s computer (the teacher’s contents can be broadcast to each student computer).

5.2.4

The Comparative Test Data Show That the Project Has Achieved Significant Results

Through the actual test, the one-year CCET (communication-centered English teaching) based on the theory of SPT has achieved remarkable results in the experimental study of college English classes. Students in listening, speaking, reading, writing have greatly improved, especially in oral communication, more obvious progress. The test questions are divided into two parts. The first part is designed by the school, and the question type is word explanation and teacher-student question and answer (namely, written test and oral test in the comparison Test I below). Students first read the article given by the teacher, and then conduct word explanation and answer the questions, assigned by the teacher. The second part of the test originates from New Horizons—College English (Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press). The questions are randomly selected by the students and they express themselves orally according to the requirements of the questions (autonomous speaking, i.e., oral Test II in the comparison test below). Students are tested in different classrooms at the same time to ensure that the test is objective and fair. It should be noted that the second part of the test is designed by our research group to test students’ speaking ability, and the students are not informed to do this test in advance. There are six experimental classes in this project. At the beginning of the semester, the school conducted an examination for the students. According to the test results, it is found that the students in the control class and the experimental class are roughly

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at the same level in English knowledge and ability. Two experimental classes were taught by Di Jirong. There are four experimental classes in Grade 3, which are taught by Wang Yu and Ma Hongmei, respectively. Of the two control classes, one is Class 2 and the other is Class 3, which were selected for comparison and taught by two other teachers, respectively. As mentioned above, Class 2 and Class 3 are graded according to the student’s English test scores at the beginning of the experiment (Class 2 is higher than Class 3 at the beginning time). The experimental class taught by Di Jirong was held once a week in an online classroom, which met preliminary requirements of the experiment (the experiment of this subject required that each class should be in the online classroom to give full play to the role of online English teaching resources). The other two experimental teachers (Ms Wang and Ms Ma) can only have their classes in the network classroom once every two weeks due to the limited time of the network classroom (sometimes it is difficult to guarantee once every two weeks), which is a big gap compared with the project requirements. In addition, the experimental class taught by Ms Ma is an art class. The English level of this class is obviously lower than that of the other three classes when entering the school; that is, it is not at the same starting point with the comparison class, so it is not suitable for the comparison test. Therefore, we only choose two second-level experimental classes of Ms Di, two third-level experimental classes of Ms Wang (a total of four), and two control classes (one is second-level class, the other is thirdlevel class) for the comparative test. As just mentioned, the two experimental classes taught by Ms Wang can only have classes in the network classroom once every two weeks, so the experimental conditions are relatively poor. The test results are shown in Tables 1 and 2 (these are the comparative test results of the two second-level classes led by Ms Di) and Tables 3 and 4 (these are the test results of the two third-level classes led by Ms Wang). The test results of two Level 2 classes (the experimental class is taught by Ms Di). In Tables 1 and 2, 1 represents the experimental class; 2 means control class. From the situation of participating in the test, the experimental class has 92 students, Table 1 College English test II and control class Tests

Class

No. of students

Average

Std. deviation

Std. error mean

Speaking 1

1 2

92.00 50.00

84.32 77.24

8.74 4.49

0.91 0.64

Speaking 2

1 2

92.00 50.00

83.36 77.24

6.98 4.49

0.73 0.64

Written

1 2

92.00 50.00

76.82 76.37

6.21 5.77

0.65 0.82

No. of words Spoken

1 2

92.00 50.00

89.62 87.18

34.76 36.88

3.62 5.22

No. of sentence patterns used

1 2

92.00 50.00

7.78 6.94

2.52 1.94

0.26 0.21

Total

1 2

92.00 50.00

82.43 77.07

5.67 3.76

0.59 53

20.4

16.1

2.139

0.005

15.0

5.994

Speaking 1

Speaking 2

Written

No. of words spoken

No. of sentence-patterns used

Total

0.01

0.00

0.94

0.15

0.00

0.00

6.004 6.745

2.169 2.505

0.391 0.384

0.418 0.427

5.597 6.335

5.348 6.370

140 134.438

140 138.900

140 95.717

140 107.207

140 135.913

140 139.683

df

0.000 0.000

0.032 0.013

0.696 0.702

0.677 0.670

0.000 0.000

0.000 0.000

5.3666 5.3666

0.3900 0.3400

2.4396 2.4396

0.4452 0.4452

6.1187 6.1187

7.0752 7.0752

Mean difference

Sig. two-tailed

t

F

Sig

Test for equality of means

Levine’s test for equality of variance

Table 2 Independent sample test: level 2: experimental class and control class

0.8939 0.7956

0.3900 0.3400

6.2396 6.3506

1.0650 1.0420

1.0932 0.9659

1.3229 1.1107

Std. error difference

3.5994 3.7931

7.E−02 0.1800

7.1339 6.9401

1.6100 1.5100

14.776 15.046

2.5507 2.5109

−1.6603 −1.6205 −9.8965 −10.17

8.2801 8.0289

9.6907 9.2711

Upper

3.9573 4.2085

4.4958 4.8793

Lower

95% confidence interval of the difference

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0.000

0.149

1.191

0.978

0.25

0.117

Speaking 1

Speaking 2

Written

No. of words spoken

No. of sentence patterns used

Total

0.733

0.874

0.325

0.271

0.700

0.994

3.095 3.163

2.011 2.088

1.190 1.256

1.900 1.928

1.219 1.220

4.141 4.151

188 79.454

118 73.877

118 86.437

118 68.209

118 75.286

118 75.550

df

0.002 0.002

0.038 0.040

0.236 0.212

0.060 0.072

0.225 0.226

0.000 0.000

Sig. 2- tailed

t

F

Sig

t-test for equality of means

Levine’s test for equality of variances

2.9026 2.9026

0.5280 0.5280

7.2583 7.2583

3.3200 3.3200

1.1197 1.1197

5.8101 5.8101

Mean difference

0.9178 0.9177

0.2513 0.2529

6.0927 5.7778

1.7474 1.8136

0.9187 0.9179

1.4029 1.3998

Std. error difference

Table 3 Independent sample test: mean comparison between experimental and control classes of College English test Level III

6.7804 6.9942 19.3323 18.7433

−0.1404 −0.3042 −4.8175 −4.2267

1.0455 1.0761

4.7596 4.7290

1.0256 1.0320

2.9389 2.9481

−0.6995 −0.7088

3.E02 2.E02

8.5882 8.5984

Upper 3.0319 3.0218

Lower

95% confidence Interval of difference

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Table 4 Group statistics: a comparison of differences between the experimental and control class Test

Class No. of students Mean

Speaking I

1 3

81 39

84.6049 78.7949

7.2123 7.1678

0.8014 1.1478

Speaking II

1 3

81 39

85.2222 84.1026

4.7170 4.7061

0.5241 0.7536

Written

1 3

81 39

68.0123 64.6923

8.6306 9.6331

0.9590 1.5425

No. of words spoken

1 3

81 39

77.2840 32.7067 70.0256 28.0512

3.6341 4.4918

No. of sentence pattern used 1 3

81 39

6.6049 6.0769

1.2814 1.3055

0.1424 0.2091

Total

81 39

81.5333 78.6308

4.9038 4.6116

0.5449 0.7384

1 3

Std. deviation Std. error mean

which is the sum of the two experimental classes taught by Ms. Di, and the control class has 50 students. As can be seen from Table 1, the average scores of all items in the experimental class are higher than those in the control group. The score of spoken English is 7.08 points higher than that of spoken English, 6.12 points higher than that of spoken English, the average score of written test is 0.45 points higher than that of written test; the number of English words spoken is 2.44 points higher than that of spoken English; the number of sentence patterns used is 0.84 points higher, and the total score is 5.36 points higher. It can also be seen from Table 2 that there are significant differences between the experimental class and the control class in terms of speaking 1 score, speaking 2 scores, number of sentence patterns used, and total score. Although the conditions of Ms. Di’s experimental class are not ideal (only having classes in network classroom once a week), after one year of experiment, the oral test scores of students have been greatly improved compared to the total score and the control class, especially the students’ speaking ability is strong, and they can flexibly use different sentence patterns to express themselves. Here are the comparative test results of the two-Level III classes. A comparative test of the results of two-Level III classes (the pilot class is taught by Mr. Wang). In Tables 3 and 4, 1 represents the experimental class and 3 represents the control class. According to the situation of participating in the test, the experimental classes have 81 students, which is the sum of the two experimental classes taught by Mr Wang, and the control class has 39 students. As can be seen from Table 3, the mean scores of the experimental class are all higher than those of the control class. Speaking I scores 5.81 points higher, 1.12 points above the 2 grades; Written scores 3.32 points above the average, number of words spoken 7.2 higher; number of sentence patterns used 0.53 higher; the total score 2.9 points higher above the average.

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As can be seen from Table 4, the oral English 1 score and the total score of the experimental class are significantly different from those of the comparison class. It can be seen that although the experimental conditions of the two experimental classes led by Mr. Wang Yu are very poor, after one year of study, the students still have significant increase in their oral test results compared with the written test results and the comparison class. Especially from the test of Speaking 1, it can be seen that students can respond flexibly to teachers’ random questions. The improvement of this kind of ability is inseparable from the language ability training at ordinary times that the experimental class pays much attention to.

Reference 1. He, K. (2004). Sense of language: A new theory on child language development. People’s Education Press.

Part II

Strategies of Achieving Informationization of Creative Education with Chinese Features: Encouraging and Applying Maker Education System

Innovative education informationization with Chinese characteristics is magnificent, The implementation of the goal, not through a few years of subject implementation or some additional courses can be done, but must. It must be closely related to the implementation of the current education system in China, closely combined, integrated, that is to be in Six “Innovative education informationization with Chinese characteristics.” Under the guidance of support theory, information technology will be effectively in-depth into the teaching process of all subjects in primary and secondary schools, truly achieve deep integration.

Chapter 8

Reasons for Advocating Maker Education System with Chinese Features

Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, the international community has paid great attention to the innovation ability and the cultivation of innovative talents. The experience we learned and used for reference is to advocate and implement Maker and Maker education. Implementation of maker education, there are usually two stages: preparation and implementation. The preparation stage is to provide creative work for the Maker physical works require the knowledge base and necessary skills that can be used in many existing primary and secondary schools. Of course, this also requires the corresponding curriculum content, teaching philosophy, and teaching mode in existing primary and secondary schools. The law should be reformed and improved. In the implementation stage, makers should create real physical works. Since the twenty-first century, science and art courses in primary and secondary schools in the West have been proposed as STEM or STEAM as the representative of the new teaching concept and teaching methods. For the West to train its youth to become makers, Maker education, through STEM or STEAM concepts and related teaching methods, is vigorously advocated. The idea and measures of integrating maker education with primary and secondary education are quite creative, which is worth learning, studying, and using for reference. However, while learning modestly from western developed countries, we should also have a critical perspective copy blindly. Let’s first look at the origin of western makers and maker education, and then discuss the western Makers, Talent, and our Innovative talent are compared, from which it is not difficult to find the current western makers and makers education has outstanding advantages at the same time, there are also some problems, even quite serious problems. It urges us to develop a maker education system with Chinese characteristics.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 K. He, Innovative Education Informatization with Chinese Characteristics, Bridging Human and Machine: Future Education with Intelligence, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0622-0_8

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1 Origin and Connotation of Western Makers 1.1 Background of Western Maker Education It is generally believed that the Maker movement originated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The Fabrication Laboratory (Fab) was launched by the Center for Bit and Atom Research in 2001 Lab) innovation project [1, 2]. Fab Lab takes personal creativity, personal design, and personal production as the core concept, designed to build a user-centrist, integrated design, fabrication, assembly, debugging, analysis, and document management—the whole process innovation production environment. According to the Fab Foundation, there are now more than 30 countries around the world through standardized manufacturing tools (such as laser cutters, CNC milling machines, embedded processors, CAD/CAM software, circuit board) and process sharing, forming the world’s largest distributed innovation system act as a laboratory. The rise of maker education is generally believed to be related to the rise of Maker education in November 2009. It was directly related to the speech of President Obama at the conference Educate to Innovate. It calls for “every student to be a creator, not just a consumer.” The White House immediately then started the Maker Education Initiative (MEI) and made Maker magazine founder Deloitte Daugherty oversees the implementation [1, 3]. The program aims to promote the construction and development of maker-spaces to show various maker projects to stimulate the interest, confidence, and creativity of young people, so that every young person can become Makers. At the 2014 White House Maker Carnival, President Obama called on the American people to participate in actions that inspire innovation and encourage community invention, thus guiding maker education to further expand deeply. Since the Maker movement originated at MIT, early maker education was mainly at university fairs open it. So far, the United States has included the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Stanford University, and other famous universities Hundreds of universities have set up maker Spaces and carried out maker education. Until around 2013, America More primary and secondary schools in China have launched maker movements to explore how to carry out maker education in K12 education.

1.2 The Connotation of Maker, Maker-Space and Maker Action Maker comes from the English word maker, which originally means maker or creator. In recent years, the term Makers specifically refers to a group of people who are brave enough to transform their ideas into actual products by using the Internet, 3D printers, and various desktop devices and tools [4, 5]. Maker-space refers to an open workplace [4] that is equipped with hardware and software tools and materials with a certain technological content, so that Makers can

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collaborate to realize their creativity. The Fab Lab mentioned above is the first batch of Maker-space in the world. Maker Action (also known as Maker Movement) is used by the former Wired editor Chris Anderson in his book Maker: The New Industrial Revolution [4] in its concrete connotation the term refers to people use a variety of materials and related equipment (such as computers, 3D printers), procedures, and other technical resources (such as open-source software on the Internet), through self-effort or cooperate with others to create original product by an activity. Mark Hatch, the CEO and founder of TechShop as well as one of the most successful Maker-spaces in the world, emphasizes the importance of producing physical works for Maker actions and thinks that this is the basic feature and symbol that clearly distinguishes Maker actions from the early computing revolution and Internet revolution [3]. Chris Anderson, who pioneered the slogan Maker Action, believes that Maker Action has three main features—the use of a variety of digital desktop tools; following the cultural norms of shared design and online collaboration; and use of common design standards to facilitate sharing and rapid iteration of products [4].

1.3 Maker Education in the Minds of Western Researchers It should be said that the connotation of Maker, Maker-space, and Maker action, although there are many different expressions in domestic and foreign academic circles, is roughly the same as the expression quoted above. However, the discussion about the connotation of Maker education is much more complicated. Not only do Chinese and foreign researchers have different ways of expressing the connotation of Maker education, but also their specific meanings are different from each other. First, domestic researchers believe that [1], in order to understand the connotation of Maker education, it is necessary to understand Maker education in two ways. For one, Maker education aims to solve the problems of how to cultivate creators. For another, it aims to apply the idea and way of Maker education to transform education. Obviously, in the second sense, it is widely concerned by all sectors of society, should refer to the Maker-styled education. On this premise, a survey of relevant literature at home and abroad showed that the representative Chinese researchers and western researchers on the connotation of Maker education, are American researcher Sylvia Libow Martinez and Gray S. Stager; China representative Professor Zhu Zhiting, from East China Normal University. Here is a look at the specific connotations of these two more representative views.

1.3.1

The Expression of Western Researchers Martinez and Starzer

Western researchers Martinez and Starzer believe [6] that Maker education regards Creation-based Learning on or Learning by Making as a learning method that students really need. In the process of implementing this learning method, students are no

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longer passive receivers and consumers of information and knowledge, but active users and creators of knowledge. Teachers need to think about how to abandon the teaching methods and thinking methods that put students in a passive position, rethink how to truly respect students’ subjectivity and initiative, strive to develop students’ creativity, and improve students’ ability to use technology and methods to create products and tools to solve practical problems. According to Martinez and Starzer [6], successful Maker education has eight elements (characteristics), which are as follows: • Purpose and relevance—mainly consider the significance of relevant Maker activities for individual students, such as whether it can stimulate students’ interest in learning and make them willing to invest time, energy, and creativity. • Time—learners must be given sufficient time to plan, execute, debug, modify, extend, and edit their respective Maker projects. • A certain complexity—it is best to involve more than one subject area, and can call on students’ previous knowledge and experience, so that they have the opportunity to form a creative point of view through accidental discovery and association. • There is a certain intensity and challenge—the traditional curriculum segmented into sections ignores the unusual ability intensity of teenagers, while Maker education can provide students with the opportunity of intense exercise. To this end, the Maker program should be able to attract students for a long time, keep students highly engaged, and ensure that students experience happiness during the creation process. • Multidimensional relevance—students can connect not only with other learning partners, but also with experts, multiple subject areas, and influential academic perspectives; and connect with the world through the Internet. • Accessibility—students need to have access to a variety of physical and digital materials anytime, anywhere; in addition to personal computers, students also need manual materials, books, software, hardware, and the Internet support. Only by allowing students to access valuable resources anytime and anywhere can students find creative paths that no one has ever thought of or designed. • Sharing—the achievement of the Maker project should be shared with others. The motivation based on sharing will make students more willing to participate in mutually beneficial learning and more willing to propose and share their own ideas. • Novelty—every class and grade of students should complete a different Maker project. 1.3.2

Chinese Researcher Zhu Zhiting et al.’s Comments on Western Maker Education

Chinese researcher Zhu Zhiting et al. [7] believe that Maker education is a combination of experience education, project-based learning, innovative education, and do-it-yourself (DIY) philosophy. First, Maker education emphasizes the idea of deep participation in experience education and learning in practice. Second, the

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implementation of Maker education is similar to project-based learning. It centers on a specific task, enabling students to learn in the process of completing tasks in groups and cooperation, so as to cultivate students’ ability to solve practical problems. Third, Maker education inherits the concept of innovation education and aims at cultivating students’ innovation consciousness, innovative thinking, and innovative ability. Fourth, a new factor has been integrated into Maker education—science and technology have become an indispensable factor in the implementation of Maker education, and DIY concept has also been integrated into Maker education; that is, to cultivate students’ craftsman spirit of hands-on creation, striving for perfection and still working on important devices.

2 Analysis and Comparison of Maker Education in China and the West Due to the great difference between Chinese traditional culture and Western culture (especially values), Chinese and Western researchers have both similarities and differences in the understanding of the connotation of Maker education, some of which are quite different and divergent. Let’s look at the commonalities.

2.1 The Commonness of Maker Education Connotation Between China and Western Countries We believe that Chinese and Western researchers’ understanding of Maker education connotation is consistent with each other as follows.

2.1.1

Both Sides Emphasize Learning by Creating or Learning by Making, Believing That This Is the Way Learners Really Need for Learn

This is the basic starting point and core content of Martinez and Starzer’s definition of the connotation of Maker education. In China, Zhu Zhiting and others give Maker education connotation, without directly mention in the term Learning by Creation or Creation-Based Learning but they shared the same basic ideas, with elements like Maker education combining several elements of expression, the emphasis of the first element experience deep participation in education, and in practice to study the thought, it is the embodiment of learning in creation; in addition, in another influential paper on Maker education written by Yang Xianmin and other researchers in China [1], it is clearly pointed out that Learning With Creating is the main learning method of Maker education.

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2.1.2

8 Reasons for Advocating Maker Education System with Chinese …

Both sides Advocate That Maker Education Should Be Implemented in a Way Like Project-Based Learning, with a Specific Task as the Center, so That Students Can Learn in the Process of Completing the Task, to Cultivate Students’ Ability to Solve Practical Problems

In Zhu Zhiting et al.’s view that Maker education is a combination of various elements, the second element involves the implementation of Maker education, and its specific content is described in this way. The implementation of Maker education is similar to project-based learning, and should be centered on a specific task; in the west, represented by Martinez and Starzer in the connotation of Maker education, without referring directly to implement method of Maker education, but both of them defined Maker education with eight elements (or eight characteristics) [6], which have been domestic and international academia as it is to determine what good elements of the Maker education project must have. This shows that the specific implementation of Maker education advocated in the West is project-based and centered on a specific task. The criteria or bases for selecting and determining a good Maker project are the eight elements (or eight characteristics) described above.

2.1.3

Both Sides Advocate to Deepen the Meaning Construction of Knowledge Through Cooperation, Exchange and Sharing in the Implementation Process of Maker Education

Zhu Zhiting and others emphasize the implementation of Maker education should be similar with project-based learning, in fact, the second element of Maker education (relating to the ways of implementation of Maker education) is based on a specific task as the center, so that the students can complete a task in the process of learning at the same time, also pay special attention to and promote this learningin-the-process-of-completing-a-task; at the same time concerning students’ group collaborative process—the students both in the process of cooperation to complete the project tasks, also in the process of group collaboration through communication and sharing knowledge to deepen understanding and mastery of meaning construction. In the connotation expression of “maker education” by Martinez and Stazer, it is emphasized that teachers need to think about how to abandon the teaching and thinking mode that puts students in a passive position and rethink how to truly respect students’ subjectivity and initiative, and the specific implementation of cooperation, communication, and sharing in the three elements of “multidimensional relevance,” “accessibility,” and “sharing” of maker education. And how to deepen the meaning construction of knowledge through cooperation, communication, and sharing.

2 Analysis and Comparison of Maker Education in China and the West

2.1.4

301

Both Sides Pay Special Attention to the Cultivation of Students’ Craftsman Spirit of Creating, Striving for Perfection and Carrying Out Significant Works

It is necessary to cultivate students’ craftsman spirit of creating, striving for perfection, and carrying out heavy work—this is the core content of the fourth point in the description of Maker education by Zhu Zhiting et al., which combines various elements. In the connotation of Maker education given by Martinez and Starzer, it is also explicitly proposed to strive to develop students’ creativity and enhance their ability to use technology and methods to create products and tools to solve practical problems. In addition, there are many prominent researchers in western academia who also hold this view. Mentioned earlier, for example, CEO and founder Mark Hatch, one of the most successful TechShop of Makerspace, gives special emphasis on making real work, which is important for a Maker project, and believes that this is the basic characteristics that distinguish Maker action and early computing revolution and of the Internet revolution [3].

2.2 Differences of Connotation Between Chinese and Western Maker Education The differences between Chinese and Western researchers in understanding the connotation of Maker education are reflected in the following two aspects:

2.2.1

Differences Between Chinese and Western Countries in the Goals to Be Achieved and Talents to Be Trained by Maker Education

It can be seen from the above description of the connotation of Maker education by western researchers represented by Martinez and Starzer that the goal of Western Maker education is to strive to develop students’ creativity and enhance students’ ability to use technology and methods to create products and tools to solve practical problems. The goal of Western Maker education, in other words, is to train teenagers into ones who can use various technical means and methods to create products and tools to solve practical problems—that is, to use the Internet, 3D printers, desktop devices, and tools with their own ideas into real product (see above for the connotation of Maker education). Mark Hatch, CEO, founder of TechShop, has highlighted the importance of making physical work for the Maker movement as a defining feature that clearly distinguishes it from the earlier computing and the Internet revolutions. The core of this definition wants to convey is that the ultimate goal of creating Maker action and the effect (i.e., the ultimate goal of Maker education and effect) is to create

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a real work, and argues that this is the basic feature of Maker education and sign (that is, the basic features and sign of Maker education). Therefore, we can briefly summarize the goal and essence of Maker education in the minds of Western researchers in one sentence—that is, to train teenagers to be Makers capable of creating physical works by using various technological means and methods.

2.2.2

The Objectives and Talents to Be Cultivated by Maker Education in China

However, Chinese researchers, represented by Zhu Zhiting and others maintaining the connotation of Maker education, emphasize that Maker education inherits the concept of innovative education and aims to cultivate students’ innovative consciousness, innovative thinking, and innovative ability. This shows that Maker education in the mind of Chinese researchers is innovation education—its goal is to train young people to be innovative talents with innovative consciousness, innovative thinking, and innovative ability. In fact, in the current advocates and the process of promoting Maker education, Chinese researchers did not let Maker education concept stays on the meaning of the western values, but expand the concept by for many years, particularly with innovative education in China. This is not just Professor Zhu Zhiting’s point of view, but in Chinese academic circle represents a consensus on the part of the advanced academic groups; for example, as mentioned earlier, Yang Xianmin wrote a paper of great influence on one of the academics such as the young people now Maker education [1]. It also emphasizes that Maker education is a new educational mode aimed at cultivating all kinds of innovative talents. Chinese researchers, unlike western researchers, think that Maker education is the education to cultivate Maker talents, but the education to cultivate innovative talents. It is a pity that the advanced academic consensus has not been able to reach the education administrative departments at all levels and the vast majority of teachers, especially primary and secondary school teachers); so far, China’s Maker education in guiding ideology, basic idea of action and implementation, almost all schools and various regions, follow the western philosophy and model (due to excessive superstition western, blindly copy, and even became the western philosophy and mode of unify the whole country). In a word, in the minds of Western researchers, Maker education is to train young people into Maker talents who can use various technological means and methods to transform their ideas into physical works. In the minds of Chinese researchers, Maker education aims to cultivate young people into innovative talents with innovative consciousness, innovative thinking, and innovative ability. Although there is only one-word difference between creative talent and creative Maker talent, their meanings are quite different.

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3 Status Quo of Maker Education in China China Maker activity started relatively late, but the development is relatively rapid. In 2010, China’s first Maker-space—Shanghai Xinchejian Maker-space appeared. After two or three years of efforts, the influence of Maker activities has gradually expanded. By the end of 2013, China’s Maker activities began to have a broader foundation in November 2013, China Association for Invention held the first Chinese Maker Competition. In June 2014, Tsinghua University held Maker Education Forum. In July 2014, China Service Center for Study Abroad and other units jointly held SinoUS Young Maker Competition. In March 2015, relevant departments also carried out public welfare activities related to Maker education in Yuxiang Primary School, Xicheng District, Beijing, focusing on introducing Maker concept and Maker culture to primary and secondary school students. During this period, the Young Maker Cultivation Plan, jointly launched by the Research Center of Innovative Thinking Education for Young People of the Chinese Education Association and other units and specially aimed at young people aged between 7 and 16, was also officially released. In May 2015, the International Conference on Informationization in Education, co-sponsored by UNESCO and the Ministry of Education of China, was held in Qingdao, China, with the participation of more than 90 countries and regions. During the conference, the largest and most comprehensive education informationization application Exhibition was held in China, which is located in the first and second floors of Qingdao Convention and Exhibition Center. The first floor is the exhibition area of educational informationization application of various provinces and cities, and the second floor is the product exhibition area of IT enterprises. The rapid development and implementation of Maker education in China can be seen from the exhibition area of each province on the first floor. For example, in the exhibition areas of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, we can see a large number of Makers’ works created by students (including various robots). And Wenzhou experimental middle school is one of the best, the school established Wenzhou first youth Maker base (and one early youth Maker base in China)— building in the school the functional physics Maker-space, for students to communicate with collaboration platform, provide encourage students to participate in multidisciplinary around a theme of exploring project. In order to promote the development of education a maker campus, Wenzhou experimental middle school also set up a series of how to train the students as soon as possible into creating a guest education courses, including multimedia programming, electronics, robot, programming, etc., with responsible teachers’ guidance and management [1] for Maker-space for. In the Shanghai exhibition area, it can be seen how to use the cloud watch to record students’ exercise efficiency, how to use the cloud kitchen to teach students’ life skills, and how to cultivate students’ love of life in this process [8]. In addition, there are many physical works designed and created by primary and secondary school students to beautify and improve daily life.

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Galleries in Beijing, in addition to many developed on students how to use the sensor and MCU can improve life and work, also can see Fengtai on how to use the normal school affiliated elementary school teacher’s Garageband software, to reconstruct their primary school grade four school-children’s music—to learn on the arrangements, to create their own music works [8]. We also know that Beijing Jingshan School has not only established a relatively complete physical Maker-space in the school, but also took the lead in setting up Maker education courses covering primary school, junior high school, and senior high school in China, so as to train students from primary school, junior high school, and senior high school to become Makers as soon as possible. At the same time, the school also actively uses the outside resources, such as the Beijing Maker-space, robot team, and Shanghai new workshop developed for children with Maker curriculum pattern, readjust the original robot programs—to effectively strengthen the students’ interest in creating and create the cultivation of the ability and habit [1]. It can be seen from the above introduction that the current Maker education in China is basically implemented in accordance with the idea and model of Maker advocated by western researchers represented by the United States. Maker activities and Maker education mainly cultivate Maker talents (i.e., creators who can use various technological means and methods to transform creativity into physical works), but not innovative talents (i.e., talents with real innovative consciousness, innovative thinking, and innovative ability). The whole Maker education is only a supplement to the existing education system, but it fails to integrate with the existing education system (especially primary and secondary schools)—making Maker education truly become an organic part of the whole innovative education system in China. For implementation of the current state of Maker education in China, Li Dawei, known as the father of Chinese maker culture Shanghai New Workshop and the founder of Maker-space, had made such a generalization and summary at the end of 2015: the nature of Maker education can be understood as education such as science, technology, engineering, art education professional amateur. The Maker movement did not provide schools with a structured curriculum, and the Makerspace only provided loosely organized workshops. The workshops look a lot like the established STEAM education and learning-by-doing [8]. I think the summary of Mr. Li Dawei is in line with the reality of the development of Maker education in China, and it is also generally consistent with the cases of various provinces and cities on display in Qingdao Exhibition. Mr. David Lee about the current Maker education science, technology, engineering, art education professional amateur, and Maker movement did not provide a system of developed curriculum to schools, and Maker education only provided a loose organization of the workshop, it is only a supplement of the existing education system to current Chinese education and Maker education is talent of education and rather than innovation talent cultivation education, and the entire Maker education is (even at the level of amateur) and not integrated with the existing education system. Some schools in Wenzhou and Beijing already offer some kind of Maker education courses (such as multimedia programming, electronic production, robot, web programming), and even in elementary, middle, and high schools. But these specific contents of Maker course

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and the teaching goal is to develop talents of different ages, to use various technical means and methods to put ideas into real work, rather than advocate quality education with three aspects, such as quality talents, innovative consciousness, innovative thinking, and innovative ability. Moreover, the courses themselves are completely independent (as Li Dawei put it “amateur”), so they cannot be integrated into the existing education system—making Maker education truly an integral part of the whole innovative education system in China. It is for this reason that Li Dawei asserts that the Maker movement in China does not provide schools with a systematic curriculum. Because of the current situation of Maker education in China that we should advocate and implement the system of Maker education with Chinese features as quickly as possible, so as not to affect the construction and realization of the great Chinese dream.

References 1. Yang, X., & Li, J. (2015). The value potential of maker education and its controversy. Modern Distance Education Research (3), 23–34 (杨现民, 李冀红. 创客教育的价值潜能及其争议. 现代远程教育研究, 2015(3), 23–34). 2. Halverson, E. R., & Sheridan, K. M. (2014). Study on the maker movement in education. Harvard Educational Review, 84(4), 495–504. 3. Hatch, M. (2014). The maker movement manifesto. McGraw-Hill. 4. Anderson, C. (2012). Makers: The new industrial revolution. Crown. 5. Li, L., & Wang, J. (2014, September 23). Maker: Softly changing education. China Education Daily (005). (李凌, 王颉. “创客”:柔软地改变教育. 中国教育报, 2014-09-23(005).) 6. Martinez, S., & Stager, G. (2013). Invent to learning: Making, tinkering, and engineering the California. Constructing Modern Knowledge Press. 7. Zhu, Z., & Sun, Y. (2015). Maker education: The practice field of innovative education enabled by information technology. The Electrochemical Education (1), 14–21 (祝智庭, 孙妍妍. 创客 教育:信息技术使能的创新教育实践场. 中国电化教育, 2015(1), 14–21). 8. Li, D., & Xie, Z. (2015). Maker education in the eyes of makers. China Information Technology Education (12 B), 4–8 (李大维, 谢作如. 创客眼中的创客教育. 中国信息技术教育, 2015(12 下), 4–8).

Chapter 9

Advocacy and Implementation of Maker Education with Chinese Features

To correctly advocate and implement Maker education system with Chinese features, first (We) should learn from the existing experience of Maker education in the west. However, the experience cannot be copied blindly but be combined with the actual requirement of our innovative talents training. Based on the critical inheritance of western experience, we should explore and create the specific ways and methods for Maker education system with Chinese features. The content of this chapter is formed according to this idea.

1 Learning from the West Maker Education: Procedures and Experience The analysis in the last chapter shows that China’s current Maker education is basically implemented in accordance with the concept and model of Maker advocated by western scholars. The advantage of this concept and model is that there is a relatively complete set of measures and experiences that can be operated and promoted. This set of measures and experiences for the Western scholars to implement Maker education mainly includes the following four aspects.

1.1 Create Two Types of Maker-Spaces Maker education requires two types of Maker-spaces, a physics Maker-space (also known as Maker labs), which is a physical platform that provides a variety of technical tools (especially advanced technology tools), rich information and research and development site. The other is the online Maker-space, which is a special online

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 K. He, Innovative Education Informatization with Chinese Characteristics, Bridging Human and Machine: Future Education with Intelligence, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0622-0_9

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social space for developers to show their work, communicate their ideas and share creative results [1].

1.2 Conduct Teacher Training for Maker Education Maker activity is an independent inquiry, discovery, and creation activities, but also needs Makers’ teachers, who have more understanding and master the essence of Maker education and the pioneer of Maker activity experience, so that to guide, inspire, and help those who are new to Maker activity (including offering necessary Maker courses for them), to have higher efficiency and better effect. Some schools or districts have just started Maker activities, without qualified teachers can serve as pioneers’ teachers in Maker education. To meet the need, external experts should be hired to train local or school teachers on how to carry out training for Maker education—to help them understand the significance and role of Maker education and to master the specific implementation methods of Maker education.

1.3 Implement Special Courses for Cultivating Makers and Carry Out Relevant Maker Activities In order to achieve higher goals in Maker activities and education and achieve more ideal results, relevant Maker courses should be set up—courses to help teenagers become Makers more quickly. If possible, this kind of course had better be carried out in three stages as elementary, intermediate, and advanced, for young people of different ages.

1.4 Cultivate Maker Culture Gradually Based on Maker Activities and Maker Education Maker culture should be gradually formed through activities such as Maker competition, exhibition of Maker works and awarding of scholarship for Maker education organized by relevant institutions or departments, and should be persisted for many years, to promote healthy, in-depth and sustainable development of Maker education. After years of practice and promotion, these measures and experience have been mature, can indeed achieve remarkable results in the cultivation of Maker talents. The disadvantage is that what is cultivated in this way are only Makers talents who can use various technological paraphernalia and procedures to transform their creativity into physical works, but not innovative talents with innovative consciousness, innovative thinking, and innovative ability, which are advocated and pursued by innovation

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education. To solve the major problem, only combine Maker education with the existing education system can work, rather than taking Maker education as a supplement of the existing education system or just in the level of amateur as it is now, which means that we should try our best to make Maker education really become an organic part of the innovation education system in China. In addition, the Chinese features of Maker education is to cultivate innovative talents needed by the great China dream, so in order to advocate and implement correctly Maker education with Chinese features should be clearly start from developing and implementing the innovation of talents with three aspects—innovative consciousness, innovative thinking and innovative ability, to strive for research and exploration that can truly find effective ways and methods for advocating and implementing Maker education system with Chinese features. To this end, we should grasp the following three key issues: how to carry out the cultivation of innovative consciousness, innovative thinking, and innovative ability. The following sections address each of these issues in turn.

2 Attaching Great Importance to Cultivate Sense of Innovation It should be highly attached great importance to the intersection and role of innovative consciousness and its cultivation. Innovative consciousness refers to lofty ideal of contributing to human civilization and progress, the lofty spirit of dedicating oneself to the development of science and technology, and the strong desire to create inventions. Innovation consciousness mainly answers why should innovate and for whom. That is, the motivation of innovation. Originally, this is a crucial issue leading the cultivation of innovative talents, but it has been diluted or even completely ignored in the current Maker education. Maker activities are purely the interests of Makers, which seem to have nothing to do with the future of the country and the hope of the nation. This is the biggest defect of Maker education and Maker activities, vigorously advocated and promoted by Western scholars represented by the United States. It is also the biggest drawback of blindly copying and advocating western Maker concepts and models in China. It is correct that we can quickly produce a large number of Makers, namely Maker talents, according to the above-mentioned four measures and experiences of western scholars implementing Maker education, i.e., to use various technical means and methods to convert ideas to real work. These measures and experience in the cultivation and ascension of innovation ability of adolescents should be said that there is no doubt; however, because of the implementation of Maker education and Maker activity, did not materialize the correct leadership and leading role of mainstream innovative consciousness; therefore, it should be said that although these teenagers soon became Makers (with certain innovation ability), they did not solve the problem of why innovate and for whom to innovate. Current Maker education if still blindly copy the western ideas and implementation methods, only on cultivation of adolescents’ Maker ability and completely ignore

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their innovative consciousness; as a result, although it is possible to cultivate a large number of Maker talents with creative ability, many young people will believe and advocate western values more and more, and their ideals and aspirations will be overwhelmed by material desires, then such Makers are of no significance to the future of our country and the hope of our nation, and we do not need such Makers. That is why this situation must not continue, and for this reason, we must create our own Maker education system with Chinese features as soon as possible. As is known to all, the sense of innovation can only be established through longterm and persistent cultivation of outlook on life and values. This is the fundamental reason why we emphasize that Maker education must be integrated into the existing education system—to make it truly an integral part of the entire innovative education system in China (rather than a supplement to the existing education system or just in the amateur status). As for how to carry out the cultivation of outlook on life and values, so that the cultivation of the quality of innovation consciousness (i.e., innovation motivation) in innovation education can be put into practice? The new Mandarin Curriculum Standards (2011 edition) has given a clear answer to this question—it is to vigorously advocate and fully embody the socialist core value system which includes the following five aspects in subject teaching (not only Mandarin, but also in all subjects of education at all levels and of all kinds): Highlight the common ideal of socialism with Chinese characteristics; Carry forward the national spirit with patriotism at its core; Carry forward the spirit of the times with reform and innovation at its core; Establish socialist concept of honor and disgrace; Cultivate good ideological and moral customs.

This answer not only clearly states what the core value system of socialism is, also how to cultivate youth’s emotion, attitude, and value (or should be cultivated from which several aspects). The correct direction is given—it is to highlight, carry forward, set up, and cultivate from the above five aspects; thus, answering two most critical questions that have long plagued China’s basic education (or even education at all levels and of all kinds); namely, what is the core value system of socialism? And how do we get teenagers to develop this core value system as quickly as possible? Striving to implement the education of emotion, attitude, and values marked by socialist core value system is not only the need to cultivate the quality of innovation consciousness in innovative education, but also the need for a healthy, sustainable, and in-depth development of the entire education system of our country (including education of all levels and types). This is the fundamental reason why we emphasize that Maker education must be integrated with the existing education system—making Maker education truly an integral part of the entire education system of our country. At the same time, it also indicates that in innovation education (that is, in Maker education with Chinese characteristics), the cultivation of the quality of innovation consciousness should mainly rely on subject teaching in the existing education system.

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3 Vigorously Promoting the Cultivation of Creative Thinking We should fully understand the foundation significance and cultivating methods of creative thinking, and vigorously promote it. As mentioned earlier, innovative thinking (that is, creative thinking) is to form innovation of ideology, theory, method, and design of advanced, complex cognitive abilities, and innovative ability is to solve how to innovate ideology, theory, method, and design into actual spiritual or material products (i.e., written literature, music, the forming theory of painting and music works, or produce all sorts of patent products). The function of the two qualities of innovative thinking and innovative ability is to jointly solve the problem of how to innovate. And innovation consciousness mainly solves the problem of the motive force of innovation, so innovation consciousness is of vital significance for leading the cultivation of the whole innovative talents. But this is only part of the problem. The other aspect of the problem is that innovation consciousness and innovation ability must be based on creative thinking. Without creative thinking, innovation consciousness will become an impractical empty talk. Without creative thinking, the creation of spiritual or material products becomes water without source and trees without roots, and the so-called innovation ability is nothing but stupid or even useless. Therefore, in this sense, creative thinking (innovative thinking) is an important basis and prerequisite for innovation consciousness and ability. In other words, the quality of innovative thinking has a fundamental significance and role in the whole process of cultivating innovative talents. Innovative talents must have innovative consciousness, innovative thinking, and innovation ability. Innovative consciousness in Maker education advocated by the western scholars (that is, innovation motivation) can be said to be completely with no attention. As for innovative thinking (or the cognitive process and theory closely related to innovative thinking), Maker education advocated by Western scholars is involved in different degrees. This is manifested in the following aspects.

3.1 Taking Constructionism as the Main Learning Theory to Support Maker Education Seymour Papert known as the father of creative action in the West with constructionism as the main learning theory supporting Maker education [2]. This is because Papert’s constructionist theory places his own experience based on product research and development at the center of how humans learn [2]. This thought originates from Dewey’s instructional theory, which believes that learning is the result of play, experiment and real inquiry. Its salient feature is that learning is the construction of knowledge through the creation of things that can be shared [2]. In formal and

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informal learning space using specific tools and program was Papert’s constructionism instantiated (these tools and processes include: logo programming language, logo brainstorming tool kit, scratch programming language, computer club, etc.); that means Papert’s constructionism is a learning theory that supports of Maker action on problem-solving and digital and physical manufacturing [3], the main learning theory that supports Maker education.

3.2 Attach Importance to Embodied Cognitive Theory in the Guiding Role of Maker Education Embodied cognitive theory believes that [4], cognition is the result of interaction between the body and the environment; participatory learning requires practice learners be involved in an actual physical space inside oneself directly, which is the precondition of cognitive structure change, and is also the foundation of innovation. The pure speculative process divorced from physical practice is difficult to touch the essence of things, and innovation will be out of the question. In Maker-space, all activities are carried out in the way of Makers’ personal participation (individuals directly participate in discussion and production), so Maker activities fully meet the requirements of embodied learning.

3.3 Main Advocates of Maker Education in the West Focus on the Change of Teachers-and-Students’ Thinking Mode In the previous comparison and analysis of the connotation of Chinese and Western Maker education, we chose the American scholars Martinez and Starzer, as the representative of the west; not only because they were in the field of Maker education, they published an influential article in the world, but also because they were the first scholars to advocate to elementary and middle schools education vigorously promoting Maker education. To this end, they also published a book, Invent to Learning: making, tinkering, and engineering the classroom [2], which is intended to guide the development of Maker education in primary and secondary schools in the United States (under the guidance of this book, many primary and secondary schools in the United States are implementing Maker education in earnest). It traces the historical origin of human learning and survival based on production and creation, analyzes the connotation and characteristics of Maker education, and expounds various conditions, resources, and implementation methods needed to carry out Maker activities. It also discusses the creative nature of learning, principle of thinking, and basic process of creation [5], and requires teachers to seriously think about how to abandon the teaching method and thinking mode that put students in a passive position, rethink how to truly respect students’ subjectivity and initiative, and strive to

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develop students’ creativity. Thus, as the main advocates of Maker education in the West, Martinez and Starzer paid great attention to the reform of creative thinking principle and teacher-and-student thinking mode. Due to the innovative thinking (creative thinking) is a kind of advanced and complex cognitive ability, so from two aspects listed above (i.e., Neo-Constructivism and embodied cognitive theory), although this advanced, complex cognitive abilities not directly related to creative thinking, but due to the cognitive learning theory related to the development and breeding of various cognitive abilities including individual cognition, social cognition, distributed cognition, elastic cognition, and embodied cognition and many other aspects. In fact, constructionism is regarded as a unique branch of cognitivism in the field of learning science. The research object of constructionism and cognitivism is the internal mental processing of cognitive subject, so in a broad sense, both belong to the category of cognitive learning theory. However, they have different views on the internal mental processing mode of the cognitive subject: the former holds that the internal mental processing mode of the cognitive subject is self-construction or social construction (i.e., constructionism), while the latter holds that the internal mental processing mode of the cognitive subject is information processing (i.e., cognitivism). Constructionist learning theory can indeed be regarded as a unique branch of cognitive learning theory. In other words, the first two aspects listed above (i.e., constructionism and embodied cognitive theory) prove that Maker education advocated by Western scholars pays more attention to the development of Makers’ cognitive ability (i.e., the development of thinking ability). The west Maker education is the main advocate for principles of creative thinking and attention to the change of the way of thinking of teachers and students, which further prove that the attention does not stay in the level of general cognitive development, but hope to reach the height of the creation; therefore, it is necessary for the change of thinking mode of teachers and students. But unfortunately, whether Martinez and Starzer or other well-known Maker Education advocates (and even the entire western academia), so far, not a set of scientific and effective, operational, probable, mode, and method are put forward for Maker Education to cultivate creative thinking, which can be promoted only emphasize the DIY (Do It Yourselves), and learning by doing, experience Education (Experiential Education). In a word, it is entirely up to the Makers themselves to practice, feel, experience, and explore in the Maker-space. This may be an effective way to cultivate Maker talents, but it may not be effective to cultivate innovative talents (whose innovative achievements are not necessarily physical works). This is another defect of western Maker education and another drawback of Chinese Maker education, which is caused by blindly copying western ideas and models. In order to make up for this defect and overcome this drawback, it is necessary to strengthen the cultivation of creative thinking for students in Maker education with Chinese features (preferably in China’s innovative education system, which has integrated Maker education). The specific teaching content should involve at least the following four aspects.

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Understanding the Essence and Components of Creative Thinking

The essence of creative thinking is the concrete embodiment of the inspiration or insight produced by human brain. The structure of creative thinking consists of six elements: divergent thinking, logical thinking, imagery thinking, intuitive thinking, dialectical thinking, and horizontal-and-vertical thinking. Each element has its own function: divergent thinking is used to guide the direction of thinking. Its function is to break through the shackles of traditional thoughts, concepts, theories, and methods. Logical thinking, imagery thinking, and intuitive thinking constitute the subject of creative thinking, and are also the most basic three ways of thinking. Dialectical thinking and horizontal-and-vertical thinking is a combination of the two is to improve the quality and efficiency of creative thinking; the former (dialectical thinking) is to provide cognitive subject with the macro-philosophical guiding ideology, the latter (horizontal-and-vertical thinking) micro-psychological processing for cognitive subject to improve the quality and efficiency of creative thinking to achieve [6].

3.3.2

Understanding the Psychological Processing Model of Inspiration and Insight

For a long time, because people do not understand the process of psychological processing of inspiration and insight, inspiration and insight are always covered with a layer of mystery (inspiration spirit, itself has the meaning of God), and inspiration and insight are the concrete embodiment of creative thinking, which makes creative thinking an enigmatic and mysterious concept, thus affecting creative thinking cannot be planned and cultivated step by step. About the inspiration and insight psychological process model is to dispel the superstitious, from the theoretical height of brain sciences to clarify formation of inspiration and insight (that is, the formation of creative thinking) of psychological mechanism, processing methods and process, on this base we can truly find out scientific and effective ways and methods about creative thinking training [6].

3.3.3

Understanding Five Pitfalls on Creative Thinking Both at Home and Abroad, and Correct Analysis and Criticism

For many years, academic circles at home and abroad have lacked in-depth research on the essence, structure, and constituent elements of creative thinking, especially its psychological processing mechanism, processing links, and processing process based on brain science and neurophysiological mechanism. Not only among the general public, but also in the fields of philosophy, psychology, and Pedagogy at home and

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abroad, there are some one-sided and even wrong understandings of creative thinking. To sums up, these misconceptions have five aspects [6]: • Equating divergent thinking to creative thinking (the most typical representative is the famous American psychologist Jill Ford); • Equating intuitive thinking with imagery thinking—denial of intuitive thinking is also the basic form of human thinking; • One-sided exaggeration of the role of logical thinking—in opposition of logical thinking and imagery thinking, intuitive thinking; • Exaggeration of the role of imagery thinking, and mistakenly believe that the development of the right brain is the development of creative thinking; • Ignoring the important role of dialectical thinking in gestation and formation of creative thinking. The above one-sided and even misunderstanding of creative thinking, if not criticized and cleared up as soon as possible, will become a great obstacle for the vast number of teenagers to develop creative thinking.

3.3.4

The Effective Ways and Methods of Cultivating Creative Thinking (Five-Links for Cultivation)

As mentioned above, creative thinking has six components, in order to make teenagers have good quality of creative thinking, we must start from the cultivation of these components. Due to the sixth element horizontal-and-vertical thinking is a complex problem-solving for difficult problems (that is, to promote the formation of inspiration or insight) directly provide psychological processing strategy, which has a more direct relationship scientific discovery and technological inventions, but one must have complexity theory of thought as support to facilitate understanding; therefore, in terms of creative thinking training in the elementary and middle school level, the elements can be temporarily not consider (in Maker education course, if there are three levels: primary, intermediate, advanced, the cultivation of horizontal-andvertical thinking shall be carried out in advanced stage, and to employ experts to guide concrete implementation). The following is only a brief introduction to the cultivation of the remaining five elements (also known as five-link cultivation) (for detailed contents, implementation modes, and relevant cases, please refer to the last chapter of my monograph The Theory of Creative Thinking [6]). Link 1: About divergent thinking training (key points: seeking for differences in the same, seeking for the opposite, multidimensional radiation). Link 2: On the cultivation of intuitive thinking (key points: focus on the big picture, take the whole picture, encourage speculation, only focus on the relationship between things, without considering the specific attributes of things, and structuring and graphing knowledge). Link 3: On the cultivation of imagery thinking (key points: careful observation, accumulation of imagery, inspiration of association, bold imagination). Make clear

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the connection and difference between association and imagination, between reinventing imagination and creating imagination. Do not cultivate visual and intuitive thinking in isolation, but in combination with logical thinking. Link 4: On the cultivation of logical thinking (key points: emphasis on analysis and synthesis, abstraction and generalization, judgment, and reasoning). Link 5: On the cultivation of dialectical thinking (key points: pay attention to investigation and research, seek truth from facts, unify the opposites, especially pay attention to the application of dichotomy in daily life, study, and work—see the favorable factors under unfavorable conditions, and the wrong conclusion may contain some reasonable elements). The above analysis shows that the cultivation of the quality of innovative thinking (creative thinking) in innovative education (i.e., in Maker education with Chinese characteristics) can best be completed in the discipline teaching of the existing education system in primary and secondary schools, which has integrated Maker education. If the deepening reform of the existing education system in recent years does not meet this requirement, then we must add creative thinking training courses including the above four aspects in the Maker education curriculum to achieve this goal.

4 Practicing Cultivation of Innovation Ability Pay close attention to the value and the practical significance of the innovation ability and the training modes, and try to specifically implement. Innovation ability refers to the ability to transform innovative ideas, theories, methods, and innovative designs into actual spiritual or material products (i.e., writing literary works, composing music, forming paintings and theoretical works, or producing patented products). As mentioned above, regarding the practical significance, value, and training mode of Makers’ ability and quality, there has been a complete set of operable and extendable measures and experiences in western Maker education, which mainly involve the following four aspects: It should be said that these measures and experience can be directly transplanted to the cultivation of the innovative ability of China’s creative Makers with Chinese characteristics and a Maker education training, not Maker talents in the mind of western scholars but innovative talents with innovative ability, which should not only have the ability to use various technical means and methods to put the idea into real work (i.e., a passenger capacity), but also has an innovative thought, theory and method that transform them into spiritual products (i.e., written literature, melodies, drawings and theoretical works); so in order to realize the target of innovation quality training through Maker education in our country, in addition to the above-mentioned Western measures and experiences should also be supplemented in the following three aspects.

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4.1 Supplement on the Maker Course Due to the connotation of Maker education with Chinese characteristics has been expanded, namely the training objective from the original Maker talents to innovative talents, in addition to retain the original skill training classes (such as 3D printing, assembly modeling, electronic cutting, circuit, robots, web production, software programming), Maker courses should also be appropriately adding some innovative consciousness and innovative thinking to develop relevant courses. Of course, it has been emphasized that efforts should be made to integrate Maker education into China’s existing education systems at all levels (to make it an integral part of China’s entire innovation education system); so, this goal has been reached (i.e., with innovative consciousness, innovative thinking to develop the relevant content has been has fully reflected in the current middle and primary school), under the premise, the original Maker course category is not necessary to increase, it is enough to add to the existing Maker course some related contents or elements (but the original primary and secondary schools of natural science and arts courses shall be based on internationally in recent years about the ideas about STEAM science educational reform, combined with the development of Maker activities, in the teaching process to realize the integrated use of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary integration between). In areas and schools, where this goal has not yet been achieved, Maker education curriculum should be appropriately supplemented in terms of innovative consciousness and innovative thinking (creative thinking) by referring to the contents discussed in Parts (1) and (2) of this subsection. This can be supplemented by adding expert lectures (e.g., on the cultivation of innovative consciousness); it can also be done by adding a curriculum (e.g., on the nature of creative thinking, its components, the mode of mental processing and how each component should be cultivated).

4.2 Supplement on the Training Content of Maker Teachers Since the training goal of Maker education with Chinese characteristics is not only Makers, instead, innovative talents, then, a Maker teacher cannot only know something about the connotation and characteristics of Maker and Maker activity, the implementation of the Maker education mode, and a variety of skills related to the science and technology curriculum content, but a Maker teacher should increase related contents of the cultivation of innovative consciousness and innovative thinking. In fact, if the Maker course is supplemented in some way, the Maker teacher training contents must be supplemented in the same way, and its content depth should be higher than the Maker course (because this is a requirement for Maker teachers).

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4.3 New Requirements for Humanities and Social Science Classes of Primary and Secondary School Teaching In order to make Maker education really combined with the existing education system (become an organic part of the innovation education system in our country) has been mentioned above, the original natural science and arts curriculum in primary and secondary schools should be based on science educational reform idea of STEAM, and combined with Maker activities to realize integrated use of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary integration in the teaching process. Then, what new requirements should be put forward for the teaching of the original humanities and social science courses in primary and secondary schools? In Maker education with Chinese characteristics, our own advocate, to cultivate talents now is not only able to bring their creativity into real work (i.e., material products), but also the creator who can transform innovation thoughts, theories, and methods into the spiritual product, and in the process of Maker education combined with the existing education system, it is necessary to put forward new requirements not only to natural science and arts course of primary and secondary schools teaching, but also to the humanities and social sciences teaching. Because the traditional Maker activities under the guidance of STEAM concepts, trying to explore and primary and secondary schools of natural science and arts course teaching effectively, so as to realize the integrated use of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary integration, in this respect there have been more mature experience for reference at home and abroad; so here we only focus on the process of carrying out a Maker education with Chinese features, on how to effectively combine the humanities and social sciences courses teaching of primary and secondary schools, and on the corresponding change in this kind of teaching with some suggestions. Due to the development of Maker activity, it emphasized the support with tools and means of science and technology and the environment (especially the information technology environment), and so Maker activities of combining the interdisciplinary teaching must be under the information environment of teaching; the effect of this kind of teaching is effective integration of information technology with curriculum pattern (especially the deep integration, namely deep integration model) are closely related. As is known to all, the types of teaching mode are diverse and hierarchical, and the teaching mode of information technology and curriculum integration is no exception. As information technology and curriculum integration means information technology and subject teaching integration, the subject teaching process involves three stages: first, in-class stage which is directly related to classroom teaching process (for Chinese primary schools, this stage is 40 min; for middle school, this stage is 45 min), the other two stage are before-class stage and after-class stage (before-class and after-class stages can also be known as extracurricular phase), so from the highest level, information technology and curriculum integration teaching mode has only two types; that is, according to the teaching stages involved to differentiate within the integration teaching mode and integration mode of extracurricular teaching.

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And teaching mode usually refers to two or more methods in the process of teaching, combined with the stability of strategy and its use in the teaching process. In order to achieve the expected teaching effect or goals, a variety of different methods and strategies tend to be used in integrated manner, when these teaching methods and strategies of combination can always achieve the desired effects, or goals, they become a kind of effective teaching mode. So although, in principle, teaching mode can be divided according to a certain kind of teaching strategies, but because teaching process is actually a variety of methods and strategy of integrated use (e.g., at beginning of a lesson to introduce a new lesson can be used in establishing situation for teaching; knowledge teaching can adopt the strategy of advance organizers, or course-ware demo strategy, consolidating new knowledge can be used in a drill and practice strategy; knowledge transfer can use group discussion or role-play strategy, etc.), so the usual in-class integrated teaching mode still involves a variety of teaching methods and strategies. As more than two kinds of teaching methods and strategies can be arranged and combined arbitrarily in principle, there are infinite kinds of teaching modes formed therefrom, but there are few teaching modes that can truly achieve deep integration and are easy to operate. Since the 1990s, in the research and exploration of the practice of primary and secondary schools, our research team found that in terms of information technology and curriculum integration, there are two embedded-in-class teaching modes (that is, the meaningful imparting-receiving teaching mode and exploration under the guidance of teachers teaching mode), as well as an extracurricular integrated teaching mode, which is based on the theme for exploration, the inquiry learning model can effectively achieve deep integration; namely depth fusion goal, also the most beneficial to Maker education activities, the easiest and a combination of new teaching mode. In these three teaching modes, meaningful imparting-receiving teaching mode is more suitable for the good structured lessons, involving complex abstract concepts and principles of basic subject knowledge and skills of teaching, but the inquiry model under the guidance of teachers teaching mode, and based on the mode of inquiry on a theme is suitable for not good structured lesson to research-based learning involving complex practical problems solved the teaching of knowledge and skills. Due to the above, all kinds of teaching modes for schools humanities and social sciences in both primary and secondary courses can also be applied to natural science and arts courses—that the choice of several teaching modes, mainly depends on the current teaching contents of knowledge structure of good or not good structured lessons, and does not depend on the nature of the subjects (liberal arts or science); so each subject teacher can, according to the current teaching contents, and features of knowledge, and with the demand of students are engaged in Maker activity, the freedom to choose one (or two) of the integration of in-class and after-class teaching mode. Generally speaking, in the preparation stage of Maker activities, it is more suitable to choose in-class integration mode—in order to provide necessary knowledge and ability foundation for Maker activities. In the implementation stage of Maker activities, it is advisable to choose extracurricular integration mode, which facilitates the integration of Maker activities and teaching process, so as to achieve the long-term

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goal of making Maker education truly become an organic part of the whole innovation education system in China. The characteristics, teaching links, and specific operation cases of the above three integrated teaching modes will be introduced in detail in Chapters 11, 12 and 13 of this book, which will not be repeated here. Above analysis shows that, in innovative education (that is, the Maker education with Chinese features) the quality of innovation training is basically a reference (or even direct reference) of western education experience and their move; but Maker course and Maker teacher’s training contents, which have been added. And new requirements, for humanities and social sciences in primary and middle schools teaching, have been put forward, so that the Maker with Chinese characteristics— activities, whether in science and liberal arts education—can be more effectively realize the seamless integration with existing teaching process.

5 Ways to Integrate Maker Education with Chinese Characteristics into the Current Education System—Web-Based and Non-Web-Based Leapfrog Trials Leapfrog development innovation experiment by our team lasted for nearly 20 years, all over the country, in elementary and middle schools of deepening the reform of basic education, the objective of which is to improve, using the informationization teaching innovation theory, discipline teaching quality and students’ comprehensive quality in elementary schools (i.e., realize the leap-forward development of basic education in quality improvement). It includes two implementation methods of network and non-network, namely.

5.1 Leapfrog Experiment Based on Network The web-based leapfrog experiment covers three sections of primary school, junior high school, and senior high school. First, the network leapfrog experiment provides smart learning environment, which has four characteristics, such as recording learning process, identifying learning situation, connecting learning community, and perceiving physics environment. The reason why smart Learning Environment (also known as Smart Classroom) has four characteristics is that two major technologies: Educational Data Mining (EDM) and Learning Analytics (LA) supported the experiment. In the smart classrooms, the use of EDM and LA technology can effectively help teachers carry out intelligent teaching including intelligent decision-making and intelligent implementation. For example, teachers can view number of questions

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students asked on the Internet, involvement in discussions, records of learning process by click of the mouse, etc.; based on this the teacher can guide student’s learning behavior and find most appropriate teaching methods and teaching strategies. It can also be used to track students’ learning activities. Smart classroom can also help the teacher make an objective and comprehensive, authentic assessment of students’ learning (i.e., intelligent evaluation), with complete information gained by data mining, and then through relevant closely logic reasoning, which can realize intelligent evaluation, thus can truly show, objectively, comprehensively, a student’s learning behavior and learning effect. The so-called smart education is exactly marked by the new teaching and learning methods, including intelligent decision, intelligent implementation, and intelligent evaluation, which are effectively carried out in the above-mentioned smart classroom.

5.2 Leapfrog Experiment Without Internet Access Our research team conducted non-network-based Leapfrog experiment mainly in the phase of the primary schools. In the developing schools or rural schools which are out of Internet access, we mainly conduct the leapfrog development innovation experiment of Mandarin Chinese and English, based on New theory of Child Thinking Development and Theory of Sense of Language. If this kind of experiment will have the support of network environment, the effect of our environment will be much better. But if only basic information technology teaching environment, it is possible to achieve leapfrog development goals. Therefore, non-network leapfrog experiment is suitable for the demand of the rural schools and less developed rural– urban schools, because it can effectively promote compulsory education with highquality and balanced improvement. After years of practice and exploration, we have gained rich experience and accumulated a lot of learning resources and teaching cases in the above two forms of leapfrog innovation experiments. In fact, we have laid a solid foundation for the implementation of Maker education with Chinese features based on the foundation and preparation. Our original leapfrog innovation experiment aims to train more and faster young people to be innovative talents with both integrity and talent. Obviously, this is completely consistent with the purpose and goal of Maker education with Chinese features. Of course, there are still many differences between the original two aspects of the experiment and Maker education with Chinese features in teaching contents, methods and specific teaching mode. In order to integrate them more quickly, the following five suggestions are put forward: Communicating with local education bureaus as soon as possible—to let them know our new ideas and approaches (with higher goals and brighter effects) for the construction of Maker Education in Pilot Zone with Chinese characteristics, so as to get strong support from the leadership and teaching and research office of local education bureaus.

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Carrying out teacher training on Maker education with Chinese features as soon as possible—to enable them to understand the essential differences between Chinese and Western Maker education, especially to understand basic concepts and implementation methods of Maker education with Chinese features. Establishing a Maker-space in schools where conditions permit—including the creation of physics Maker-space and online Maker-space. It also strongly advocates that even in the absence of Maker-space, it is necessary to make full use of open resources and local reusable components to actively carry out Maker activities and Maker education. Carrying out Maker education in all leapfrog experimental schools of urban and rural schools—to carry out Maker education with Chinese characteristics in physics Maker-space or schools with open resources and reusable components, in elementary school, junior high school, high school in all disciplines (natural science and arts and humanities and social sciences); at the same time (i.e., will be a Maker activities organically integrated into the daily teaching process) in schools that have not yet established a physics Maker-space with no open resources or reusable components, Maker education can be considered only in humanities and social sciences. Continue vigorously to do leapfrog experimental study Mandarin and English— Maker education with Chinese characteristics suggests that it is advisable to begin to merge with the existing education system from the primary school with Chinese features, in all sections (that is, Grade three or above), primary school in low segment (i.e., 1–2 grades) can temporarily not to integrate (or choose one of the individual the text for integration). In the lower elementary school years (first and second grades), the leapfrog experiment of Chinese and English is still the main focus, because the implementation of Maker activities requires certain knowledge and ability foundation, while the leapfrog experiment of Chinese and English in the lower elementary school and middle school years can lay a more solid foundation in this aspect. Especially for English learning, the whole primary school stage is a relatively key period for teenagers to learn and master the second language listening and speaking skills, the teaching mode of English should be still communication-centered throughout the primary school period (or even junior high school) rather than copying Western Maker activities. It is indicated that teaching concept, mode, and method of our leapfrog experiment, not only can effectively promote the quality of compulsory education with balanced development, but also can combine with the Maker education with Chinese characteristics, making Maker education as an integral part of the innovation education system of our country finally.

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6 Promoting Educational Fairness Through Maker Education with Chinese Features Making efforts to gradually integrate Maker activities with the teaching process, to achieve the goal of Maker education an integral part of the entire innovative education system in China, which is only one of the core contents of Maker education with Chinese features. In addition, there is another very important core content of Maker education with Chinese features, which is to promote educational equity. Some scholars in domestic academic circles have begun to pay attention to this problem. For example, Xianmin Yang and others pointed out at the beginning of 2015 that [1], China is still facing a severe educational equity problem. How to extend Maker education to remote and poor areas in central and western China? How can disadvantaged groups in society be equally involved? Will Makers education widen the digital gap? These are unavoidable questions in the development of Maker education. A clear answer should be given through careful study. I quite agree with this view. Of course, the current Maker education with Chinese features is still at the beginning stage; the principal concern of people from all walks of life education, academics and society, is in the construction of the physics Makerspace, and how to draw lessons from western directly Maker of the concept and implementation method to develop Maker education activities in our country as soon as possible, without time to consider deeper problems like fairness in education this kind of activity may bring. However, educational fairness is indeed a major issue that cannot be ignored or delayed. To this end, I would like to propose two related suggestions.

6.1 Pay Attention to the Fairness of the Preparatory Stage of Maker Education In the beginning of the construction of the physics Maker-space, when we choose regions and sites for pilot Maker education, we should consider economically developed areas in the east, as well as economically underdeveloped areas and poor areas in the central and western regions. There should be large cities, small and mediumsized cities and even towns. It should not only be conducive to attracting student participation from famous schools and central schools, but also consider how to attract and encourage active participation of students from ordinary schools, weak schools, and even rural schools.

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6.2 Pay Attention to the Fairness of the Specific Implementation Stage of Maker Education In the specific implementation phase of Maker education, when training majority teachers for Maker education, attention should be paid not only to the training of skill courses required for Maker activities, but also to the training of the concept of Maker education with Chinese features, through which the majority of teachers should realize three aspects that Maker education with Chinese features is to do: cultivating innovative talents, with innovative consciousness, innovative thinking and innovative ability; and putting innovative ideology, theory, method, and spirit of innovative design into actual spiritual product or material products (i.e., real work like written literature, music, the forming theory of painting and music works, or produce all kinds of patent products) of the creator. It is unlike western Maker education, which only cultivates Makers who can turn their ideas into physical works (i.e., material products). Manufacturing products must have the support of the physics Maker-space and spiritual product does not need to rely on any physics Maker-space (if every teenager with three aspects of required quality for innovative talents, they can create a variety of products spirit). In the vast number of teachers with this understanding, on the basis of this understanding combined with government departments’ efforts to actively advocate Maker education gradually fuse it into our current system of education of all types and at all levels and make efforts to become an integral part of the whole system of innovation education in China the premise condition, then the education administrative departments at all levels can definitely require every teacher to vigorously advocate, develop, and explore Maker education activities with Chinese features—consciously in different operating conditions, different family backgrounds, with different interests and ability among adolescent students,. If the above two suggestions can be earnestly implemented in different regions and different types of schools in China, then the problems concerned by scholars and many public figures, such as “How can Maker education be extended to remote and poor areas in the central and western regions,” “How can disadvantaged groups in society be equally involved,” “Will Maker activity widen the digital education gap,” can be easily solved. In other words, Maker education with Chinese characteristics, if following the right way to go to and implement the proposed scientific ideas this article expounds, the digital divide and the gap of urban and rural differences between east and west will not widen, on the contrary, it can effectively promote high-quality, balanced development of compulsory education in our country, so as to speed up to achieve the goals of education fairness. We wish the contemporaries of educational circles make joint efforts to this end!

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References 1. Yang, X., & Li, J. (2015, March, Bi-monthly). The value potential of maker education and its controversy. Modern Distance Education Research, 23–34 (杨现民, 李冀红. 创客教育的价值 潜能及其争议. 现代远程教育研究, 2015, (3 月, 双月刊): 23–34页). 2. Harel, I. E., & Papert, S. E. (1991). Constructionism. Ablex. 3. Halverson, E. R., & Sheridan, K. M. (2014). The maker movement in education. Harvard Educational Review, 84(4), 495–504. 4. Zhang Chunlan, & LI Ziyun. (2015). Deep learning design supported by Maker space. Modern Educational Technology, 1, 25–31 (张春兰, 李子运. 创客空间支持的深度学习设计. 现代教 育技术, 2015, (1), pp. 25–31). 5. Zheng Yanlin, & Li Luyi. (2014). Creation-based learning supported by technology—The connotation, characteristics and implementation path of maker education in primary and secondary schools in the United States. Open Education Research, 12, 42–49 (郑燕林, 李卢一. 技术支持 的基于创造的学习—美国中小学创客教育的内涵, 特征与实施路径. 开放教育研究, 2014, (12), pp. 42–49). 6. He Kekang. (2000). Creative thinking theory: DC model construction and demonstration. Beijing Normal University Press (何克抗. 创造性思维理论——DC 模型的建构与论证. 北京师范大 学出版社, 2000 年 11 月).

Chapter 10

Deep Learning in Maker Education with Chinese Characteristics

In the era of education informationization (EI) 2.0, people agree that the important symbol of the transformation of education concept and learning style is deep learning in general. There are various interpretations of deep learning in academic circles at home and abroad (Sect. 2 of this chapter is a detailed introduction to the contents), and I personally believe that its origin should come from Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. As a famous education theorist, Bloom suggested to classify teaching objectives into three categories: cognition, emotion, and motor skills. Among them, cognition is further subdivided into six sub-classes as remember, understand, apply, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. In 2001, Bloom’s disciples Anderson and Krathwohl revised the six sub-classes of cognition, deleting synthesis, adding creating, and in accordance with people’s level of cognitive ability adjusted into remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating. Among them, the remembering and understanding of knowledge belong to the preliminary shallow level of cognition, while the other four levels (applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating) belong to higher level of deep cognition. The so-called deep learning aims to achieve the goal of cultivating these advanced deep cognitive abilities (especially creative ability) through new ideas, ways, and necessary tools, resources, and means. Maker education must be done through deep learning to make it likely that Maker can develop their own ideas into real product. Through deep learning, Maker can really cultivate and develop advanced deep cognitive ability, with this ability, Maker is likely to convert their own creativity through various technical means to entities, so as to achieve the goal of Maker education; conversely, deep learning (especially analyzing, evaluating and creating) can only be carried out, in the most comprehensive and in-depth way, in maker activities. It is precisely because deep learning and Maker education are so interdependent and closely related that deep learning and Maker education have become increasingly integrated and become a beautiful landscape and encouraging objective reality © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 K. He, Innovative Education Informatization with Chinese Characteristics, Bridging Human and Machine: Future Education with Intelligence, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0622-0_10

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in the current field of educational informationization. In the information 2.0 era, this objective reality naturally causes deep learning to become the focus of global education (both developed and developing countries).

1 Knowing Deep Learning Research: History, Present Situation, and Connotation 1.1 The Origins of the Study of Deep Learning As the Internet has increasingly penetrated into every aspect of human life and work, it has not only brought about great changes in our way of life and work, but also brought about fundamental changes in our way of education and learning. In recent years, the rise and popularity of deep learning are an example. As early as in the 1970s (around 1976), American scholars Marton and Saljo proposed the concept of deep learning for the first time based on the research of the results of college students’ text reading learning, and compared it with “shallow learning” [1, 2]. Professor Li and his colleagues took lead in discussing the concept of deep learning in China. In their relevant articles published in 2005, they systematically summarized and elaborated the basic concepts, main features of deep learning and relevant teaching strategies on how to promote deep learning [3]. Although the research on deep learning started early, it is regrettable that both at home and abroad failed to have a great impact on the academia at that time, only minority scholars in the academic circle responded, without the widespread participation of teachers and students. It was not until 2010 that the situation fundamentally changed. As we all know, due to infinite abundance and easy accessibility of learning resources as well as multiple interactive interaction (the human–computer interaction, teacher-student interaction, student–student interaction), the Internet can fully mobilize the learner’s initiative, enthusiasm, and creativity, triggering a series of major reform in “teaching and learning” methods or teaching mode in the field of education. Deep learning, as a symbol of the reform of new educational concept and learning mode, has once again attracted the widespread attention of academic circles and even the broad masses under this objective social background. In recent years, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation in the United States was the first academic institution to attach importance to the study of deep learning, which was launched in 2010. Study of Deeper Learning (SDL): Opportunities and Outcomes—project conducted by the American Institutes for Research is internationally representative in both theoretical exploration and practical innovation—there are more than 500 schools participating in this deep learning experimental research project successively, and a network of deep learning communities has formed. The objective of this three-year research (2011–2014) is to investigate and analyze the

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six strategies and methods for cultivating students’ deep learning ability in the experimental schools and effects brought by these strategies and methods. A comparative study was conducted by comparing 19 high schools participating in the experiment with 11 non-participating schools (i.e., as a control group) [4].

1.2 Discussion on the Connotation of Deep Learning in Academic Circles at Home and Abroad With the increasing popularity of deep learning in recent years, scholars have gradually increased their discussions on what deep learning is, and their conclusions are also diverse and inconsistent. Such as: In early studies, most scholars thought that deep learning was a new way of learning compared to the shallow learning. The academic, Biggs [5], argued that deep learning contains high levels or active cognitive processing, and the corresponding shallow learning adopts low-level cognitive processing (such as, simple memory or mechanical memory). Scholars such as Beattie and Collins stressed that deep learning means that students learn to understand, mainly in critical understanding of learning contents, attaching importance to the connection of foregoing knowledge and experience, and focusing on logical relationship and evidence of the conclusion. The domestic scholar Jiahou Li and others considered that deep learning means that on the basis of understanding learning, learners can learn new ideas and facts critically, and integrate them into the original cognitive structure, connect many thoughts, and move the existing knowledge to the new situation to make decisions and (carry out) solve the problem [3]. Zhiyong Zhang and Guoqing Li underscore that deep learning is a learning method with the purpose of improving learning ability, practical ability, and innovative ability, and the learners are able to establish organic contact between new and old knowledge on the basis of understanding knowledge, and be able to flexibly use the knowledge creatively to solve actual problem. The scholars such as Hongna Jing, Lin Chen, and Xueping Zhao took deep learning as a learning method that pays special attention to critical thinking, and compare deep learning with shallow learning from their main features. In addition to discussing the connotation of deep learning mainly from perspective of learning style, some scholars in the academic world also try to define the connotation of deep learning from the other two perspectives: learning process and learning result [4]. The US National Research Council Panel (NRC) defines deep learning as: the process in which an individual applies learned knowledge from one situation to another, that is, transfer [9]. This is a representative viewpoint defined from the perspective of learning process. William and Flora Hewlett foundation from America in the process of implementation in the project SDL (deep learning research), on the basis of literature research and solicit opinions from experts, gave deep learning the following definition: deep

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learning is a necessary ability for students to be competent for work and civil life in the twenty-first century—the ability to make students grasp and understand the discipline knowledge flexibly and apply the knowledge to solve the problems in the classroom and in the future work, mainly including mastery of core discipline knowledge, critical thinking and complex problem-solving, teamwork, effective communication, learning to learn, learning persistence of six kinds of basic skills [6]. This is a representative viewpoint to define deep learning from the perspective of which abilities should be mastered by students as a result of learning. There are other examples of defining the connotation of deep learning from the perspective of learning process and learning outcome, which I will not list here. All the above statements on the connotation of deep learning (both international and domestic) have their own specific reasons and are scientific and reasonable to some extent. However, due to different perspectives, they may not always grasp the essence and key of the problem, so it is hard to be completely convincing. In my opinion, if we want to explain the exact connotation of deep learning in essence, we should start from the theoretical foundation of deep learning. This cannot be done without starting from Bloom’s taxonomy of teaching objectives. Next, I would like to discuss my personal views from the perspective of scientific connotation and basic characteristics of deep learning.

2 Clarifying the Connotation and Basic Characteristics of Deep Learning 2.1 Connotation of Deep Learning It is well known that taxonomy of educational objectives of Bloom divides teaching goal into three categories: cognition, emotion, and motor skills. Among them, the cognitive class is further subdivided into six sub-classes, and Anderson and Krathwohl made further revisions to the cognitive level, and in accordance with people’s level of cognitive ability adjusted into remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating. Among them, remembering and understanding of knowledge is a preliminary shallow cognition, and the other four stages (applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating) belong to higher levels of deep cognition. Deep learning utilizes new concepts, methods, and necessary tools, resources, means to achieve the training objective of these advanced deep cognitive abilities, so that the majority of young people can remember and understand the necessary basic knowledge of various disciplines through deep learning, and also have the ability to apply, analyze, evaluate these basic knowledge, and create new knowledge and new products (both material and mental products), which is based on the essence and precise connotation of deep learning derived from the theory of Bloom.

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Because this connotation emphasizes completely new ideas, methods, and necessary tools, resources, and means, this connotation not only involves the fundamental changes of education concept and learning mode, but also involves the factors of learning process and learning results. It is clear that the academic circles at home and abroad have been only a certain perspective or factor (which is mainly from the “learning style” element) to study or consider the attitudes and practices of connotation of deep learning, which is obviously biased.

2.2 Basic Features of Deep Learning After having a scientific and correct understanding of the essence and connotation of deep learning, it is not difficult to grasp its basic characteristics. In this respect, I generally agree with scholars Chunlan Zhang and Ziyun Li [10], believing that deep learning has three basic features. However, I have made some modifications and additions to the meaning and specific description of each feature. The results are as follow:

2.2.1

Helps to Produce Higher-Order Thinking and Deep Cognitive Ability

Knowledge is a dynamic construction, in the process of knowledge transmission, learners with different experience, having different interpretations on the same contents, so learners should view learning resources from a critical perspective, not satisfied with the literal understanding of knowledge and mechanical memory, but to try to understand and construct the meaning of knowledge, to master its connotation and nature; in particular to establish a non-arbitrary and substantive connection between the new and old concepts, and new and old knowledge, in order to continuously improve their own cognitive structure. At the same time, deep learning is always accompanied by critical awareness and serious thinking, so it is conducive to the formation and development of higher-order thinking and deep cognitive ability.

2.2.2

Often Adopts a Variety of Teaching and Learning Methods and Strategies

In order to achieve the goal of deep learning, not only teachers should adopt new effective teaching modes and strategies; students should adopt a variety of ways and strategy consciously, including all kinds of autonomous learning, autonomous exploration, group collaboration and communication, and the combination of online and offline “blended learning” and so on, in order to comprehensively collect and fully use the existing high-quality learning tools and resources, and through team

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cooperation to achieve new wisdom through multi-channel, interdisciplinary group work.

2.2.3

Develops Students’ Problem-Solving and Innovation Abilities by Emphasizing Embodied Cognition

Based on acquiring a deep understanding of the knowledge itself, try to transfer them to different situations to solve practical problems and gradually form innovation ability. For this reason, deep learning lays special emphasis on the guidance of embodied cognition theory, requiring learners to practice, feel, experience, and explore in the process of learning, and also improve the cognitive structure, and cultivate and develop their ability to solve practical problems in the personal practice of the interaction between knowledge and practice. In this process, learners must still find some new problems, and even the innovative points, to gradually form the innovation ability.

3 The Measures of Promoting Deep Learning in the Process of Implementing Maker Education In order to carry out deep learning effectively and deeply, the following four factors and relevant measures should be carefully considered during the implementation of Maker education with Chinese characteristics.

3.1 Developing Scientific and Correct Educational Thoughts and Teaching Concepts As mentioned above, deep learning aims to achieve the goal of cultivating advanced deep cognitive ability (especially creative ability) through brand-new educational concepts and learning methods. The new educational concept mentioned here is that teachers should have scientific and correct educational thoughts and teaching concepts. What should be the educational idea for the effective implement of deep learning? Because the goal of deep learning is to cultivate students with advanced deep cognitive abilities (especially creative ability), students’ initiative, enthusiasm, and creativity must be fully mobilized in the learning process. This will be achieved by relying on the ideal teaching environment of the teacher using appropriate teaching method and strategy. In other words, in the process of implementing deep learning, we should not only highlight the dominant position of students in the cognitive process, but also give full play to the leading role of teachers in the teaching process,

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which shows that the education idea guiding teachers to effectively implement deep learning is neither student-centered, nor is it teacher-centered, but the initiative of both students and teachers which combine both teacher-dominant and students-centered (similar as Blended learning that has been popular in recent years in the world). What is the teaching concept of effectively implementing deep learning? Teaching concept is the highest level of abstraction and generalization of how to teach and learn, so all teaching methods, learning methods, various teaching modes, strategies, and methods belong to the lower concept of teaching concept. The teaching concept and the educational thought are in the same line, there must be the teaching idea which adapts to the educational thought. And vice versa. For example, if we insist on teacher-centered educational thought, we must emphasize the transmission-acceptance teaching concept. If we insist on the idea of student-centered education, we must emphasize the concept of independent-inquiry teaching. Under the guidance of the educational thought of teacher-dominant and studentscentered (that is, the symbol of B-Learning education thought of hybrid), the teaching concept—“the combination of meaningful transmission and guided inquiry” is a brand-new concept formed by taking the advantages of both transmission-acceptance and independent-exploration, which is not a simple combination or superposition of the above two teaching concepts, but a new teaching concept formed and developed under the guidance of Ausubel’s theory of meaningful transmission and acceptance, which absorbs the advantages of the above two teaching concepts while discarding the disadvantages of the two.

3.2 Advocate Effective New Teaching Mode Vigorously In order to enable students to achieve the goal of high level of cognitive ability (especially creative ability) through deep learning, every teacher should establish not only scientific and correct educational thoughts and teaching concepts, but also be able to use the teaching mode that can effectively realize deep learning of the subject. In fact, the reason why current flipped classroom is popular all over the world and warmly welcomed by the majority of teachers is precisely because it is the most suitable teaching mode to realize the deep learning of various subjects. Flipped classroom means that the traditional teaching habit and mode of listening to the teacher in class and doing homework at home after class have been reversed or flipped into watching the teacher’s video explanation at home before class, doing homework (doing experiments), or using the knowledge learned in class to solve practical problems under guidance of the teacher. As Intel global education director, Brian Gonzalez in the 2011 annual meeting of the annual Intel one-to-one digital learning report puts it: flipped classroom refers to the educators to give students more freedom, the process of imparting knowledge (shallow cognition) falls outside the classroom, students choose the most suitable way to accept the new knowledge, and knowledge internalization (deep cognition)

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in the process of the classroom, so that there are more communication and exchange between students-students and teachers-students. According to Goncharides, it can be described as in one word—flipped classroom is very conducive to the development of higher level of cognitive ability because it puts the process of shallow cognitive knowledge teaching outside the classroom and puts the process of knowledge internalization in the class for the convenience of communication between teachers and students. This is what deep learning is all about. Teaching mode suitable for deep learning, not only this flipped class in the West, Chinese has its own creation—leapfrog teaching mode, and after experiments of nearly 600 various types of primary and secondary schools (including various students profiles and school conditions (excellent, good, medium) with different types of urban and rural schools, more than 20 years of teaching practice, prove that leapfrog teaching mode, and in various disciplines of primary and secondary schools teaching in China achieved respectable effect of deep learning, and in some areas of primary and secondary schools in China at present, some teachers have called leapfrog teaching, Chinese-style flipped classroom.

3.3 Encouraging Establishment of New Learning Communities Deep learning advocates establishment of a learning community on the basis of equality, mutual benefit, and openness, and sharing of resources and common learning. Support deep learning of learning community in the past only among the students to form a different study group, new learning community can keep students and teacher in touch, keep students and experts in touch, as well as keep students and their parents in touch, and the learning community members not only in class, but also outside the classroom. Scholars Wenfan Yan and Na Li pointed out, among the new learning community that support deep learning, not only the composition of the members is different from the original study group, and the role of the members and activities, also differ from the past study group (or the original learning community), the difference is mainly manifested in two aspects [11].

3.3.1

Teachers Study with Students as a Member of the Community

In the new learning community, the teacher is no longer a mentor, but as a member of the community to learn together with students. It can observe the learning process of students from the perspective of students and know whether the teaching strategies and methods implemented can achieve the expected goals in time. It can also make full use of various digital tools to immediately encourage and help students when they

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are faced with confusion and challenges, and provide high-quality rapid feedback, to improve students’ ability of independent learning and independent inquiry and the ability to use new knowledge to solve practical problems.

3.3.2

Students Report Learning to Members and Jointly Determine the Goals and Ability Standards

In the new learning community, students no longer simply understand knowledge, reproduce knowledge, but on the basis of establishing a learning community relationship with teachers, peers, or other members, timely feedback on the personal learning process to teachers and peers, and discuss and determine the learning goals and ability standards that should be achieved. In this process, each student can continuously use digital learning tools and resources to explore new contents, new concepts, new information, or new ideas, use these tools and resources to create new knowledge, and work with peers and experts to use new knowledge to solve real-world problems. In short, in such a new learning community, every student has the opportunity and possibility to cultivate and develop the attitude, tendency, and practical ability to create new knowledge (or new products).

3.4 Striving to Create an Smart Learning Environment In order to carry out deep learning effectively, it also needs the support of smart learning environment and advanced learning tools. In order to achieve the purpose of training deep cognition ability, a general digital teaching environment and the Internet learning tools and learning resources are not enough, there must be a virtual reality and augmented reality (VR & AR) technology and related learning tools and resources to support—this will be involved in smart learning environment, because only this kind of learning environment can provide both general digital learning tools and resources, and can provide with functions of virtual reality and augmented reality of learning tools and resources. Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) are two different but closely related technology: AR is a digital information such as image, video, audio go into real space. The purpose is to mix objective reality and virtual environment; the user can interact with a physical entity, or digital objects, thus brings new feelings, experiences, and opportunities to learners. VR is a computer-generated real environment that simulates the existence of people and objects. It can make people have an immense sense of reality—they can perceive the real world in virtual environment and explore it just like they do in the real world. Both of these two immense technologies can enable students to gain a more comprehensive and real understanding of the real world, thus forming a deep cognitive ability. As mentioned above, Bloom’s disciples Anderson and Krathwohl revised the six cognitive sub-levels of Bloom’s cognitive teaching objective in 2001, changing it

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according to the level of people’s cognitive ability as remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating. Among them, remembering and understanding belong to the preliminary shallow cognitive ability, while the latter several levels (especially the three levels of analysis, evaluation, and creation) belong to advanced deep cognitive ability (namely the cognitive ability required by deep learning). The cultivation and development of these abilities all depend on the support of VR or AR technology. In other words, the cultivation of advanced deep cognitive abilities is closely related to these two technologies, such as:

3.4.1

Cognitive Level of Analysis and VR Technology

As is known to all, for the analysis of various chemical phenomena and chemical reactions (especially those involving rapid reactions, rapid changes, fleeting moments, or situations with explosion or poisoning risks), chemical experiments with virtual simulation must be adopted. Genetic phenomena and related laws in biology are also difficult to observe and analyze directly and are inseparable from virtual simulation experiments (otherwise, it will take as long as several years to observe). This is especially true of biological anatomy in medicine (real animal anatomy would lose many precious animal lives). VR technology is indispensable for the analysis of phenomena, concepts, principles, and laws in visible chemistry, medicine, and biology.

3.4.2

Cognitive Level of Evaluation and VR Technology

Evaluation is the basis for judging and making decisions on things. Timely and correct evaluation of students’ learning status in the teaching process is the basis and prerequisite for implementing individualized and adaptive teaching. According to the current affect computing in the field of virtual reality technology and design and construction, virtual teachers can make correct evaluation, according to student’s facial expression, tone, and gestures, learning attitude toward students (like or dislike, positive or negative, attention or it does not matter) and the learning effect (achieve the goal of learning on the levels of excellent, good, or medium, bad), to take timely corresponding methods and strategies to give help and guidance. Some virtual teachers can also become intimate friends of students with certain psychological disorders (such as autistic students), and improve their communication awareness and collaborative exploration ability in a relatively short time. With the development of affect computing technology of artificial intelligence, VR technology is increasingly indispensable for the real-time and correct evaluation of each student in current teaching of various disciplines.

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Cognitive Level of Creation and VR Technology

As mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, Maker education activity is one of the educational activities most closely related to deep learning. As is known to all, special emphasis is placed on embodied cognition in Maker education activities, as mentioned before, embodied cognition is one of the three major characteristics of deep learning. Embodied cognitive theory stressed that cognition is the result of the interaction between individuals and environment, requires practice subject be directly involved in the actual physical space (this is the premise condition of cognitive structure emergence and change, which is the basis for the formation and development of creativity). It is difficult to touch the essence of things in a purely speculative process divorced from physical practice, so the development of creativity cannot be achieved without practice. Therefore, in Maker space, all activities are carried out in the way of Makers personal participation—individuals directly participate in discussion and production, Do it Your Self —DIY, and learn through experience. VR and AR, on the other hand, create favorable conditions and provide various possibilities for learners to comprehensively and deeply feel and experience various objective real situations (including situations that are usually difficult to see, hear, or feel or experience). The above analysis shows that in order to make students get real advanced deep cognitive ability, smart learning environment and the effective support of advanced learning tools are necessary; therefore, we should make efforts to create smart learning environment; at the same time, also managed to renovate the country as soon as possible the existing digital classroom and the digital campus gradually transform into smart classroom and intelligent campus.

4 How Does Deep Learning Embody Innovative Education Ideas and Learning Methods As mentioned above, the connotation of deep learning itself has some unique advantages, cannot be replaced with Maker education with Chinese characteristics in the process of implementation to carry out the deep learning and take four steps, makes the features and advantages of deep learning can get fully reflect and play more, so that the age of the Internet deep learning really can reflect the education concept of innovation and innovative approach to learning, can truly lead the global in the field of education. The leading role embodies in the following six aspects:

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4.1 Follow the Scientific Correct Idea of Education The education thought that can correctly guide the effective implementation of deep learning is neither our traditional teacher-centered, fully dominated by teachers in classroom education thought, nor is it a radical constructionism advocated by the west, the one-sided emphasis on student-centered, completely exclude the education thoughts of teachers’ leading role; it is the teacher-dominated and student-centered combination educational thought (that is, the mixed educational thought marked by B-learning) that should not only highlight the cognitive subject status of students in the learning process, but also give full play to the leading role of teachers in the teaching process.

4.2 Adhering to the Innovative Concept of Teaching Under the guidance of combination of teacher-dominated-and-student-centered educational ideology, in order to be truly effective implementation of the deep learning, still need to adhere to the innovative concept of teaching that is neither the delivery-acceptance type of teaching idea under the guidance of teacher-centered education thought, nor is it the autonomous-inquiry teaching idea under the guidance of student-centered education thought. It is under the guidance of Ausubel’s theory of meaningful delivery-acceptance, which takes the advantages of both deliveryacceptance and autonomy-inquiry, and rejects the disadvantages of both, and forms an innovative teaching concept, which is usually called the combination of meaningful transmission-guided inquiry.

4.3 Advocating New Teaching Mode As mentioned above, the teaching mode that can effectively implement deep learning and be operable and extensible, is flipped classroom or leapfrog teaching mode (also known as Chinese flipped classroom). The common reason why flipped classroom or leapfrog teaching can be used to effectively implement deep learning is that they can realize the fundamental change of classroom teaching structure. In other words, the restructuring of classroom teaching structure is an effective way and method to achieve the goal of deep learning. But the change of classroom teaching structure is not abstract and empty, it is embodied in the change of the status and function of the four elements of classroom teaching system (namely, teacher, student, teaching content, and teaching media). That is: Teachers’ role should be transformed from the master of classroom teaching and the indoctrinator of knowledge into organizer and director of classroom teaching,

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the helpers and promoters of students’ construction of meaning, the cultivators of students’ good sentiment, and the developers and providers of teaching resources. From the object of knowledge infusion and the passive receiver of external stimulus, students should be transformed into information processor, the active constructor of knowledge meaning, the subject of knowledge internalization, as well as emotion experiencer and emotion internalizer. Teaching content should be changed from just relying on a textbook to textbooks, with abundant information-based teaching resources (such as subject project website, resource base, case base, CD,) to cooperate. Teaching media should be transformed from a visualized teaching tool that only helps teachers break through the key and difficult points into a tool that not only assists teachers in teaching, but also promotes students’ independent learning— a tool of cognition, cooperation and communication, emotional experience, and internalization.

4.4 Extending the Connotation of Learning Community and Encouraging General Construction of the New Online Learning Community Compared with the original learning group or learning groups, the learning community supporting deep learning not only has an expansion in the composition of personnel, from students-and-students, teacher-and-students, to students-and-outside experts and students-and-parents, but also the activities carried out by community members and the role played by each member are different from the original learning group or learning groups. Moreover, activities carried out by members of the community and the roles played by each member are different from the original study group (or learning group).

4.5 Working Hard at Creative Thinking Theory and Mastering and Using It—this Will Give You the Ability to Be Creative After the theme of creation is determined, how to form inspiration or insight and achieve creative breakthrough as soon as possible, so as to produce spiritual products or material products with innovative significance and value, which depends on everyone’s talent, but also on everyone’s life experience and knowledge accumulation. Different creative themes require different kinds of knowledge and experience. However, there is one kind of knowledge and experience that is necessary and indispensable for any creative activity and solving any creative theme. That is the knowledge and experience about how to master and apply creative thinking theory.

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4.6 By Combining Maker Education with the New Generation of Deep Learning Because in a Maker activity, a few latter levels of Bloom’s cognitive goals (especially the three levels of analysis, evaluation, creation) can be the most comprehensive and in-depth implemented. This is the requirement of deep learning, also suggests that the embodiment of the most effective deep learning can get the best in Maker education. And Maker education is likely to achieve its expected creative goals through deep learning—through deep learning, students can cultivate and develop advanced deep cognitive ability, and be likely to convert their own creativity through various technical means to all kinds of material or spiritual entities that is the ultimate goal of creating Maker education. It is precisely because deep learning and Maker education so depend on each other, so both are closely related, so deep learning and Maker education have been growing together, becoming a beautiful scenery line in the field of the current education informationization, and encouraging the objective reality, at the same time also spawned a new generation (namely the education informationization 2.0 times), new deep learning can lead the world from these six aspects in the education.

5 To Achieve the Highest Goal of Deep Learning-The Cultivation of Creative Ability As mentioned above, Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives divides teaching goals into three categories: cognition, emotion, and action skill. Cognition is further divided into six sub-classes, that is, knowledge, understand, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. In 2001, Bloom’s followers Anderson and Krathwohl further revised the six sub-classes: deleting comprehensive, and adding creation, and in accordance with people’s level of cognitive ability, the level is adjusted from low to high—remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating. Among them, remembering and understanding belong to the preliminary shallow cognition, while the latter four (application, analysis, evaluation, and creation) belong to higher deep cognition. And to achieve the training objectives advanced deep cognitive ability through deep learning with new concept and method, and the necessary tools, resources, and means (especially ability to create), so that the youth not only can, through deep learning, remember, understand the necessary basic knowledge of various disciplines, but also can have application, analysis, and evaluation of these basic knowledge, and create new knowledge and new products (both material and spiritual work)—this is derived, based on the theory of Bloom taxonomy, the essence of deep learning with specific connotations. So, how can we achieve the goal of cultivating advanced deep cognitive abilities (especially the ability to create) more effectively? Two key points should be grasped

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here: first, we should stick to in-depth practice; second, to study creative thinking theory more deeply and be able to master and use this theory well.

5.1 Sticking to Down-To-Earth Practice Be down-to-earth offer you the courage to create. If you have the courage to create, correctly distinguish valuable human intellectual heritage from the dregs or the outmoded is the first thing to do. Correct attitude of learning is needed. In other words, the correct attitude to learn is the prerequisite to which direction to create, that is, to determine the theme of creation. The reason why emphasis on a correct attitude toward learning is that it is often easy to have a wrong attitude toward the knowledge heritage of predecessors, which is either extreme left or extreme right. The so-called extreme left means to completely deny that all of them are old-fashioned and useless even if they are not dross. The so-called extreme right is all the inheritance, think that all classics, a little beyond doubt, must be worshipped. To be neither to the left nor to the right is by no means a simple matter, and it cannot be settled by good intentions; only with rich practical experience can one have profound insights and make accurate judgments. Where does a wealth of practical experience and insight come from? It can be achieved only through long-term in-depth practical experimental research and exploration. This insight from practice is what makes you truly dare to create. A scholar who is divorced from reality and lacks such confidence will never have an original idea of his own. His judgment on important academic issues is either a closed-door view or a blind copy of authority. In fact, in the field of education informationization, we are able to grasp more accurately the direction of the innovation and still stick to the creation of the theme, even though most people are against, or even reverse the trend toward (such as a new way of thinking about education equity theory, and the combination of new concept of teacher-dominated and student-centered and deep integration of information technology and curriculum), because we actually have consistently adhered to teaching experimental study for more than 20 years, long-term involved in elementary and middle schools of information technology and curriculum integration, with the primary and secondary school teachers exploring for a long time together; therefore, I have a deeper understanding of basic education (including rural basic education) and have gained rich practical experience in this field. In a word, it is our consistent adherence to the practical style of work over the past 20 years that has given us the courage to create enough confidence.

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5.2 Working at Creative Thinking Theory and Using It—this Gives You Creative Ability After the theme of creation is determined, how to form inspiration or insight and achieve creative breakthrough as soon as possible, so as to produce spiritual products or material products with innovative significance and value, which depends on everyone’s talent, but also on everyone’s life experience and knowledge accumulation. Different creative themes require different kinds of knowledge and experience. However, there is one kind of knowledge and experience that is necessary and indispensable for any creative activity and solving any creative theme. That is the knowledge and experience about how to master and apply creative thinking theory. In order to better master and apply creative thinking theory, we must study creative thinking theory carefully with the following practical problems and try to make clear of these practical problems thoroughly. These problems involve the following seven aspects: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

6.

7.

Why is it that the basis of carrying out creative activities is creative thinking? What are the misunderstandings of creative thinking in the current education circle (or even the entire academic circle)? How to scientifically understand the essence, connotation, and constituent elements of creative thinking? Do you know the exact meaning of conscious, implicit conscious, and subconscious? Can you shed light on the mystery of inspiration and insight by elaborating on the formation of creative thinking through the interaction between the conscious and subconscious mind? After studying the theory of creative thinking, what do you think of the scholars who believe that creative thinking can only be born and not cultivated? If you think it can be cultivated, how should it be cultivated (in particular, how should it be cultivated in combination with the teaching of different subjects)? What is the important significance and function of modern educational technology for the cultivation of creative thinking?

There are all sorts of misconceptions about the second question. For example, the subject and core of creative thinking is divergent thinking; one-sided emphasis on logical thinking and belittling imagery thinking, and intuitive thinking, thinking that only the former can rise from sensibility to rationality, can see through the phenomenon to the essence, while the latter can only stay in the perceptual cognition stage. We fail to realize that it is the combined action of logical thinking, imagery thinking, and intuitive thinking that form the subject and core of creative thinking, which are interrelated, interacted, and inseparable. Inspiration and insight are formed by the combined action of logical thinking, imagery thinking, and intuitive thinking, not by only one kind of thinking, let alone by divergent thinking, etc. If you have clarified the above seven aspects of practical problems and can have deeper understanding and elaboration, it shows that you have really been able to

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master and use the creative thinking theory, it is also possible to make you really have the ability of creating.

References 1. Marton, F., & Saljo, R. (1976). On qualitative differences in learning—I: Outcome and process. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 46(1), 4–11. 2. Marton, F., & Saljo, R. (1976). On qualitative differences in learning—II: Outcome as a function of the learner’s conception of the task. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 46(2), 115–127. 3. He, L., & Li, J. (2005). Promote students’ deep learning. Modern Teaching (5), 29–30 (何玲, 黎加厚. 促进学生深度学习. 现代教学 (5), 29–30). 4. Bu, C., Feng, X., & Zhang, B. (2016). Concept, strategy, effect and enlightenment of deep learning—Beauty interpretation and analysis of national deep learning project (SDL). Journal of Distance Education (5), 75–82 (卜彩丽, 冯晓晓, 张宝辉. 深度学习的概念、 策略、效果 及其启示—美国深度学习项目 (SDL) 的解读与分析。远程教育杂志 (5), 75–82). 5. Biggs, J. B. (1979). Individual differences in the study process and the quality of learning outcomes. Higher Education (8), 381–394. 6. Beattie, V., Collins, B., & Mc Innes, B. (1997). Deep and surface learning: A simple or simplistic dichotomy? Accounting Education (6), 1–12. 7. Zhang, Z., & Li, G. (2013). Learning evaluation: An effective way of deep learning. Modern Distance Education (1), 31–37 (张治勇, 李国庆. 学习性评价: 深度学习的有效路. 现代远 距离教育 (1), 31–37). 8. Jing, H., Chen, L., & Zhao, X. (2011). Research on deep learning based on Moodle. Journal of Distance Education, 6, 27–33 (景红娜、陈琳、赵雪萍. 基于Moodle的深层学习研究. 远 程教育杂志 (6), 27–33). 9. National Research Council Panel. (2012). Education for life and work: Developing transferable knowledge and skills in the 21st century. National Academy Press. 10. Zhang, C., & LI, Z. (2015). Deep learning design supported by Maker-space. Modern Educational Technology (1), 25–31 (张春兰, 李子运. 创客空间支持的深度学习设计。现代教育 技术 (1), 25–31). 11. Yan, W., & Li, N. (2016). Teaching Innovation and deep learning in the Internet Age—Experience and Enlightenment from the United States. Journal of Distance Learning (2), 26–31 (严 文蕃, 李娜. 互联网时代的教学创新与深度学习——美国的经验与启示。远程教育杂志 ( 第2期), 26–31). 12. He, K. (2000). Creative thinking theory: DC model construction and demonstration. Beijing Normal University Press (何克抗, 创造性思维理论——DC模型的建构与论证, 北京师范 大学出版社, 2000年11 月).

Part III

Innovative Education Informationization—A Teaching Model: Chinese-Style Flipped Classroom

In the teaching of various subjects in primary and secondary schools, a new teaching mode—Chinese Flipped Classroom, which can fully reflect the theoretical characteristics and advantages of Innovative Education Informationization with Chinese features—is widely implemented.

Chapter 11

Causes for Wide Implementation of Chinese-Style Flipped Classroom

As mentioned in the introduction, the ambitious goal for innovative education in an information-based society with Chinese characteristic is to cultivate large quantity of the innovative teenagers in our country, not minority of college students with innovative consciousness, innovative thinking (i.e., creative thinking), and innovation ability. They may be the talents building a beautiful Chinese dream (that is, to realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation) and making actual contributions. Therefore, this goal cannot be achieved in a short time or through one- or two-years’ project nor can it be done by adding certain courses, but it should be closely combined with the target and implementation of the current education system in our country (especially primary and secondary school education system), and even deeply integrated. In the first part of the book, we point out that the implementation of innovative education has become an important goal of the information society with Chinese characteristics. Only under the guidance of information technology, can we achieve this goal by effectively integrating the six supporting theories (real deep integration) into the teaching process of various disciplines in primary and secondary schools. This suggests that in the process of carrying out and implementing the innovative education informationization with Chinese characteristics (i.e., the process of implementing the grand goal), innovative, and effective discipline teaching mode must be used, which could really realize the deep integration of information technology and the discipline teaching and fully embody the characteristics and advantages of innovative education informationization theory with Chinese characteristics. This is our original intention and starting point of emphasizing the extensive implementation of flipped classroom teaching mode. In fact, in recent years, the flipped class is popular in the world, and even welcomed by the majority of teachers (especially the primary and secondary school teachers), as described in the introduction part. This is because flipped classrooms turn over the traditional teaching mode (or reverse the mode). Before class, students initially accept new teaching contents and understand such shallow cognition by watching short teaching videos independently online. However, such deep cognition as doing © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 K. He, Innovative Education Informatization with Chinese Characteristics, Bridging Human and Machine: Future Education with Intelligence, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0622-0_11

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homework, doing experiments, analyzing, solving, and exploring special problems is carried out under the guidance of teachers in class. In this way, it is obviously more in line with students’ cognitive rules and also very beneficial to deep integration of information technology and teaching of various subjects. Therefore, in order to integrate with the existing education system, especially make information technology fuse with the process of teaching with various subjects, it is necessary to adopt flipped class teaching model in the process of carrying out and implementing the grand goal of innovative education informationization with Chinese characteristics. It is possible to fully embody such innovative education for an information-based society with Chinese features and advantages. Although western flipped classroom has many advantages, we cannot copy or adopt it directly. This is because later we will see that it also has some limitations and defects (even quite serious defects). While Chinese-style flipped classroom has advantages of the western flipped classroom, it can avoid or abandon all its limitations and defects. This is the fundamental reason why we strive to advocate and widely implement Chinese-style flipped classroom in the process of carrying out and implementing innovative education informationization with Chinese characteristics. As for the origin and development of Chinese-style flipped classroom, the essential features it shares with the western flipped classrooms and their main differences, as well as specific implementation steps and methods, please refer to Part III of the book (Chapters 11–13) for details.

1 Origin and Growth of Western Flipped Classroom 1.1 Origin and Development of the Western Flipped Classroom In recent years, flipped classroom has become a hot topic in the global educational circles. In 2011, it was rated as an important technological change influencing classroom teaching by The Globe Mail of Canada. Jon Bergmann and Aaron Sams, two chemistry teachers, at Rocky Mountain Park High School in Colorado, developed flipped classroom. Around 2007, they were troubled by the fact that some students could not come to class, some because of illness, and some because the school was so far away from home that it spend too much time on the school bus. This led to some students being absent and unable to keep up with the teaching progress. In order to solve this problem, they used screen recording software to record PPT presentations with real-time audio of teachers’ explanations and uploaded them to the Internet (for students to download or play) to help absent students make up for the missed lessons. These online short teaching videos were also accepted by other students who did not need to make up for the lessons. After a period, the two teachers gradually set aside time in class based on students watching short videos and listening to explanations at home to provide help for students who had difficulties in completing homework or doing experiments. In this way, the traditional teaching habit and mode of listening

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to the teacher’s explanation in class and going home to do homework after class had been reversed or flipped. It became listening to the teacher’s short video explanations at home before class and doing homework (or experiments) under the guidance of the teacher in class. During the implementation of the new teaching mode, the above-mentioned online short teaching videos were also accepted by other students (who were not absent from class) and spread in a wider range (since many students downloaded the short teaching videos from 18:00 to 22:00 every night, school servers often crashed during this period) [1]. At the same time, the two teachers’ unusual practical exploration attracted more and more attention from the school, parents, and all walks of life. They were often invited by peers to introduce experience, then the new teaching mode had an increasing impact on Rocky Mountain of Colorado. Many teachers of other subjects (not just the chemistry teachers) were actively exploring and using flipped classroom as a new teaching mode. That is the origin of flipped classroom.

1.2 Two Developmental Stages of Western Flipped Classroom Flipped classroom has emerged around 2007, but it can really extend its influence to in the United States and even the world, or three years later, which is closely related to the rise of Khan Academy. As mentioned above, flipped classroom, a new teaching model, has been gaining popularity in some parts of Colorado since 2007, but it had not been widely adopted. The reason is that although many teachers recognize flipped classroom and are willing to participate in this form of teaching experiment, an important obstacle to the real implementation of this teaching model is to overcome the production of short teaching videos (not every teacher can produce high-quality videos). It is at this juncture that the Khan Academy emerged and developed rapidly in the United States, thus these obstacles were better solved. Khan Academy was founded in 2004 by a Bangladeshi American named Salman Khan. At the beginning, he recorded mathematics short teaching videos and put them on YouTube to tutor his relatives’ children in distance learning. In additions, he also provided free watching and learning for other people in need [2, 3]. Next, he supplied the short teaching videos with interactive exercise software for mathematical training. In 2007, Khan integrated video and interactive exercise software, and created a nonprofit website. He used the videos to explain the teaching content of various subjects, answered various questions raised by online readers, and provided learning tools such as online practice, self-assessment, and automatic tracking of learning progress. In 2009, Khan had quit his job and devoted himself to operating and maintaining the website named Khan Academy, which was a nonprofit dedication for online education. Khan Academy got attention from Bill Gates a year later (fall 2010). And millions of dollars were received from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Google company [4], so that Khan Academy has had a greater impact. The quality of the video and the performance of learning support tools have been

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further improved. Khan Academy also developed a learning control system to collect learning data of students in a timely manner, which not only enabled students and teachers to keep abreast of the learning situation, but also facilitated teachers to implement flipped classroom effectively. With the high-quality videos provided by Khan Academy for free, the main obstacles to the implementation of flipped classroom have been overcome, which greatly lowers the threshold for most teachers to enter flipped classroom, thus promoting the popularization of flipped classroom. The flipped classroom not only went out of Colorado, but also entered the vision of educators in North America and even the world, and was warmly pursued. The development of flipped classroom is reflected not only in the expansion of application areas and affected population, but also in the expansion of teaching contents and teaching methods. As mentioned above, flipped classroom reverses the traditional teaching habit and mode of listening to the teacher’s explanation in class and doing homework at home after class. It turns into listening to the teacher’s video explanation at home before class and doing homework (or experiments) under the guidance of the teacher in class. Early flipped classroom in China was to watch videos with teacher’s explanation before class (that is, the use of short teaching videos). However, by 2011, as another important event in the field of global education field, the rise of MOOCs, has reversed teaching contents and methods of flipped classroom and has undergone great changes. The whole name for MOOCs is Massive Open Online Courses. There are two major differences from previous open online courses [3]. First, it emphasizes interaction and feedback. Second, it advocates the establishment of online learning communities. In the past, most MOOCs offered the short videos (such as Khan Academy’s early teaching videos) or pre-edited course-ware or recorded lectures. Students are often in a state of passive acceptance, lack of communication and feedback between teachers and students, students and students, so there is no sense of participation. MOOCs greatly enhance communication, interaction, and feedback in the course implementation process by interspersing questions, quizzes in class, and conducting thematic discussions of the videos, and encouraging learners to browse actively and obtain relevant information and learning resources by using online communication software, social networking sites and other personalized learning tools. Meanwhile, MOOCs also actively encourage and advocate learners to form various online learning communities in the process of participation, especially in the process of completing assignments or thematic discussions [5]. According to different themes and personal interest, students build a sub-group of mutual assistance, collaboration, and communication on different social networking sites. And with the aggregation of sub-group personnel and the continuous expansion of learning community, web sites and the repository related to the course are further derived. By strengthening the interaction and feedback and advocating online learning community, learners can generate a sense of immersion and full participation in the process of participating in MOOCs, which traditional lectures and instructional videos cannot be compared with. It is also the development and change of flipped

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classroom after it is combined with MOOCs (that is, after students’ teaching at home before class fully absorbs the advantages of MOOCs mentioned above) in the expansion of teaching contents and teaching methods. In fact, in the view of pioneers in flipped classroom, Jonathan Berman and Aaron Sams, two chemistry teachers of Woodland Park High School, one-way of imparting teaching video is not the focus of flipped classroom. They are most concerned about exchanges and interaction between teachers and students, students and students to develop students’ ability of deep cognition. Therefore, they later renamed flipped classroom as flipped learning [4].

2 Functions and Effects of Western Flipped Classroom In recent years, with the increasing popularity of western flipped classroom in international education circles, the role and effect of flipped classroom have been discussed by domestic and foreign academic circles. Among them, the more influential views involve the following aspects:

2.1 Flipped Classroom Can Embody the Advantages of Blended Learning At present, domestic and foreign scholars generally believe that classroom is in addition to increasing the interaction between teachers and students, but also a means of personalized learning time. It is also a brand-new method of blended learning, which is the achievement of major changes in classroom teaching mode under the guidance of educational thought marked by B-learning. In fact, from the beginning, flipped classroom was a mixture of videos with teachers’ explanations at home before class and doing homework (or experiments) under the guidance of the teacher in class. Flipped classroom later in the lesson absorbed characteristics and advantages of MOOCs, further developed into online open courses mixed with classroom teaching (the online open courses include “complete online” and “partial online”). This is a representative view to observe the functions and effects of flipped classroom from the perspective of blended learning. As for blended learning mode of flipped classroom, there is not complete agreement in academic circles. Most domestic and foreign scholars consider flipped classroom is a blended learning mode, which includes online learning before class and face-to-face learning in class [4]. In essence, it is a blended learning model combining face-to-face, traditional classroom teaching with online learning. It is a adjustment of the role and function of home and school in students’ learning [6]. Some scholars believe that flipped classroom is a mixed learning method that combines direct explanations with constructionist learning [5]. On the surface, there seem to be some

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differences in the connotations of the first two blended learning methods and the latter. The first two refers to a combination of traditional classroom teaching and online teaching courses (or open online courses). The latter is the combination of direct explanation and constructionist learning. However, as is known to all, essential features of traditional classroom teaching are that teachers’ direct teaching and one-way transmission are dominant (but lacks teacher-student interaction and ignores students’ autonomous learning and independent inquiry). Therefore, traditional classroom teaching and direct explanation mean the same thing. And open online courses emphasize the interaction between teachers and students, the interaction between students and students, and autonomous learning and collaborative inquiry based on problems and resources. This is learning advocated by constructivism, which is a process of acquiring knowledge. Because knowledge is not obtained from teachers teaching, but learners obtain it through learners’ meaning construction with the help of others (including teachers and learning partners) in certain context, that is social and cultural background. That is, learning is accomplished through collaborative activities in the process of interpersonal meaning construction [6]. It can be seen that there is no essential difference between the learning methods advocated by online open courses and constructionism.

2.2 Flipped Classroom is More in Line with Human Cognitive Law Brian Gonzalez, global education director of INTEL, said (at the annual meeting of the 2011 INTEL one-to-one digital learning conference) that reversing the classroom (flipped classroom another expression) refers to the educators give students more freedom, place knowledge process outside the classroom, let the students choose the most appropriate way to accept new knowledge, and place knowledge internalization process in classroom, so that classmates, students, and teachers have more opportunities for communication and exchange. This is a representative view to analyze the roles and effects of flipped classroom from the perspective of human cognition. This view has been echoed by many domestic scholars. For example, Professor Tian Aili of East China Normal University believes that [7] flipped classroom is more in line with students’ learning rules, which is a form of learning before teaching. Compared with the general guidance learning form of learning before teaching, watching video is more vivid and lively. Video learning can replace teacher’s knowledge explanations. When students need teachers most, they are having difficulty and confusion with their homework, and flipped classroom is a better way to do that. Zhang Xinming of Henan Normal University such as further pointed out [8]: flipped classroom teaching before class + internalization in class compared with traditional teaching process. That is the traditional flipped classroom most people understand, but they ignore flipped classroom has two key points: first, deep learning does occur

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outside the classroom. Second, the efficient use of classroom time for exchange of learning experience and the collision of ideas can deepen students’ cognition.

2.3 Flipped Classroom Contributes to Build a New Teacher-Student Relationship The founders, Woodland Park High School chemistry teachers Jon Bergmann and Aaron Sams, later renamed the flipped classroom as flipped learning. The reason for this change is that they believed [4] whether teachers taught or talked with students in the traditional face-to-face teaching process is a one-to-many form of teachercentered. However, flipped classroom entirely changed this form. Whether students watched instructional videos at home, or interacted with teachers face to face in class, we focused on the needs of students, and at the same time, we payed great attention to the guiding role of teachers. Students can control the progress of watching instructional videos and raise their own questions and ideas to communicate with teachers or companions so that they can gain the initiative in learning. At the same time, they can get teachers’ help and guidance in return. The above is a representative viewpoint from the new angle of the relationship between teachers and students to view the functions and effects of the flipped classroom. This view has also been supported by some well-known researchers in China. For example, the Northeast Normal University Professor Zhao Wei and others [9] thought that the flipped classroom was helpful to reconstruct harmonious relationships between teachers and students. The reasons are as follows. Firstly, the teacher let the students choose their own themes independently to solve the problems according to their own interests; the teacher instructed students to construct knowledge system through a real task. It was truly student-centered. Secondly, teachers divided students into different groups according to their characteristics, and assigned questions to organize groups’ inquiry activities. Team members communicated and collaborated to accomplish learning tasks together. Researchers Liu Zhen et al. from Tsinghua University also clearly pointed out that [12]: in the flipped classroom, the role of teachers and students has changed. Teachers have changed from knowledge imparters and classroom managers in traditional classrooms to learning instructors and promoters. The students transformed from passive recipients to active researchers. In addition, some scholars emphasized that [10] the flipped classroom gave students more time for their own control by redistributing learning time to control their own learning at their own pace. It truly returned the initiative of learning to students and reflected the subjectivity of students’ learning. At the same time, compared with traditional teaching mode, the role of teachers has also undergone a great change, with teachers gradually changing from knowledge imparters to teaching resource developers, teaching assistants, and instructors.

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2.4 Flipped Classroom Promotes Effective Use, Research, and Development of Teaching Resources It could be seen from the development of the flipped classroom that it was inseparable from the support of Khan Academy’s video resources in the early days. Later, with the rise of MOOCs, the flipped classroom has absorbed the advantages and features from online open courses. In addition to emphasizing “interaction, communication, feedback” and “online study community”, online courses also paid special attention to extensive collection, effective utilization, and research and development of various information resources related to teaching. Academia generally believed that the flipped classroom was very beneficial to promote effective utilization and research and development of teaching resources. Because it was not only an ideal platform to promote the utilization of teaching resources, but also a powerful driving force for further research and development of teaching resources. This is a representative viewpoint to discuss the role and effect of the flipped classroom from the perspective of teaching resource utilization and research and development. Taking instructional videos as an example. As some experts have pointed out [10] that most of the traditional videos of this kind were simply recorded of the actual classroom situations without secondary deep processing of teaching information. If the videos contained plenty of irrelevant information, it would be easy to distract students’ attention. In order to overcome such shortcomings of traditional teaching videos and make more effective use of video resources, the flipped classroom has made important improvements in the recording and development of pre-class teaching videos from two aspects [8].

2.4.1

Adopt a New Way of “Screen Recording Software + Presentation”

First select the screen recording software (screen capture software) and then use blank presentations as an electronic whiteboard. According to the students’ cognitive laws and internal logic of knowledge, the interpretation process of the problem is presented on the presentation step by step, explaining with voice at the same time. The instructional video recorded in this way has no redundant information except the teaching content and voice explanation. Compared with the presentation of traditional teaching videos, it is more conducive to focusing students’ attention, which can greatly improve the efficiency of active learning before class.

2.4.2

Refine the Granularity of Knowledge Units

Traditional videos were generally taught with the content of 1 class hour as a knowledge unit, lasting more than 45 min. Since the videos contained images, texts, and sound, the information conveyed was extremely rich. If the time is too long, it will

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be difficult for students to digest. In the flipped classroom, the treatment of knowledge units was completely different. The contents of 1 class hour were first divided into several knowledge points, and then each knowledge point was explained with a short video, with corresponding targeted exercises for consolidation. The duration of these videos was generally around 5–10 min (no more than 20 min at most). Short instructional video, an unprecedented and brand-new teaching resource, was created in this way during the implementation of the flipped classroom.

2.5 Flipped Classroom Fully Embodies the New Concept of “Emergent Curriculum” As for the role and effect of the flipped classroom, in addition to the above four popular views that are generally recognized by the academic community, there is also a very creative view recently proposed by Mr. Tao Xiping which is also worthy of our attention [11]. This view holds that flipped classroom fully embodies the new concept of emergent curriculum. This is another representative view to discuss the role and effect of flipped classroom from the perspective of emergent curriculum. The Emergent Curriculum, also known as “Responding Curriculum,” was proposed by Betty Jones of Pacific Oak College in the United States. It is the reform of the teaching mode based on the traditional scheduled curriculum, which fundamentally originates to the reform of teaching concepts. The traditional teaching mode, which aims at imparting knowledge, is inevitably preset. The teaching goal of traditional curriculum is to impart knowledge to students or enable students to master necessary skills. The teaching content is determined according to the prescribed curriculum standards or textbooks. The starting and ending point of teaching method are to achieve this prescriptive goal. The evaluation of teaching effect is also mainly to check the success of the preset teaching objectives. The Emergent Curriculum pays special attention to the creative and generative qualities of the course and emphasizes that the course should be a constructional course that grows dynamically in the continuous interaction of teachers, students, teaching materials, environment, and other factors. It turns the established goal of the course into will-be objectives, and the course becomes a dynamic generation process for teachers and students to show and create the meaning of life, rather than a mere cognitive activity. In classroom teaching, students’ grasp of known conclusive knowledge is no longer the main purpose. Teaching materials become the resources for students to spark their thoughts. The classroom becomes students’ experience of life meaning and self-transcendence, thus laying the foundation for their sustainable development. Here, the scientific spirit and humanistic spirit achieve harmony and unity. Mr. Tao Xiping believes that the concept of emergent curriculum has been vividly embodied in the practice of flipped classroom.

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3 Restrictions and Challenges of Implementing Western Flipped Classroom In fact, there are many restrictions and challenges to implement the western flipped classroom.

3.1 Restrictions of Implementing Flipped Classroom One of the restrictions is that the implementation of the flipped classroom should be supported by the network teaching environment. As mentioned above, around 2007, flipped classroom, a new teaching model, was gaining popularity in some parts of Colorado. It has not yet been widely adopted because not every teacher can make their own videos before class. It was at this juncture that the emergence of Khan Academy helped to solve this problem. Khan Academy is a nonprofit teaching site that specializes in online education. After 2011, with the rise of MOOCs, the flipped classroom has absorbed the advantages and characteristics from online open courses, resulting in faster and better development and online open courses are even more inseparable from the support of online teaching environment. Judging from the reality of our country, at present, only some schools in the eastern developed areas and several large and medium-sized cities have such a teaching environment and conditions. As far as the vast rural areas are concerned in the central and western regions, it is possible for teachers to access the Internet through computers, iPad, smartphones, and other terminals. However, it is difficult for the families of millions of rural students to have such conditions in recent years, that is, the majority of rural families generally lack the support of network teaching environment. The second limitation is that in primary school, due to the young age of students, the foundation of knowledge, and ability as well as learning consciousness are not strong enough. So flipped classroom project is often carried out in high school or university phases. But in the compulsory education phase (especially primary school) is not suitable. The constraint is supported by many famous teachers and educators, such as Liu Pengzhi, former principal of the middle school affiliated to the Renmin University of China, and a senior teachers Li Yi, have expressed a similar view [12]. In addition to the above two limitations, in order to implement the new teaching mode of flipped classroom in a larger scope in China, combing with China’s national conditions, we will also face the following challenges.

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3.2 Challenges in the Wider Implementation of the Flipped Classroom Flipped classrooms should be implemented in a wider range of new teaching mode in China. Considering China’s national conditions, there are several challenges ahead.

3.2.1

Research and Development of High-Quality Teaching Resources in Various Disciplines

Flipped classroom required students to watch teacher-prepared videos before class— in the early days, such video materials were recorded in the traditional way, and later developed into videos (a kind of high-quality teaching resources) with knowledge points and specific exercises. The teaching contents, knowledge systems, the combination of knowledge points, and other conditions of each discipline are very different. If flipped classroom, a new teaching mode, is to be implemented in multiple disciplines and normalized, the amount of videos required is huge. With the support of the nonprofit Khan Academy, the United States can solve the problem of developing high-quality teaching resources in various disciplines (namely, many high-quality short videos). However, in China, there is still a lack of similar private institutions such as Khan Academy, so we still face quite severe challenges in this regard. It is a little gratifying that from August to September 2013, East China Normal University led the establishment of the C20 MOOC Alliance. The purpose of the alliance is to implement the flipped classroom with the help of the MOOC platform, realize the reform of school teaching mode, and create a good atmosphere for the cultivation of innovative talents [9]. So far, more than 60 primary and secondary schools have joined the alliance, which should be a good start to solve the problem of research, development, and sharing of high-quality teaching resources on a large scale.

3.2.2

Updating Teachers’ Educational Thoughts and Teaching Concepts

Flipped classroom uses a blended learning approach, which includes both online learning before class and face-to-face teaching in classroom. The former (online learning videos) focuses on students’ active learning (but the key and difficult points, as well as the internal connection between knowledge points, still need teachers’ inspiration, help, and guidance). The latter (face-to-face teaching in class) refers to students’ independent exploration or group collaborative exploration based on problems in homework, experiments, or a topic proposed by teachers under teachers’ guidance. Obviously, in order to carry out the teaching of these two parts well and achieve the predetermined teaching objectives, teachers’ educational thoughts and teaching concepts must be updated.

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In order to effectively implement flipped classroom, it is a severe challenge to update teachers’ educational thoughts and teaching concepts.

3.2.3

Can the Flipped Classroom Extend to Higher and Lower Learning Phases?

As mentioned above, the flipped classroom originated from high school chemistry, with a significant teaching effect, it was warmly welcomed by the masses of teachers, students, and parents. Later, after Khan Academy’s support and absorbing the characteristics and advantages of MOOCs, the flipped classroom spread to the other subjects (including all the arts, science) and other learning phases (including high-end universities and vocational colleges, secondary schools, and elementary schools). After a lot of practice, it has been proved that flipped classroom extended to other disciplines courses (either a humanities or natural science course). Due to different disciplines’ features, there would be some differences in implementing the flipped classroom. However, it was basically no obstacle. The expansion of the flipped classroom to other learning phase is different. According to the second limitation mentioned above—in the primary school phase, students’ foundation of knowledge and ability and the self-consciousness of learning are not strong enough; so the flipped classroom can be expanded or even implemented on a large scale at the higher education or vocational education. But it must be very cautious in expanding to the secondary schools and primary schools. This is especially true of the expansion into the primary school phase, which, as noted above, is clearly opposed by many experts and researchers in education.

References 1. Bergmann, J., & Sams, A. (2012). Flip your classroom [M] (pp. 21–55). America, International Society for Technology in Education. 2. He, S., & Zhang, Y. (2014). On Khan Academy [J]. Information Technology Education for Primary and Secondary Schools, (2), 24–26 (何世忠, 张渝江, 再谈“可汗学院”[J],中小学信 息技术教育, 2014年第2期, 24–26页). 3. Gu, X., Hu, Y., & Cai, H. (2013). Localization appeal of MOOCs and its response [J]. Journal of Distance Education (Zhejiang), Bi-monthly, (5), 3–11 (顾小清, 胡艺龄, 蔡慧英, MOOCs 的本土化诉求及其应对[J], 远程教育杂志 (浙江), 双月刊, 2013年第5期, 3–11页). 4. Jiao, J. (2014). Influence and enlightenment of MOOCS on basic education [J]. Information Technology Education for Primary and Secondary Schools, (2), 10–12 (焦建利, 慕课给基础 教育带来的影响与启示[J], 中小学信息技术教育, 2014年第2期, 10–12页). 5. Zhang, Y., & Zhang, Y. (2012). Perspective of flipped Classroom [J]. Information Technology Education for Primary and Secondary Schools, (3), 9–10 (张跃国, 张渝江, 透视“翻转课 堂”[J],中小学信息技术教育, 2012年第3期, 9–10页). 6. He, K. (1997) Constructivism: The theoretical basis of reforming traditional teaching [J]. AudioVisual Education Research, (3) (何克抗, 建构主义—革新传统教学的理论基础[J], 电化教 育研究1997年第3期).

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7. Tian, A. (2014). Improving the talent training mode through MOOCS [J]. Information Technology Education in Primary and Secondary Schools, (2), 13–15 (田爱丽, 借助慕课改善人 才培养模式[J],中小学信息技术教育, 2014年第2期, 13–15页). 8. Zhang, X., & He, W. (2013). Research on network teaching system model supporting flipped classroom [J]. Modern Education Technology, (8), 21–25 (张新民, 何文涛, 支持翻转课堂的 网络教学系统模型研究[J], 现代教育技术, 2013年第8期, 21–25页). 9. Wang, H., Zhao, W., Sun, L., & Liu, H. (2013). Design of flipped classroom teaching model— Based on typical case analysis at home and abroad [J]. Modern Educational Technology, (8), 5–10 (王红, 赵蔚, 孙立会, 刘红霞, 翻转课堂教学模型的设计——基于国内外典型案例分 析[J], 现代教育技术, 2013年第8期, 5–10页). 10. Liu, Z., & Cao, Z. (2013). Practice and thinking of flipped classroom teaching mode in ideological and political theory class [J]. Modern Educational Technology, (8), 17–20 (刘震, 曹 泽熙, “翻转课堂”教学模式在思想政治理论课上的实践与思考[J], 现代教育技术, 2013年 第8期, 17–20页). 11. Tao, X. (2014). Flipped classroom and generative course [J]. Elementary and Secondary School Management, (4), 58 (陶西平, “翻转课堂”与“生成课程”[J], 中小学管理, 2014年第4期, 第58页). 12. Wang, X., & Mou, Y. (2014). MOOCS—Innovation and development of multiple online education forms [J]. Information Technology Education for Primary and Secondary Schools, (2), 27– 30 (王晓波, 牟艳娜, 慕课——多元在线教育形态的创新与发展[J], 中小学信息技术教育, 2014年第2期, 27–30页).

Chapter 12

Exploring Essential Features of Flipped Classroom from Chinese Perspective

Some of the constraints and challenges of flipped classroom above can be gradually overcome or solved (such as network teaching environment can be created through the construction and improvement of software and hardware facilities; teachers’ educational thoughts and teaching concepts can be updated through various training). And some problems involve national policies, laws, and regulations, the obstacles will be much more. For example, to appropriate flexibility or adjust the original provisions of the classroom teaching time, temporary or short–term adjustment is no problem, but it is difficult to normalize and stabilize this change. And some problems may be unable to solve (such as expanding the flipped model to elementary school stage). In view of the above constraints and challenges, many Chinese experts and researchers pay more attention to flipped classroom, but their expectations for the expansion of flipped classroom to some subjects and learning segments cannot be helped. This seems to be a pessimistic statement, but it seems to be an objective and practical conclusion. However, if we can look at the problem from another angle, it is not impossible to find a more optimistic approach, so as to draw a completely different but equally objective and practical conclusion. Is it really possible? Here, we might as well look at Chinese conditions for many years. In the domestic experimental study of teaching reform for nearly 20 years, namely leapfrog development for basic education innovation experimental study (hereinafter referred to as leapfrog teaching experiment research), we combine leapfrog teaching with flipped classroom, analyze and compare the two, and find out the essential features of flipped classroom, and finally answer the above question.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 K. He, Innovative Education Informatization with Chinese Characteristics, Bridging Human and Machine: Future Education with Intelligence, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0622-0_12

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1 An Overview of Experimental Research on Leapfrog Teaching in China 1.1 The Background of Experimental Research on Leapfrog Teaching Stepping into the new millennium, promoting educational reform and innovation has become an important strategy for all countries to cope with the increasingly fierce international competition. Countries around the world have introduced a series of policies and measures for education reform to accelerate the pace of education reform in their own countries, and it has become an important guiding ideology for education reform in various countries that education modernization is driven by education informationization. Aimed at promoting education informationization and deepening the reform of education, China has also issued a series of related policies and major initiatives. In October 2000, the Ministry of Education has decided to gradually make information technology curriculum as the compulsory course in primary and secondary schools. At the same time, in the primary and secondary schools to vigorously promote School–to–School Network Project with the goal of resource sharing, education informationization is required to promote education modernization and to achieve the leapfrog growth of basic education. In 2001, a new round of curriculum reform of basic education was launched targeting on the full development of students. The reform took physical, mental, and potential development as the core, we will vigorously promote the reform of basic education courses from curriculum goals, curriculum contents, teaching and learning modes, evaluation methods, etc., and build a new basic education curriculum system conforming to reach the goal of the quality education. Leapfrog development teaching for basic education innovation experimental study (hereinafter referred to as LT) is an experimental research project to deepen teaching reform under the macro background of quickening the process of education informationization and the background of implementing a new turn of curriculum reform in our country. The aim is to deeply integrate subject teaching with information technology (that is, depth integration). Under the guidance of informationization teaching innovation theory, the information technology with computer and network as the core is used as the cognitive tool, collaborative communication tool, and emotional experience and internalization tool to promote students’ autonomous learning. It is used to reform the traditional teacher-centered classroom teaching structure and then construct a new type of classroom teaching structure with the combination of teacher-role and student-role, so as to realize the fundamental changes of classroom teaching structure of basic education.

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1.2 Aim of Experimental Research on LT The overall goal of LT experiment is to change the abnormal phenomenon of big input without big output and high investment without high benefit in the current educational informationization process. On the premise of not increasing class hours or students’ academic burden at all, this study tries to greatly improve the quality and efficiency of classroom teaching through deep integration of information technology and curriculum, so as to realize efficient classroom and promote the leapfrog development of basic education in terms of quality improvement. The specific objectives of LT in different disciplines in primary and secondary schools are as follows:

1.2.1

Primary Chinese

Through about two years, Grade 2 children can read and write. They can recognize more than 2500 common Chinese characters (advanced), while the ability of handwritten Chinese characters cannot be practiced. Further, they can read newspapers and readers, and use hand or computer to write/type smooth and fluent article of hundreds of words with complete structure (equivalent to the level of new Curriculum Standard Grade Four or above).

1.2.2

Primary English

The experimental class students, including the weak and rural schools, should be significantly improved in vocabulary, listening, and oral expression ability will be significantly improved. For rural students (or students in urban weak schools) who have completed a certain grade of the experimental class, their vocabulary, listening, and oral expression ability should reach the level of students in the same grade in urban schools at the first level (i.e., excellent schools).

1.2.3

Other Subjects in Primary and Secondary Schools

The teaching quality and students’ comprehensive quality should be greatly improved through deep integration of information technology and curriculum. This improvement is manifested in the following three aspects: a. b.

c.

Comprehensively and deeply achieve three-dimensional teaching objectives of various subjects (especially cognitive goals and emotional goals); Effectively improve students’ ability to analyze and solve practical problems (including the ability to find problems, put forward problems, analyze problems, and solve problems); Effectively enhance the students’ innovative thinking ability.

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At the same time, student’s comprehensive quality (including ideological and moral character, patriotism, psychological quality, spirit of cooperation, interpersonal relations, benevolence, etc.) has a good development.

1.3 Overview of Development of LT LT experimental research project began in August 2000. So far, the development of the project has gone through the following four stages. The first stage—theoretical method of the experiment—is first established. All the participants came from famous schools, using special teaching materials, network environment, and single subject of Chinese. The second stage—theoretical method—is gradually perfected. The participants came from ordinary schools, using common teaching materials, including network environment, Chinese and English. The third stage—experimental exploration—is becoming more and more thorough, the focus is on weak schools, no limitations of teaching materials (Ministry of Education approved), general information-based teaching environment, Chinese and English. General information-based teaching environment refers to the equipment configuration required by Midwest Rural Distance Education Project of the first and second two modes. That is also the current standards in China for all primary and secondary schools (including rural primary and secondary schools) in the field of education informationization must meet the minimum configuration). The fourth stage—the experimental field gradually expand, the focus—is put on rural primary and secondary schools, no textbook, general information teaching environment. Rural primary schools mainly test Chinese and English; urban primary schools test Chinese, mathematics, and English; and middle schools test all subjects except Music, PE, and Art. By the end of 2018, in addition to the earlier Yuexiu and Liwan Experimental Zones in Guangzhou, Zhongshan Experimental Zone and Shenzhen Nanshan Experimental Zone, Beijing, Dalian, Xiamen, Baoding, and Foshan have also set up LT experimental zones. The number of pilot schools has grown from one to nearly 600 today. Since April 2004, we have also opened the first rural LT pilot area (including 5 primary schools and 1 middle school) in Fengning Man Autonomous County (State– level Poverty Alleviation County) in Hebei Province, focusing on exploring how to achieve LT development goals in rural poverty-stricken areas with poor information technology conditions. In February 2005, the second rural LT pilot zone was established in Shawan Town on the outskirts of Guangzhou, including 10 rural primary schools. In July 2006, we set up the third rural LT pilot zone in Yanqing in the outer suburbs of Beijing and the northern mountainous area of Changping, including 22 rural primary schools. After November 2008, we established 14 rural LT experimental zones again in the western remote and poor areas of Ningxia, Gansu, Yunnan, Xinjiang, western Guizhou (the total number of rural LT experiment areas had reached 17). LT experimental study entered a new stage of development, that is

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a new stage of exploring specific ways and methods to achieve the high–quality and balanced development of compulsory education quality.

2 Key Factors of Success and Effects in Experiments of Leapfrog Teaching According to the above development situation of the experimental research of LT, in order to identify its actual effect and ensure scientific rationality and effectiveness of the test, we adopted the following kinds of testing methods according to the characteristics of different disciplines and the research objectives of leapfrog testing in different subject.

2.1 Test on the Effect of LT Experiment on Primary School Chinese Chinese adopts three ways of testing—global sampling, local total measurement, and comparison test. Global sampling means that more than 100 schools participating in LT in 13 pilot areas for a long time throughout the country, which are divided into four categories of excellent, good, medium, and poor, according to the source of students and schools’ conditions at the beginning of the test. And then the most representative one is selected from these four categories for testing. The tests included literacy, computer typing, and handwriting. The local total measurement means that the test area (rural test area) with the worst source of students and schools’ conditions is selected from the 13 test areas that have been implemented for a longer time nationwide, and then the unified test is conducted on all schools in the test area. (Primary schools in rural pilot areas do not have computers, so computer-based writing tests are not given.) Comparison test refers to a comparison test of students from experimental classes and non-experimental classes. A total of 5,442 students from 48 schools in 11 experimental areas participate in the experiment for more than two years, including 3,048 students from the experimental classes and 2,394 students from the comparative classes. The content of the comparative test involves three aspects: comparative test of Chines comprehensive ability (including comprehensive ability of literacy, reading, typing, and writing composition, handwriting composition), comparison test of interest in composition, and comparative test of polarization phenomenon.

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2.2 Test on the Effect of LT Experiment on Primary School English Because the goal of English LT test is to greatly improve listening and speaking ability, this kind of ability test requires teachers to face the students one-on-one. It is difficult to widely implement in the test schools (traditional English test methods often focus on grammar or word interpretation, are not suitable for the test requirements of LT test). Therefore, in order to ensure the scientific rationality and effectiveness of the test results, the method of sampling test and comparison test of Comprehensive English ability is adopted to test the effect of LT English teaching. Sampling test means that several experimental classes of Grade 6 and Grade 4, including Nanhai Experimental Primary School in Foshan city, Dongfeng Donglu Primary School in Guangzhou, and Bayi Primary School, who participated in the English LT test earlier, are selected as samples for testing. The test includes listening, speaking, and vocabulary, of which questions are chosen from the junior middle school entrance examination in Guangdong Province. The Comparison Test of English Comprehensive ability is conducted among 4,995 students from 49 schools in 9 experimental areas that have been operating for more than two years (2,694 students in the experimental class and 2,301 students in the comparative classes). The test also includes listening, speaking, and vocabulary. Through a variety of test methods, test results and statistical data show that after many years, experienced four stages of different types of schools (including the integration of urban and rural areas of weak schools and rural schools), reached our target (no matter what type of school, 80 ~ 85% of students in experimental classes can achieve or near the goal of LT requirements, the rest of the teens students, who did not achieve LT goals, but compared to the original also had different degrees of increase). In other words, LT experiment of Chinese and English has indeed achieved the effect of greatly improving the teaching quality of the subject and the comprehensive quality of the students, which people did not expect to achieve at all. The goal of high–quality and balanced development of compulsory education has been achieved.

2.3 Investigation and Test on the Effect of the Leapfrog Experiment in Middle School There are altogether 13 high schools that participated in the LT experiment. To be persuasive, we chose students from two schools of more than 10 schools with poor students source and educational conditions to participate at the beginning of the test: Tanghe Middle School in Fengnin Manchu Autonomous County, Hebei Province (a typical poor mountainous countryside middle school), and Yangzhuang Middle School in Shijingshan District, Beijing (a general middle school in suburban areas). The comprehensive and deep questionnaire (survey includes three aspects,

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such as teachers, students, and parents) and comparison tests have been carried. The following is a brief summary of the findings and comparison tests in the following aspects.

2.3.1

Tanghe Middle School, Fengning County, Hebei Province

Tanghe Middle School is located in the mountainous area of Fengning Manchu Autonomous County, Hebei Province. Since August 2004, the school has mainly participated in LT experiment of Chinese, mathematics, and English. Due to the location of the school, parents’ educational level is generally low, and the students’ elementary education is very weak. Through more than four years of LT experimental research, the school has undergone great changes and its teaching work has shown a new situation, which is manifested in the following aspects: • Tanghe middle school was originally a relatively backward Junior Middle School in the mountainous countryside of Fengning County (teaching facilities, teachers, and students, and even the quality of teaching are among the backward in the county). It has become an advanced and typical demonstration school of education informationization in the county, the whole area (Chengde area), and even the entire Hebei Province since 2006. • Several teachers participating in the experiment of Chinese, mathematics, and English, have become advanced teachers in the county. Their papers, courseware, and recorded cases have won awards in the province or the whole country for many times, and they have made demonstration or observation classes in the county or the province for many times. • After the actual test, the students of the experimental class in Tanghe Middle School have significantly improved their learning attitude, achievements, and abilities in Chinese, mathematics, and English compared with the same grade students in the past. • All the hardware and software of computer classrooms in Tanghe Middle School are donated by Microsoft’s Student Hand-In-Hand Project. When, since Tanghe Middle School participated in this project and achieved remarkable results in the deep integration of the information technology and curriculum, it has been valued by Microsoft. Microsoft global director of education visited China to inspect the Student-Hand-In-Hand Project and specially heard the report about the Tanghe middle school. Besides, the Microsoft headquarters sent a film team to Tanghe Middle School for on-site interview and video recording. As a reward, in September 2006, Microsoft invited a delegation of teachers and students from Tanghe Middle School to Seattle, Microsoft’s US Headquarters (Tanghe middle School is the only one of the 100 schools to receive this honor in Student Hand-in-Hand Project).

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Yangzhuang Middle School, Shijingshan, Beijing

Yangzhuang Middle School is located in the Shijingshan District of Beijing. Since July 2003, the school has been taking part in LT experiments in mathematics, English, Chinese, physics, history, biology, geography, and other subjects. The school was originally a rural suburb (it was later expanded into an urban area), and the parents had a low level of education. Most students had a weak primary education. Through several years of participating in LT experimental research, the school has undergone great changes, and the education and teaching work has an unprecedented good momentum of development. This is manifested in the following aspects: • In the first semester of 2006, 81 junior three classes of 17 middle schools in Shijingshan District held a unified high school entrance examination. The English score of the leapfrog experimental class was ranked first among 81 junior three classes in Shijingshan District. The experimental classes also ranked among top 5 in other subjects including Chinese, mathematics, physics, and chemistry. In that year, there were 10 junior 3 graduating classes in the school, among which there were only two LT classes. However, 6 of the top 10 students with the best performance, 6 students were in experimental classes, which shows that the experimental classes had outstanding performance. • Compared with non-experimental class with the same scores at the beginning of Junior One, the number of students with English learning difficulties in the experimental class decreased significantly, while the number of students with English learning difficulties in the non-experimental class increased year by year. • The teaching quality of LT classes in Yangzhuang Middle School is high. In recent years, it has been well known in Shijingshan area. As a result, primary school graduates from different areas have also come to register across regions, striving to attend the experimental classes, which makes the principal worried about the lack of classrooms. • At the same time, Yangzhuang Middle School has also become an advanced model of education informationization in Beijing. The course-ware, cases, papers, and students’ competition works developed by teachers have won the first and second prizes in Beijing for many times. • The excellent open classes made by teachers are often displayed to teachers and experts in the whole district and even in Beijing. In May 2012, in the special program of Hong Kong, Phoenix TV introduced the progress of primary and secondary education informationization in China to overseas audiences, the excellent case cited was Yangzhuang Middle School. All in all, in a few short years, Yangzhuang Middle School has transformed from an ordinary rural school in the suburbs to an advanced model school in Shijingshan District and even the whole City of Beijing.

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2.4 Key Factor of Success in LT—Realizing Fundamental Changes of Classroom Teaching Structure Since 2000, after more than 13 years experiment, through the four stages, various types of schools (urban and rural areas of weak schools, poor areas, and remote rural schools) have reached our target (no matter what type of schools, 80 ~ 85% of the students in experimental class can achieve or near the goal of a leapfrog development requirements, rests of students have varying degrees of increase in their scores compared with the original). Besides, it also overcomes three difficulties in elementary education: teaching Chinese characters; reading and composition teaching; English listening and speaking. So, what is the key to achieving the above remarkable results by LT? As mentioned above, the purpose of the experimental study is to change traditional teacher-centered classroom teaching structure and construct a new type of classroom teaching structure of combination of leading and subject, through deep integration of information technology and subjects’ teaching (in the past ten years we have called it deep integration, its connotation consistent with current popular depth fusion). This shows that realizing the fundamental changes of classroom teaching structure is the purpose of the of LT project. In fact, this is also the accurate connotation and essential feature of LT, and this is the key to the success of LT. However, the fundamental changes of classroom teaching structure are not abstract or empty. It should be reflected in the four elements of classroom teaching system (that is, teachers, students, teaching contents, and teaching media [1]). Teachers should become the organizer and director of classroom teaching, the helpers and promoters of students’ construction of meaning, the cultivators of students’ good sentiment, the developers and providers of teaching resources than dominating classroom teaching and instilling knowledge. From the object of knowledge infusion and the passive receiver of external stimulus, students should transform into the subject of information processing, the active constructor of knowledge meaning, the subject of knowledge internalization, emotional experience, and emotion internalization. Teaching contents should be transformed from just relying on one textbook to textbooks, with abundant information teaching resources (such as thematic websites, resource databases, cases, course–ware, CD-ROM). Teaching media should be transformed from a visualized teaching tool that only helps teachers break through the key and difficult points to not only assists teachers promote teaching, but also promotes students’ independent learning of cognition, cooperation, and communication, as well as emotional experience and internalization.

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3 Innovative Teaching Mode in Leapfrog Teaching In order to further understand the similarities and differences between LT in China and flipped classroom in the West, we will look at the teaching mode of LT. In the past 20 years, LT experimental research and exploration have been implemented for more than ten years in nearly 600 primary and secondary schools with different teachers, students, facilities, and other conditions in developed eastern regions of China, the Midwest rural poverty mountainous countryside, as well as urban and rural areas and so on. Rural elementary schools mainly involve Chinese and English; urban elementary schools involve Chinese, English, mathematics (best with network and computer classroom environment, rural schools can only implement Chinese, English without network environment). The middle school involves all subjects except Music, PE, and Art (liberal arts and science, but the experiment of LT in the middle school must have network-based computer classroom support, and it should be normalized. That is, every class must be in the computer classroom, so as to ensure good effect). The following teaching model is mainly based on three subjects: primary Chinese, primary and junior English, and primary and junior mathematics. In order to make fundamental changes in classroom teaching structure (namely change of the status and function of the four elements of classroom teaching system), it is only possible to design and implement relevant teaching modes in classroom teaching by the teacher. Therefore, innovative teaching modes that can meet the requirements of classroom teaching structure reform should be adopted in different subjects. The following is an introduction to three subjects of elementary education, namely Chinese, mathematics, and English.

3.1 Teaching Mode of Chinese in the Lower Grades of Primary Schools (2–1–1 Mode) The mode can lead to fundamental changes of classroom teaching structure required for the primary lower grades Mandarin (Grades 1 ~ 3), scheduling the teaching process as 2–1–1 mode consisting of two stages (from teaching steps, it can be called the trinity teaching mode of literacy, reading, writing words), the main points in implementation are as follows: • Teachers lead firstly: in the first 20 min or so, the teacher plays a leading role (necessary explanation, inspiration, and guidance and interpretation of difficulties) to achieve the text teaching goals of the basic requirements; • Students learn later: in the last 20 min or so, students mainly do independent study and inquiry to consolidate, deepen, and expand the requirements of text teaching objectives. The first half of the last 20 min (about 10 min) is mainly extended reading, and the second half (also about 10 min) is mainly writing practice. For cognitive teaching objectives, the last 20 min can consolidate and deepen the understanding and mastery of the current knowledge and skills. For emotional

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teaching objectives, the last 20 min can encourage students to complete the experience of internalization of emotion, attitude, and value, which is especially conducive to the cultivation of good morality and comprehensive quality.

3.2 Teaching Mode of English in Primary and Junior Middle Schools (1–1–1 Mode) From the perspective of the time arrangement, the ideal teaching mode that can realize the fundamental reform of English classroom teaching structure in primary and junior middle schools can be regarded as the 1–1–1 mode composed of three steps. Because of the importance of three steps, each of which should be implemented in less than 10 min in a class, it is called 1–1–1 mode (if it is divided from teaching contents, it can be called communication–centered teaching mode), and its implementation essentials are as follows:

3.2.1

Attaching Importance to Teachers-Leading Dialogues Between Teachers and Students (Step 1)

In the low-grade English teaching mode, teacher–leading dialogues between teachers and students should simultaneously complete the tasks of teaching new lessons (whether teaching new words or teaching new sentence patterns) and demonstrating dialogue for the pairs of students.

3.2.2

Attaching Importance to Dialogues Between Pairs (Step 2)

The pairs dialogues have the largest degree of participation in the conversation, which can improve students’ listening and speaking ability most effectively, so as to put the requirements of improving students’ oral communication ability into practice. But for students who have no English foundation in the lower grades of primary school, what to say and how to say is a big problem in the classroom. It relies on teachers– leading dialogues between teachers and students to demonstrate, and pairs dialogues must be in close coordination with teachers-leading dialogues between teachers and students to solve the problem.

3.2.3

Attaching Importance to Expanding Listening and Reading (Step 3)

This step should be implemented from two aspects: one is to provide vivid and interesting expanded listening and reading materials that closely aligned with text contents. And each text should have more than 4 ~ 5 expanded listening and reading

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materials. That is to say, the expanded listening and reading materials should be guaranteed in both quantity and quality). The other is to ensure that the class has enough time (more than 10 min), so that students can listen to and read these materials through teaching design. From the 1–1–1 mode of English teaching, it can also be seen that the teacher completes the task of teaching new lessons at the beginning (equivalent to pre-class teaching in flipped classroom). Later, students practice, expand listening, reading, and collaborative communication (equivalent to autonomous exploration activities in flipped classroom). Obviously, this is the same as the content of the two steps before and during flipped classroom. However, the current new course is not completed through reading, following and vocabulary explanation, but through communication between teachers and students.

3.3 Teaching Model of Mathematics in Higher Grades Primary and Junior Middle Schools According to the teaching steps involving in the teaching process, the ideal teaching mode that can realize the fundamental changes of mathematics classroom teaching structure in senior grades of elementary school and junior middle school can be regarded as a teacher–guided inquiry mode composed of five steps. Its implementation essentials are as follows:

3.3.1

Creation of Situation

The teacher creates a real situation closely related to the current learning topic to stimulate students’ interest in learning and draw attention of the whole class to the current learning topic.

3.3.2

Inspiration of Thinking

The teacher raises questions that are closely related to the current learning topic and cause students to think deeply. These questions can be used to introduce new knowledge, or expand and transfer new knowledge.

3.3.3

Independent (or Group) Inquiry

By using cognitive tools, students can explore the questions raised by teachers independently (or in groups). For mathematics, the cognitive tools should be learning tools based on computer software (such as Geometry Sketchpad, Z + Z platform,

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Excel, and modeling software). The content of inquiry can focus on new knowledge, or it can be used to expand and transfer the original knowledge.

3.3.4

Collaboration and Communication

Collaborate and communicate within groups or the whole class.

3.3.5

Summary and Improvement

Based on individual summary and group summary, teachers supplement and sublimate. It makes students’ cognition rise from sensibility to rationality and reach deep cognition from shallow cognition. It is not difficult to see from the above mathematics teaching mode of inquiry under the guidance of teachers that creating situation and inspiring thinking are in the stage of teaching new lessons (equivalent to pre–teaching in the flipped classroom). The last three steps are self-inquiry, cooperative communication, and summary improvement under the guidance of teachers, which are the self-inquiry activities in the flipped classroom. In addition to the above teaching modes of Chinese, English, and mathematics, there are three general teaching modes of LT that are often adopted in other subjects of primary schools, such as meaningful transmission–acceptance, inquiry–underguidance of teachers, and research-based learning. The implementation steps of teacher-guided inquiry have been described in detail, combined with the mathematics of primary and junior middle schools. In fact, this teaching mode is not only suitable for primary and junior mathematics, but also can be fully applied to all other subjects (including liberal arts and science) in primary schools and junior middle schools, evidenced by many cases. The specific implementation methods and relevant cases of these three general teaching modes (belonging to the new teaching mode of Chinesestyle flipped classroom) will be introduced in Chapter 13 of this book, so we won’t go into details here.

4 Common Features of Chinese Leapfrog Teaching and Western Flipped Classroom After careful analysis of the above three teaching modes of the above three subjects: Chinese, English, and mathematics, it is not difficult to find that the basic connotation of the three teaching modes is very similar to the content of the before–class and during-class of flipped classroom. Although the specific details and operation modes of the implementation of the three modes are different, they all pay close

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attention to and strive to change the status and role of four elements of the classroom teaching system (namely teachers, students, teaching contents, and teaching media), that is to change the traditional classroom teaching structure. What’s more, students’ autonomous learning time is no less than half of a class, which is an essential characteristic shared by LT and Western flipped classroom. As mentioned above, the reform of classroom teaching structure is not abstract and empty, it should be reflected in the changes of the status and the role of the four elements in the classroom teaching system (that is, the teacher, students, teaching contents and teaching media). In fact, many scholars at home and abroad made deep analysis and research about flipped classrooms on the change of positions and roles of the teacher, students, teaching content, and teaching media, respectively (see Gu Xiaoqing, Jiao Jianli, Zhao Wei, Tian Aili, Zhang Xinming, Liu Zhen, and others cited above). However, no one has ever integrated these four elements together. As a result, it failed to grasp the fundamental issue of changing classroom teaching structure, which, in our opinion, is the key of the problem and most essential characteristics of the flipped classroom. After understanding these essential features, many problems can be readily solved. For example, there will be no barriers to expand flipped classroom into primary schools (which are the ones where LT has achieved the most significant effect). And, of course, there will have to be expanded according to the teaching modes of LT. The network teaching environment is no longer a restriction for flipped class, as long as we realize that the role of network teaching environment is mainly to provide necessary tools for changing the classroom teaching structure in the students’ position and function (of course, it is the best to have the network teaching environment). But if this cannot be done in a short period, nor even a long period, it does not matter. As long as we can find other cognitive tools to promote the students’ awareness, emotional experience, and internalization, we can also create situations for students’ effective active learning and independent inquiry. In the past 20 years, LT experimental researches have been done in more than 10 experimental areas in the countryside. The aim is to optimize digital resources under network teaching environment, print expanded Chinese reading materials and English reading and listening materials, and distribute them to students after optimizing digital resources under network teaching environment. In the absence of network teaching environment, it also promotes students’ experience and internalization of cognition and emotion. Therefore, good results can also be obtained (of course, if there is a network teaching environment, the effect will be better). It can be seen that flipped classroom and LT can achieve remarkable results because both can realize fundamental changes in classroom teaching structure. This statement is supported by solid theories: As is known to all, the human society has entered information age since the 1900s of the twentieth century, marked by multimedia computer and network communication of information technology. Information technology increasingly widely used in all aspects of people’s work, study, and life, and significantly improving the productivity in economics, military, medical, and other fields. Thus a great revolutionary impact came in these areas. But unfortunately, information technology applied in

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other areas or departments, particularly in department of industrial and commercial enterprises made great achievements, while the application in the field of education did not show remarkable results. Mostly the application stayed on the means and methods, the productivity in education was insignificant (i.e., the cultivation of a large number of innovative talents). Information technology seems to be a dispensable, just the icing on the cake (rather than a necessary factor, not to mention a revolutionary impact on education development). Why is it? Steve Jobs famously asked the same question [2]. Why have computers changed almost everything but surprisingly little about schooling? Since the 1990s, there have been many experts and scholars in the world who have studied and discussed this issue, but without any success. National Educational Technology Plan 2010, US NETP / 2010 [3], released in November 2010, summarizing and carefully reviewing nearly 30 years’ experience and lessons of application technology in corporate sector. Compared with the present situation of application technology in the field of education, they find the crux of the problem, so as to induce a new proposition, the specific expression of this proposition is: What education department can learn from the experience of the corporate sector is that if you want to see education significantly increased productivity, you need to make fundamental structural changes supported by technologies, rather than an evolutionary tinkering. Let us call this proposition as the structural changes of education system. So, what do the structural changes in education system mean? Education system contains school education, family education, social education, lifelong education, and other components. The most important and the most central is school education, because the majority of teenagers are the future of our country, national hope. Their knowledge, skills, ideology, and moral character mainly rely on school education to cultivate. Since school education system is the main body and core of the whole education system, the key and main contents of structural changes of education system should obviously be the structural changes of school education system. In order to understand the specific connotation of structural changes of school education system, let us first take a look at the following simple logical reasoning: Since classroom teaching is the main position of school education and the main front of all levels and types of education except distance education, classroom teaching should be the main body and core contents of school education. Since classroom teaching is the main structure and core content of school education, classroom teaching structure should naturally be the main structure of school education system. Since classroom teaching structure is the main structure of the school education system, it should be a logical conclusion that the realization of the changes of classroom teaching structure is the realization of the most important structural change in the school education system. The above simple logical reasoning shows that the specific connotation of structural changes of school education system is to realize the fundamental changes of classroom teaching structure. In other words, classroom teaching structure reform is the main and core part of the whole educational system structural changes. This shows that the remarkable achievements of the flipped classroom and LT are not

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accidental, but determined by their essential characteristics—they can fundamentally change the classroom teaching structure. The NETP/2010 proposition also tries to prove. America’s flipped classroom originated in 2007, while China’s LT started as early as August 2000 (seven years earlier), from its true connotation and essential characteristics, that is, Chinese–style flipped classroom. So far, the flipped classroom of the United States has not been able to enter China’s primary schools or the vast rural areas in China’s Midwest. However, LT has no obstacles in these two aspects. As mentioned above, the greatest success of LT is precisely achieved in the primary school stage. The vast rural areas in the central and western regions are a broad field for the promotion of LT. At present, the largest experimental areas of LT are in poor and remote rural areas such as Gansu, Ningxia, Guizhou, and Xinjiang. We need to learn from the developed countries of the west, but not to be selfdespise. Instead, we must be confident in our own experimental results and promote them to benefit more schools and students, thereby promoting structural changes in the school education system.

5 Using Smart Classroom to Create a Better Teaching–Learning Environment for the Flipped Classroom Since the mid to late 1990s China began to vigorously promote the education informationization. Primary and secondary schools in many areas have changed from the early digital education stage focusing on the construction of hardware and software facilities and development of teaching resources to smart education stage marked by construction of smart classrooms and intelligent campus. The biggest difference between these two stages is that the learning environment has changed fundamentally—from digital learning environment to smart learning environment.

5.1 Characteristics of Smart Learning Environment (Smart Classroom) Just as Huang Ronghuai and others pointed out [2] that smart learning environment has four characteristics, such as recording learning process, identifying learning situations, connecting learning community, and sensing physical environment. These four features are crucial and irreplaceable for the realization of intelligent decision– making, intelligent push of learning resources, intelligent evaluation of the effect of teaching and learning and individualized teaching.

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The reason why Smart Learning Environment (also known as Smart Classroom) has the above four characteristics is that it is supported by Educational Data Mining (EDM) and Learning Analytics (LA). In smart classrooms, the use of EDM and LA technology can effectively help teachers including intelligent decision and intelligent teaching. For example, teachers can view the number of questions raised by students on the Internet, the degree of their participation in the discussions, click rates of students’ mouse in the learning process, and students’ learning behavior can be induced on this basis, so teachers can find the most appropriate teaching methods and strategies. It can also be used to track students’ learning activities. How much time do different students spend on different knowledge points? Which points need to be repeated or emphasized? And which teaching methods or learning tools are most effective? Smart Classrooms can also help the teacher make an objective, comprehensive, and authentic assessment (intelligent evaluation), with complete information gained by data mining, through strict logical reasoning, and realize intelligent evaluation (i.e., objective, comprehensive, and truly show a student’s learning behavior and learning effect). So teachers can put each student in the real scene to review and evaluate, and on this basis carry out effective intervention in the students’ learning process.

5.2 The Origin of Smart Education The so-called smart education is exactly marked by the new teaching and learning methods, including intelligent decision–making, intelligent implementation, and intelligent evaluation, which are effectively carried out in the above–mentioned smart classroom. As for the origin of smart education, internationally, IBM applied smart education to education based on advocating the concept of smart earth, thus taking the lead in putting forward the concept of smart education and believing that future smart education should have the following five connotations [3]: Teaching activities should be designed with students as the center; Centralized management of teaching resources, real-time monitoring, scientific distribution, and real-time statistics and analysis; Intelligent decision-making and management of the teaching process and management process; Online interactive teaching without time and space constraints; High-quality resources should be easily shared anytime and anywhere.

As to how to implement smart education, the key is to use cloud computing, big data, the Internet of things, and other new generation of information technology to achieve the reconstruction of education information system. Through cloud computing, the traditional education information system and campus network system are integrated and optimized, and the education cloud service platform is constructed.

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So as to aggregate education resources and form large–scale unstructured education data (i.e., education data), and ultimately achieve the reconstruction of the entire education information system to support intelligent decision-making, intelligent implementation, and intelligent evaluation of teaching and learning process. This indicates that with the development of new generation of information technology such as cloud computing, and the completion of reconstruction of the entire educational information system, smart education marked by intelligent decisionmaking, intelligent implementation, and intelligent evaluation will soon become a reality, which support the teaching and learning process. Based on smart learning environment, smart education is marked by intelligent decision-making, intelligent implementation, and intelligent evaluation, which support the teaching and learning process. It creates favorable conditions to achieve the grand goals of education informationization, but it is not to say that we can reach the goals of education informationization. About the goal of educational informationization, different countries have different statements. Through educational informationization, the goal of the United States is to significantly improve educational productivity (refer to National Educational Technology Plan of the United States /2010 [3]). China is to solve the problems restricting the development of education, promote educational reform and innovation, and have a revolutionary impact on educational development (refer to Outline of the National Plan for Medium and Long-term Education Reform and Development /2010–2020). The cultivation of a large number of high–quality talents directly reflects the improvement of educational productivity. To promote the reform and innovation of education and have a revolutionary impact on the development of education, it is necessary to improve the teaching quality of various subjects so that the comprehensive quality of students (including knowledge, skills, and ideological morality) gets a good development, so as to transport a large number of high–quality innovative talents for the country. Therefore, whether it is to improve educational productivity or to promote the reform and innovation of education, the ultimate goal is to implement the teaching quality of various subjects and students’ comprehensive quality (that is, the cultivation of a large number of innovative talents). In fact, that is the grand goal that countries around the world to promote education informationization. Intelligent learning environment and smart education realized on this basis, which support intelligent decision–making, intelligent implementation, and intelligent evaluation in teaching and learning process, create favorable conditions for us to achieve the grand goal of education informationization. But it is not enough, and other important theoretical support is required, especially the support of the theory of classroom teaching structure reform and relevant measures to achieve the goal. Otherwise, everything is just good wishes. On account of changing classroom teaching structure is the essential feature of flipped classroom and the most effective teaching effect of flipped classroom, this is the basic consideration and starting point for us to use smart classrooms to create the more ideal teaching and learning environment for flipped classrooms.

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6 Reforming Traditional Classroom Teaching Structure: Significance and Measures 6.1 Significance of Reforming Classroom Teaching Structure As mentioned above, the essence and foothold of deep integration of information technology and subject teaching (that is, deep integration) are to change traditional classroom teaching structure, and transform the traditional classroom teaching structure from teacher–centered into give full play to teachers’ leading role and highlight students’ cognitive status. The reform of classroom teaching structure is the core content of educational system structure reform. It has been pointed out that in order to achieve the grand goal of educational informationization, we must finally implement significant improvement of teaching quality in various subjects and the good development of students’ comprehensive quality in all kinds of schools at all levels, which depends on classroom teaching, especially on the reform of classroom teaching structure. It can be seen that the key to achieve the grand goal of educational informationization is to fundamentally reform the traditional classroom teaching structure, of which significance and function are truly great. Experience at home and abroad tells us that if education informationization does not firmly grasp the key of reforming the traditional classroom teaching structure and constructing the new classroom teaching structure, it will be ineffective and pay the price. This is an iron law, which is also an important law found by Chinese scholars in the field of education informationization. Whoever neglects or disobeys this law, whether individuals, society, or country will pay a heavy price. For China’s national conditions, the specific connotation of this structure reform is to change the traditional teacher–centered classroom teaching structure, in which teachers dominate the classroom, into a teacher–student combination classroom teaching structure that not only gives full play to the leading role of teachers, but also highlights the cognitive subject status of students. For American conditions, the concrete connotation of this structural change is a bit different. It is one–sided emphasis on taking students as the center while ignoring the traditional teaching structure of teachers’ leading role. The change not only emphasizes giving full play to teachers’ leading role, but also highlights the cognitive subject status of students in the classroom teaching structure. This is the essence and the key of the problem. This is the structure reform of education system that the 2010 National Plan for Educational Technology (NETP) most concerned about and strongly hopes to implement, but has not yet found the answer to how to implement this structural change. This shows that reforming the traditional classroom teaching structure and constructing the new classroom teaching structure is indeed of great significance and function, which deserves wide attention of the educational circle and even the whole academic circles (or even the whole academic circle).

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6.2 Measures and Steps to Realize Classroom Teaching Structure Reform In the accurate connotation of structural change education system, the core and main content is the classroom teaching structure reform. With correct understanding and clarification of the basic thought of structural changes of education system, we can find the fundamental measures to achieve the grand goal of education informationization (that is, the information technology has a revolutionary impact on education development). This innovative measure is to significantly improve the teaching quality of various subjects and students’ comprehensive quality through the fundamental classroom teaching structure reform. In fact, the process of implementing the fundamental measure (it is integration of information technology and education) is the specific approach and method to realize the grand goal of education informationization. This way and method can be explained through the following three steps.

6.2.1

Relationship Between Smart Classroom and Classroom Teaching Structure Reform Should Be Deeply Understood and Effectively Applied

As mentioned above, the reform of teaching structure is not abstract and empty, but should be specifically embodied in the changes of the status and functions of the four elements of classroom teaching system. Teachers should transform from the master of classroom teaching and the instigator of knowledge into the organizer and director of classroom teaching, the helper and promoter of students’ constructing meaning and the cultivator of students’ good sentiment. And smart classroom that can effectively support intelligent decisionmaking, intelligent implementation, and intelligent evaluation can play an important role in supporting and promoting the changes of teachers’ status and role. Students should transform from the object of knowledge infusion and the passive receiver of external stimulation to the subject of information processing, the active constructor of knowledge meaning, and the subject of emotional experience and cultivation. (Smart classrooms providing a wide range of cognitive inquiry tools and emotional experience and internalization tools can effectively support and promote the changes of students’ status and role of students.) Teaching contents should be transformed from relying on just a single textbook to giving priority to teaching materials, and there should be rich informationization teaching resources, such as subject websites, resource databases, cases, course–ware, CD–ROM, etc. (smart classroom providing all kinds of digital and teaching resources can effectively support and promote the changes of the status and role of teaching contents). Teaching media should be transformed from visual teaching tools assisting teachers to breakthrough key points and difficult points to cognitive tools that not only

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assist teaching, but also promote students’ autonomous learning. And it can provide a variety of teaching media, including traditional teaching media and smart classrooms of the Internet+ era, can also play a strong role in supporting and promoting the changes of the status and function of instructional media).

6.2.2

Research and Developing a New Teaching Mode That Can Effectively Reform Classroom Teaching Structure

In order to truly put the goal of reforming traditional classroom teaching structure into practice (that is, make the status and function of the four elements of classroom teaching system change fundamentally), it is only possible to design and implement innovative teaching modes in classroom teaching by teachers. Therefore, it is necessary to adopt new teaching modes that can meet the requirements of classroom teaching structure reform in different subjects, and the teaching modes of various subjects are provided by LT in China (namely Chinese-style flipped classroom). As the above mentioned, there are several types: Two teaching modes are applicable to two school subjects (primary Chinese and primary English, junior English), which are considered difficult to teach, including the 2–1–1 mode (from the perspective of teaching steps, also known as the trinity teaching mode of knowledge, reading, and writing) for primary Chinese and 1–1–1 mode for primary and junior English (from the perspective of teaching contents, also known as communication-centered teaching mode). Besides, there are three general teaching modes for all subjects (including liberal arts and science): Meaningful transmission-acceptance teaching mode. This is mainly taught by teachers, but not mechanical indoctrination. It can help students to establish a new teaching mode of non-arbitrary and substantive connection between the current new knowledge (such as new principles, concepts, theorems, laws, opinions) and the original cognitive structure, which belongs to in-class integration mode (which often be used in a class of 40 or 45 min). Inquiry mode under the guidance of teachers. In the above introduction of LT in Chinese, it has been used as a typical teaching model in primary and junior mathematics. In fact, this model is not only suitable for mathematics, it has been proved to be suitable for all liberal arts and sciences in primary and secondary schools, which also belongs to the in-class integration mode (which can be used frequently during a 40–or 45–min class). Research-based learning mode. It is a teaching mode of self-exploration and self-discovery revolving around real problems in nature or in human social life. It is suitable for all liberal arts and sciences in primary and secondary schools, which is a kind of after-class integration mode (it cannot be used frequently in a class of 40 or 45 min, because it takes up a lot of after-class time of students, and usually lasts for weeks, months or even a

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semester). The operating steps and practical cases of the above three teaching modes will be discussed in depth in Chapter 13 of this book. Among the three general teaching modes provided by the above flipped classroom, the first two belong to in-class integration modes, while the latter belongs to after-class integration mode, which is very convenient to be adopted in the widely implemented Maker education. As is known to all, the implementation of Maker education usually consists of two stages: preparation stage and implementation stage. In preparation stage, it is vital to provide the majority of young Makers with necessary knowledge and ability foundation (it is possible to make real products). In the process of integrating Maker education with the current primary and secondary school education system, it is obvious that in-class integration mode is the most suitable and effective teaching mode. In implementation stage, it is essential to provide the necessary teaching modes, methods, and strategies for young Makers to make material products in physics Maker-space (or in the online space of network to create spiritual work), and students spend a lot of after-class activities time. Obviously, it is most appropriate mode to adopt the after–class integration modes in this case (i.e., research–based learning mode).

6.2.3

Rich Learning Resources of Various Disciplines Be Developed as Tools for Students’ Cognitive Exploration, Emotional Experience, and Internalization

In order to fundamentally change the traditional classroom teaching structure, in addition to the effective teaching modes, we should also develop abundant learning resources of relevant subjects, as cognitive tools for students to learn and explore independently, as well as the tools for emotional experience and internalization, so as to fully mobilize students’ enthusiasm and creativity. Different subjects should develop different learning resources. Humanities and social sciences should be expanded reading materials relevant papers, monographs, research reports and cases, etc.). Foreign language needs a variety of extended listening and reading materials closely related to social reality and nature. The learning resources of natural science should be modeling software, tabulating tools, simulation experiments, various VR and AR software, interactive course–ware, and so on. Under the guidance of informationization teaching innovation theory, the above innovative teaching modes and the rich learning resources of each subject must be implemented in the classroom teaching process through systematic teachers training. Only when these aspects are achieved, can the fundamental changes of classroom teaching structure be realized and the quality of all kinds of education at all levels be significantly improved. At present, there are a large number of relevant high-quality learning resources on the Internet (for each period—pre-schooling, elementary school, junior middle school, high school), which can be used for reference. They can be searched through

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various educational websites and the websites of Internet + education booming ecology, which will not be introduced here.

References 1. Sang, Xinmin, Li, Shuhua, & Xie, Yangbin. Cultural Strategy Interpretation of Jobs’ Question. [Deep Thinking on the New Trend of Online Courses] [J], Open Education Research, 2013, 3rd issue: pp. 30–41. (桑新民, 李曙华, 谢阳斌.“乔布斯之问”的文化战略解读——在线课程新 潮流的深层思考[J], 开放教育研究, 2013年第3期: 30–41) 2. Huang, Ronghuai, Zhang, Jinbao, Hu, Yongbin, Yang, Junfeng, Smart Campus. [The Inevitable Trend of Digital Campus Development][J], Open Education Research, 2012,18(4): pp. 12–17. [黄荣怀, 张进宝, 胡永斌, 杨俊锋, 智慧校园——数字校园发展的必然趋势] [J], 开放教育 研究, 2012, 18(4):12–17) 3. Lv Yao (interview with Professor Ke Qingchao), [Development Path of Intelligent Education Under Big Data][J], Distance Education in China, March 2014, pp. 41–44. (吕瑶 (对柯清超教 授的专访), 大数据下的智慧教育发展路径[J], 中国远程教育, 2014年3月, 41–44页)

Chapter 13

Chinese-Style Flipped Classroom: Implementation and Relevant Cases

This chapter is to systematically study the specific implementation of Chinese-style flipped classroom (CSFC) and its related cases, which inevitably involves the practical application of various teaching modes. The current education informationization has entered the 2.0 era in China, elementary and middle schools have been having certain information-based teaching environment (and many parts of the country with the digital campus, digital classroom, which is to become a smart classroom and smart campus), so the teaching mode is basically under the information environment of teaching mode, which belongs to information technology and curriculum integration model (that is, the integration of information technology and subject teaching). This chapter is devoted to the implementation of information technology and curriculum integration process and teachers must face the most important issues. Connotation and characteristics of information technology environment of teaching mode should be how to correctly understand, and how to effectively implement this kind of teaching mode and related concepts, which will be discussed in-depth and analyzed. Based on basic connotation, correct sorting principle and method of the teaching mode are put forward, especially for in-class classification and features of the integrated teaching mode with a more scientific definition and elaboration. To facilitate teachers to learn and master these contents, the structure of this chapter is as follows: Sect. 1 introduces the definition and connotation of several teaching concepts related to flipped classroom and how to classify the teaching mode; Sects. 2, 3, and 4 describe the implementation steps and relevant cases of the three most common modes of CSFC in turn. Sections 5 and 6 provide useful references for the implementation of CSFC in terms of opening ideas and expanding horizons, specifically introducing the two most influential information technology and curriculum integration modes (namely, WebQuest mode and JITT mode) in the world today [1, 2]. For this reason, this chapter first discusses flipped classroom teaching mode: its teaching concept and teaching model and its deep integration of the process of © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 K. He, Innovative Education Informatization with Chinese Characteristics, Bridging Human and Machine: Future Education with Intelligence, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0622-0_13

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information technology and curriculum classification; on this basis, the subsequent sections will analyze the most effective and general background, connotation and features of deep integration of information technology and course teaching mode.

1 Connotation and Classification of Concepts Related to Flipped Classroom Deep integration of information technology and curriculum, the substance and foothold of which is to change the traditional classroom teaching structure; namely, to change teacher-centered classroom teaching structure, to create a new structure, which can give full play to teachers’ leading role but also fully embodies cognitive status of students, which is teacher-student role combined (T-SRC) classroom teaching structure. However, the creation of a new classroom teaching structure can only be realized through relevant teaching modes. For this reason, this section first discusses the teaching mode of teaching concept and teaching model related to flipped classroom. Sorting of the teaching mode in the process of deep integration of information technology and curriculum is also discussed. On this basis in the subsequent sections, the most effective and common teaching modes in the process of deep integration of information technology and curricula will be discussed, their background, connotations and features, in-depth, implementation steps, and related case analysis.

1.1 Various Teaching Concepts Related to Flipped Classroom Teaching mode, teaching method, and teaching strategy are frequently used in the field of traditional teaching theory, which belongs to the concept of how to teach. They are closely related to each other, but they are also easy to be confused. Besides, the teaching structure, teaching mode, and teaching strategy are the concepts that are often mentioned in recent years, which belong to different level categories, developed as education informationization drives the modernization of education and promotes the deepening reform of education, and they are also easy to be confused with each other. Therefore, this section will make a clear division on the meaning of teaching mode, teaching method, teaching strategy, teaching structure, and other concepts as well as the connection and distinction between them.

1.1.1

Teaching Methods

There are broad and narrow definitions of teaching methods. The teaching method in the broad sense refers to all the means, tools, approaches, and methods adopted

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to achieve the predetermined teaching objectives and complete the relevant teaching tasks (including all kinds of teaching means, tools, methods, and the application of all kinds of teaching principles). The concept is broad and includes even principles of teaching. A narrow understanding of teaching principle is the guiding ideology of teaching methods, teaching methods and means for achieving the teaching goal, accomplishing the teaching content, the teaching under the guidance of the principle of interaction between teachers and students, and the related measures, which includes both teachers teaching method, and also includes students learning method, is the unity of the teaching and research method. The teaching method involved here in this monograph refers to this narrow sense of understanding, such as teaching method, demonstration method, experiment method, practice method, discussion method, role-playing method, and so on. It should be pointed out that the teaching methods mentioned here are different from teaching tools or means in general—teaching methods also include the selection and application of tools and means.

1.1.2

Teaching Strategies

In Ci Hai (a well-known dictionary), the definition of strategy is plan and resource, while in a more general sense, strategy refers to the means and methods adopted to achieve a certain purpose. Scholars at home and abroad have many definitions of teaching strategies. These definitions have both similarities and obvious differences, which can be summarized into the following three views (Shi Liangfang, Yuan Zhenguo, He Xuexin): Teaching strategy refers to a set of specific ways or methods adopted by teachers in class to achieve curriculum goals. Teaching strategies should change at any time according to the requirements of the teaching situation and the needs of students. In both domestic and foreign teaching theories and practices, the vast majority of teaching strategies involve how to refine or transform curriculum contents [3]. The so-called teaching strategy is a specific teaching plan with efficiency significance formed after the determination of teaching objectives and according to the established teaching tasks and students’ characteristics, the targeted selection and combination of relevant teaching contents, teaching organizational form, teaching methods, and techniques. Teaching strategy has the basic characteristics of comprehensiveness, maneuverability, and flexibility [4]. Teaching strategy is a series of applications for achieving teaching objectives, completing teaching tasks, and adjusting and controlling teaching activities on the basis of a clear understanding of teaching activities. A mature and effective teaching strategy should generally include the following elements: guiding ideology, teaching objectives, implementation procedures, and operational techniques [5]. Richelus, an American scholar, divides teaching strategies into three categories: teaching organization strategy, teaching delivery strategy, and teaching resource management strategy. Among them, teaching organization strategy refers to the strategy of how the related teaching contents should be organized, how the order should be arranged, and how the specific teaching activities should be arranged (that

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is, how to make teaching prescriptions). Teaching delivery strategy is to achieve effective transmission of teaching contents to students by teachers, how teachers should choose and use teaching media and teaching interaction strategy, which is related to the choice of teaching media, utilization, and how students should be grouped (teaching interaction can be pair, small groups, or individual learning, class lecture—a variety of ways of grouping). Teaching resource management strategy refers to how to plan and allocate teaching resources under the premise that the above two strategies have been determined. Based on the above different understandings of teaching strategies, we can understand teaching strategies as the strategies (including various means and methods) adopted under different teaching conditions to achieve the expected teaching objectives. Teaching strategy and teaching method originally belong to the same category, but the teaching method is more specific than the teaching strategy, more operational. In many applications, there is often no distinction made between teaching strategies and teaching methods. For example, for teaching content organization and transfer, strategy and method are often does not make a distinction between these two concepts (that is, there is no difference between “organization and transfer strategy of teaching content” and “organization and transfer methods of teaching content”), because the two concepts are shown in the process of teachers and students’ interaction (that is, the interaction process), so in fact, there is no difference between teaching strategy and teaching method.

1.2 Classification of Teaching Modes in the Integration of Information Technology and Curriculum The types of teaching modes are varied and hierarchical. The teaching mode of integrating information technology and curriculum is no exception. Since information technology and curriculum integration is essentially the integration of information technology and subject teaching, the process of which involves three stages: first, in-class stage, directly related to the classroom teaching (for primary schools, this stage is usually 40 min; for middle schools, this stage is usually 45 min); the other two are stages before-class and after-class, which can also be known as an extracurricular stage; seeing from the highest level of information technology and curriculum integration, the teaching mode only two types—that is, according to the teaching stages involved the integration in-class teaching mode: integration of extracurricular mode. Because classroom teaching involves different disciplines, different teaching strategies, and different technical support environments, it is much more complicated to realize the classification of the teaching patterns in the course of the class. For discipline teachers, it is simple to integrate the teaching pattern in the course of each subject. In the course of different technical support environments, the teaching

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mode is more complicated. For discipline teachers, the hardest thing to master is to integrate the teaching patterns in the course of different teaching strategies. According to different technical support environments, in-class integrated teaching modes can be divided into multimedia demonstration-based, network-based classroom, software-based tools or simulation-based experiments, and so on, a variety of different types of teaching mode. According to the actual situation of China, multimedia demonstration and network classroom are the most commonly used technical support environment in elementary and middle schools. Therefore, the following will be based on multimedia presentation and web-based classroom integration modes to do further elaboration. The in-class integrated teaching mode based on multimedia presentation is implemented in the multimedia projection classroom. In the process of integration implementation, the multimedia presentation course-ware prepared by teachers is generally used for teaching. Its outstanding features are as follows: first, the use of images, sound, video, and other multimedia material forms to achieve visual representation of macro or micro phenomena, or used to pave the ground and render the emotional teaching objectives. Second, students mainly participate in the teaching process in a one-way listening and watching, but it is difficult to realize two-way interaction between teachers and students, between students and students, and between man and machine. Based on the network classroom, the classroom environment is a computer network classroom. With in-class integration mode based on multimedia presentation, the differences are: because this kind of teaching mode, every student has access to a computer or a computer technical support environment, two students with one computer. In the process of implementation, there can be interaction, relatively highlighting students’ practice and features of autonomous learning—teachers should possess the higher ability of classroom organization and management skills under the network environment. Compared with the traditional classroom teaching organization and management ability it is very different, but it also should have effective integration of network teaching resources, reasonable design of students’ autonomous learning, autonomous study and the ability to organize activities of team collaboration. Due to the high price of hardware equipment, this integration mode is mainly used to support the teaching of information technology courses in primary and secondary schools. Only a few schools with good conditions have surplus computer network classrooms, which can be used to implement the integration of information technology and other disciplines. Therefore, the popularity of in-class integrated teaching mode based on network is far less than that of multimedia demonstration-based classrooms. According to different teaching strategies, in-class integrated teaching mode can be divided in principle into independent inquiry, collaborative learning, demonstration, lecturing, discussion, debate and role-playing, and so on—a variety of types of different teaching modes. But as mentioned above, the teaching mode refers to two or more methods in the process of teaching or a stable combination of strategies and use, in the process of teaching, to achieve the desired effect (for example, to create a new class teaching structure) a teacher tends to use of a variety of different

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methods and strategies, as these teaching methods and strategies combination can always achieve the desired effect or goal, it will become an effective teaching mode. So although, in principle, teaching mode can be divided according to a certain kind of teaching strategies, but because the teaching process is integrated use of a variety of methods and strategies; for example, beginning to introduce a new lesson, in an establishment learning situation, a teaching strategy can adopt advance organizer, or course-ware demo; consolidating new knowledge a drill and practice strategy can be used in; knowledge transfer group discussion or role-play strategy can be used, etc.), so usually within the integration of teaching modes involves a variety of teaching methods and strategies. In the next three sections, we will make a detailed introduction and review of the three most popular extracurricular integration teaching patterns (the exploratory learning in China) and the JiTT model in the West. The exploratory learning model is a common model of Chinese flipped classroom, and then the latter two are the most popular models in the world as to learn from advanced experience in the west.

2 Meaningful-Transference-Acceptance Mode: Procedures and Cases [1, 6] 2.1 Background and Teaching Process of Meaningful-Transmission-Acceptance Model The meaningful transmission-acceptance teaching model has a direct relationship with the intentional acceptance of the learning theory by the famous education psychologist Ausubel. The students’ learning is mainly accepted learning, not discovery learning, which is the knowledge and experience of students who teach and present materials, mainly through teachers’ teaching and rendering, rather than finding out. However, this kind of acceptance learning should be meaningful, not mechanical. To this end, new knowledge must establish an appropriate and intentional connection with the original idea. The condition of meaningful learning is to help learners establish a certain non-arbitrary substantive contact or relationship between the new knowledge and the old in cognitive structure, which should be subordinate relations, inclusive relations, or conjunctive relations between classes, which make the new knowledge practical. The main goal of this teaching is to promote students’ mastery of new knowledge (including understanding, maintaining, and applying the new knowledge), and emphasizing the internal logical relationship of knowledge to help learners form and extend cognitive structures. In this teaching mode, the dominant role of teachers is reflected in the motivation to motivate learners; choose appropriate teaching contents and teaching media; use advanced organizer strategy to help learners establish intentional connections between new and old knowledge (that is, helping learners realize how between the new knowledge and the old knowledge are subordinate relations or inclusive relations

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Fig. 1 Transmission-acceptance teaching model

and conjunctive relations). Choosing and design appropriate autonomous learning strategies and collaborative learning strategies promote learners’ self-construction, understanding and application, transfer of the meaning of knowledge. The subject status of the learners in the course of learning is reflected in the active establishment of the intentional connection between new and old knowledge, thereby gaining the understanding of the new knowledge. At the same time, the new knowledge will be absorbed into the original cognitive structure by assimilation, which will allow the existing cognitive structure to be extended in quantity. The teaching process of the meaningful transmission-acceptance teaching model is shown in Fig. 1.

2.2 Connotation and Characteristics of Meaningful Transmission-Acceptance Teaching Model The meaningful transmission-acceptance teaching model refers to the teacher’s lecture, blackboard writing, demonstration, and students’ listening, watching, notetaking (listening to explanation of the teacher, reading blackboard writing, taking down notes what the teacher says and writes). For primary school students, all this happening especially in junior primary school students, they mainly learn through ears and eyes, to complete knowledge and skills, thus to meet the teaching model of the teaching goal. Ausubel thinks that meaningful transmission-acceptance teaching model is not necessarily mechanical, discovery teaching is not necessarily meaningful. Knowledge (mastery means not only understanding but also to solve the actual problem), but not to memorize, mechanical, and be content with superficial understanding, and the key is whether to establish an inherent connection between the current new knowledge and the old knowledge with the original cognitive structure (which is stored in the long memory of the brain), that is, whether the new knowledge and the old knowledge can establish a kind of relationship of category relations or

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overall relations and parallel combination relation. If you can help students find these connections, the teaching is meaningful, otherwise, it is mechanical. The responsibility of a teacher is to help or inspire students to discover or find the inherent connections, rather than exceed one’s duties and meddle in others’ affairs, to use a Chinese proverb, directly telling the results; a major difference between a competent and incompetent teacher is right here. The basic characteristics of meaningful transmission-acceptance teaching patterns can be generalized in one sentence. The specific performance is in the following two aspects:

2.2.1

Special Emphasis on the Full Play of the Role of Teachers in Teaching

In this mode of teaching, teachers are not only the active teacher, knowledge initiator but also guide and monitor the whole teaching activities. Obviously, this pattern is more convenient for teachers to play their roles, which is easier for teachers to organize the various teaching activities of the classroom, more convenient for the emotional communication between teachers and students, and therefore is beneficial to the system of the knowledge of the subject, which is conducive to the learning and mastery of the knowledge and experience of the previous generations, and also beneficial to the more effective role of emotional factors to be filled in the course of teaching.

2.2.2

Though We Pay Attention to the Cognitive Status of Students in the Learning Process, We Do Not Pay Enough Attention To It

In this teaching mode, the learning methods of independent learning, independent inquiry, and independent discovery are not excluded, but they are placed in a subordinate position. While building new knowledge and old knowledge, learners also need to actively use their brains, think serious, thus play an initiative and enthusiasm, but this initiative and enthusiasm fully formed under teachers’ guide, inspiration, and under the environment of autonomous, independent self-learning, which cannot compare with consciously formed initiative and enthusiasm—based on the former; namely, under teacher’s guidance, though you can use shorter time (i.e., with high efficiency) to achieve mastery of knowledge and skills, hard to cultivate innovative thinking and innovative ability. Based on the latter (i.e., discovery learning), it can achieve a deeper understanding and mastery of knowledge and skills, and also facilitate the formation and development of innovative thinking and innovative ability, which is more conducive to the growth of innovative talents. However, for the same amount of knowledge, to achieve basic understanding and mastery, generally speaking, the former teaching mode (meaningful transmission-acceptance mode) is more time-saving than the latter (discovery mode); that is, teaching efficiency is higher. And, as mentioned in (1), this model also helps emotional factors more effectively in the learning process. Although meaningful transmission-acceptance

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teaching mode has the above deficiencies, in the current and future, it is still adopted in Chinese schools of various levels (from the primary, secondary, vocational school, to university), which is an indispensable and important teaching mode, one of the commonly used models of the integrated implementation class.

2.3 Teaching Steps of Meaningful Transmission-Acceptance Model This teaching mode usually includes the following four steps:

2.3.1

Use the Advance Organizer Strategy

This step involves clarifying teaching objectives, presenting, and explaining the advance organizer, and evoking learner’s previous knowledge experience. Clarifying teaching objectives is to attract students’ attention and make them clear about the current direction of learning. Advance organizer is to use appropriate guiding materials to orient and guide the new contents currently learned. There should be some non-arbitrary substantial connections between the guiding material and the new contents (new concept, new proposition, new knowledge) that is currently being learned, and it conforms to the requirements of cognitive assimilation theory in terms of inclusiveness, generality, and abstractness, to fix and absorb the new learning contents. In fact, advanced organizer is the concrete embodiment of the original idea in the cognitive structure of learners that has some non-arbitrary and substantial connection with the new contents currently learned. It is a bridge between the new knowledge and the original cognitive structure, which helps learners to establish a meaningful learning direction. Corresponding to the three relations between new knowledge and old knowledge (generic relations, summative relations, juxtaposed association relations), there are also three different types of advanced organizers: hyper-ordinate organizer, subordinate organizer, and parallel organizer. In the process of implementing advanced organizer strategies, we must have a clear understanding of this, so that we can make appropriate choices about which advanced organizer strategies to implement when organizing current teaching contents of new knowledge.

2.3.2

Introduce and Present New Contents

The introduction and presentation of learning contents can take the form of explanation, discussion, experiment, reading, assignment, or video playback. Introduction of learning materials, and should be logical and structured, making it students easy to understand the organizational structure of the contents, easy to grasp the concept,

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principle, and correlation between the knowledge points, which makes students have a clear sense of direction to the whole learning process and learning contents from a systematic and structured. In this process, teachers should be good at focusing and maintaining students’ attention.

2.3.3

Adopting Teaching Content-Organization Strategy

To help students effectively realize the assimilation of new knowledge (that is, to help students to absorb the new knowledge into their cognitive structure), in addition to the use of independent learning strategies to stimulate students’ enthusiasm for active learning. It is also required that teachers should use different teaching contentorganization strategies according to the existing relations between the new and the old knowledge, such as generic relations, overall relations, or parallel combination relations. If there is a generic relation between the new and old knowledge, the teaching content organization should adopt the gradual differentiation strategy. If there is an overall relationship between the new and the old knowledge, the strategy of level by level should be adopted in the organization of teaching contents. If there is a parallel combination between the new and the old knowledge, the integration and coordination strategy should be adopted in the organization of teaching contents. As for the specific implementation methods and application cases of these three organizational strategies for teaching contents, please refer to Chapter 4, Sect. 5 in Chapter References [4].

2.3.4

Promoting Consolidation and Transfer of New Knowledge

In the process of implementing this step, learners, on the one hand, should apply the fine processing strategy and the reflective strategy to consolidate and deepen the meaningful construction of the new knowledge they currently learn. On the other hand, new knowledge should be mastered and transferred through drills and practice strategies in the process of using new knowledge to solve practical problems.

2.4 A Case Study on the Implementation of Transmission-Acceptance Teaching Mode 2.4.1

Primary School Mathematics Teaching Case—Circumference of Rectangle and Square

The circumference of the rectangle and square is the contents of the fourth volume of mathematics for five-year primary schools in nine-year compulsory education. This case was designed and taught by teachers of the Four Combined research group in

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Macheng No. 2 Experimental Primary School, Hubei Province. This lesson is based on the students’ understanding of the features of rectangles and squares. The specific teaching process is as follows: The teacher uses multimedia projection to show a group of pictures of campus and activities of teachers and students. Please tell me which pictures are the ones you have learned. How many edges do they have? When the students answered, the teacher drew shapes in the pictures with colored pens, which not only aroused the students’ interest in learning but also naturally led to the theme of the lesson.

A Hands-On Operation to Experience New Knowledge Then the teacher took out some aluminum bar, please guess which kinds of graphics can be surrounded. The students use the shape of aluminum bar circumference by themselves, and the teachers conduct inspection and guidance. After the students finish the graph, the students in groups examine and evaluate the graph (in the evaluation of the same group, students are required to use existing tools to judge the length of the graph). Then communicate the discussion process and results of each group in class.

Form the Concept of Perimeter Students initially construct the concept of perimeter through hands-on experience— the length of the circumference of a plane figure is called the perimeter of the figure. Then the multimedia technology is used to demonstrate the process of the perimeter of triangle, square, and rectangle to deepen students’ understanding of the concept of perimeter. Finally, the teacher-led further: Do leaves have a circumference? Does the pentacle have a circumference? Desktop? Ask the children to touch to expand students’ knowledge about the perimeter.

Master the Calculation Method of the Perimeter of Rectangle and Square The teacher draws a rectangle on the blackboard and asks children how to calculate the perimeter of a rectangle. The teacher lets the whole class calculate independently and selects several students to perform the calculation on the blackboard; at the same time inspires everybody to think: how many kinds of algorithms does this problem have? When you calculate the circumference of a rectangle, which one do you choose? Give your reasons. After the students have mastered the calculation method of the circumference of a rectangle through discussion and comparison, they are given a card with a square on it and asked to try to figure out the circumference of the square.

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Teacher and Student Summarize First by the teacher with language guidance: “now everyone makes a circle, thinks about it, calculates it. What did you learn? Can you give us a proper title for today’s lecture?” Then through the class discussion, complete the summary and induction.

Application and Expansion To develop and apply the newly learned, students are given three exercises. One, to calculate the square handkerchief; two, to calculate the perimeter of the basketball court. Three, to be a little designer—the school has a vacant lot to build a flower bed. Whoever can help the school design a flower bed with a circumference of 24 m will get the title of a little designer. The teaching content of this lesson covers two knowledge points, one, the concept of perimeter, the other calculation of the perimeter of rectangle and square. This lesson is based on the students’ mastery of the features of rectangle and square. In the course of teaching, the teacher raised two key questions: How long is the aluminum bar used for the graph? And how do you calculate the circumference of a rectangle? These two questions are two advanced organizers in the teaching of this course. The first advanced organizer is an upper concept (insubordinate organizer) for the learning contents of the perimeter of rectangle and square—the perimeter of rectangle and square belong to the perimeter of graphics. The second advanced organizer is a subordinate concept (subordinate organizer) for the current learning content. The calculation of the perimeter of a rectangle is a subclass of the calculation of the perimeter of a rectangle and a square.

For Super-Ordinate Organizers, the Teacher Adopts the Following Strategy of Progressive Differentiation of Teaching Content Organization Based on students surrounding the figure and using tools to measure the length of the aluminum bar, the proposition of “the length around the plane figure called the circumference of the figure” is derived. Then, the animation is played through multimedia projection—the process of unfolding the perimeter of triangle, square, and rectangle is visually demonstrated to consolidate and deepen this concept. For the subordinate advanced organizer, the teacher adopted the following level-by-level induction content-organization strategy: first, let the students list the formula of a given rectangle according to their understanding of the features of the rectangle and calculate its circumference. Then the different calculation methods are discussed and compared. Finally, teachers and students work out the most concise and effective formula for calculating the perimeter of a rectangle. On this basis, to promote knowledge transfer, the teacher asked the students to further think about how to calculate the perimeter of the square. Then, students summed up the formula for

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calculating the circumference of the square through careful thinking, group discussion, and class communication again. At this point, the teaching objectives of this lesson have been generally completed, so the teacher guides the students to review the learning process of this lesson: What have you learned? Could you give me a suitable topic for today’s class? The unanimous answer was the perimeter of the rectangle and the square.

The Content of this Lesson is Divided into Two Stages The first stage mainly revolves around the concept of circumference of the plane figure. Through activities such as asking students to surround, look, and speak, each student is involved in the process of knowledge construction so that students can form the concept of the circumference of the plane figure based on full perception. The second stage mainly focuses on calculating the perimeter of the rectangle and square, enabling students to learn the calculation method of the perimeter of rectangle and square in an open learning atmosphere, and in a preliminary way reflects the new educational ideas that different learners can get different development in the learning process. In the end, the three extended exercises are designed with ingenuity. They are not only closely related to students’ daily life but also enable students to apply the new knowledge they have learned to solve problems, to better promote students’ consolidation and transfer of the knowledge they have learned.

2.4.2

Junior Middle School Physics Teaching Case—Light Transmission

The case Light Transmission was designed and taught by Hou Zhihong from Beijing Yongle Middle School. It is the first section of the chapter Light Phenomenon in junior middle school physics, and also the basic content of geometric optics. The students’ existing life experience makes them understand that light travels along a straight line, but they do not know that the straight-line propagation of light is conditional. The students also know many examples of the three-point line but do not know that this is using the principle of linear propagation of light. Through the study of this course, students can know not only what but also why. In addition, this course also requires the preliminary research method of permeation optics—knowing how to represent light with a light line is the first method for junior middle school students to represent abstract physical phenomena with an ideal physical model; so, learning this lesson well is the basis for learning other physical knowledge well. The specific teaching process is as follows:

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Scene Introduction Arouses Interest Teachers show some pictures of light and shadow with the help of multimedia projection to attract students’ attention; at the same time, the teacher used the words light brings us warmth and beauty. Today let us study light and see how it brings warmth and beauty to us. Use this as a prologue to stimulate students’ interest in the study of light. Then you present the lesson, and you ask the question: Look at the light from the physics point of view. What do you want to study? This inspired the students to think, so the students began to seriously consider, then group discussion and the representatives of discussion results were selected to answer, and finally under the guidance of the teacher, who concluded understanding the light source, light transmission mode, and speed of light and other answers (written by the teacher on the blackboard).

Knowing the Light Source The teacher presents other pictures of light and shadow and asks, where does the light come from in these beautiful scenes? After the students answer separately, the teachers and students summarize the concept of light source together. To explore the propagation mode of light through experiments: the teacher first put forward three questions: In which media can light propagate? Guess how light travels through these media through everyday experience? Can experiments prove your conjecture? In this way, the students can think about the questions raised by the teacher and verify the conjectures by doing hands-on experiments in groups. These experiments include experiments of light propagation in solid and experiments of light propagation in different media. After finishing the experiment, the whole class discussed the experimental results. Then, the teacher used animation to demonstrate and explain the phenomenon that the light will bend when the sun shines on the earth and then concluded the law that light propagates along a straight line in the same uniform medium. At the same time, students learn to use physics symbols to represent light.

Examples and Applications of Linear Propagation of Light Teachers continue to demonstrate and explain physics experiments such as hole imaging, shadow formation, solar eclipse and lunar eclipse formation simulation, so that students can understand that linear propagation of light is a basic characteristic of light and has a large number of applications in daily life. For example, students can cite examples such as seeing whether the side of the object is straight, stand in line, shoot and aim, laser tunneling collimation for illustration.

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Learning the Speed of Light The teacher asks: When thunder strikes, the thunder and the lightning occur simultaneously. Why do we see the lightning before we hear the thunder? This question can stimulate students’ thinking about the speed of light propagation, and thus lead to the concept and value of the speed of light.

Teacher Summary and After-Class Transfer Based on the above aspects of content teaching, the teacher summarizes the main contents of this lesson to help students sort out the key points of knowledge and grasp their internal relations. Besides, the teacher left three extracurricular design questions for the students: Use what we have learned in this lesson to design a scheme to measure the height of a certain street lamp; Design an experiment to measure the speed of light by referring to historical materials related to the measurement of the speed of light; Try to design a pinhole camera. On the one hand, the purpose of this group of design questions is to promote the consolidation and transfer of knowledge learned in this class; and on the other hand, it also aims to cultivate students’ consciousness and attitude of combining theory with practice. From the above case, one sees that teaching–learning priority is given to teaching (including demos, asking questions, explanation, and summary, homework, etc.), supplemented by students experimental physics teaching cases; it is easy to find that the teacher in this step of introduction, using multimedia means, in contact with student’s own life experience, stimulating students’ interest in the study of light to. At the same time, the light and shadow, the advanced organizer of the current study, is also presented through this section. This advanced organizer (Light and Shadow) is an epidemiologist concept for The Propagation of Light. As far as the teaching of The Transmission of Light is concerned, the strategy of gradual differentiation is undoubtedly appropriate for the organization of its content. Then the teacher put forward three questions for the students to think about. Then the students were asked to do experiments in groups and discuss the experimental results. This is the concrete embodiment of the use of this gradual differentiation strategy. All in all, this class teaching process is organized surrounding three issues—light source, the mode of transmission light and light speed; at the same time, the lesson adopts a variety of ways to consolidate and deepen key points and difficulties of mode of transmission of light, using advanced organizer strategy and supplemented by group experiment, team discussion, living examples. The last part of the after-class transfer design is also in place—the process of students completing the after-class design is a process of further in-depth construction, mastery, and flexible application of the current

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knowledge. From the perspective of the overall teaching process of the above cases, this course is a typical case of meaningful transmission-acceptance teaching mode in the multimedia teaching environment, which mainly adopts the teaching strategy of an advanced organizer and content-organization strategy of gradual differentiation.

2.4.3

Junior Middle School Chemistry Teaching Case—Chemical Balance

Chemical Balance is the second section of Chapter 2 of junior middle school chemistry. This case was designed and taught by Qian Lei, a teacher from Gucheng High School, Shijingshan District, Beijing. The main teaching objective of this lesson is to enable students to understand and enumerate basic features of chemical equilibrium and give a complete definition of the concept on this basis. The teaching process is as follows:

Interest is Stimulated by Introduction The teacher introduces the topic of this lesson through the situation of tug-of-war competition familiar to the students. The quote is Have you all taken part in a tugof-war? At the beginning of the game, when the two teams were deadlocked, what would happen to the red line in the middle of the rope? Why is that? The teacher asked, there is a lot of balance existing in nature. Can you give some examples? (Student examples: ecological balance, power balance, psychological balance…) Then the teacher pointed out, there is a balance all around us. In addition to the several equilibria you have just mentioned, there is also electrolyte balance which belongs to chemical balance in the human body. Today let us learn about chemical balance!

The Concept of Dynamic Balance was Initially Established Based on the students’ interest in learning chemical balance aroused, the teacher first let the students enter the special website of chemical balance to operate and observe the simulation experiment of water in–out balance provided by the website. In the course of the experiment, the teacher asked the students to observe carefully what happened when they first turned on the tap. And think about and answer the following questions: Why does this happen? What is the state of the inlet and outlet? What are the features of this equilibrium? What changes when you are in dynamic equilibrium? What is constant? Is the water in the pool always in balance? It is hoped that the students can make the following answers through careful observation and careful thinking: The water level in the tank starts to rise gradually and stops changing after some time. It does not change because the inlet and outlet rates are the same, reaching an equilibrium state, which is a dynamic equilibrium.

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This dynamic equilibrium is characterized by change and invariability. Change refers to the constant replacement of water molecules. Change refers to the number of water molecules. The water in a pool cannot always maintain this equilibrium, which can be disturbed as the rate of inflow and outflow changes.

Further Expanding the Concept of Dynamic Balance In order to further expand the concept of dynamic balance, with the above experiment of in–out water balance, the teacher continues to guide students to do another experiment of sucrose dissolved in water on the website. During the experiment, the teacher asked the students to look carefully to see if sucrose could be added endlessly each with a small amount of water. And think about and try answering the following questions: What is the relationship between dissolution rate and crystallization rate at the beginning of dissolution? What does it matter when it reaches saturation? What kind of state does it reach? Can you explain what dissolution equilibrium is? What are the characteristics of this balance? The students are expected to through careful observation and careful thinking make the following answers: the dissolution rate is higher than the crystallization rate at the beginning of dissolution; a state of equilibrium (saturation) is then reached where the rate of dissolution is equal to the rate of crystallization; dissolution equilibrium is a state in which the dissolution rate and crystallization rate of solute are equal at a certain temperature, and the mass fraction of solute remains unchanged. This equilibrium is characterized by dynamic equilibrium.

Learning Chemical Balance on the Basis of Dynamic Balance The teacher first stressed that in the micro-scopic process, the number of molecular collisions per second can reach 10 to the power of 30 or so; the micro-graphs we see on the website are only schematic. In other words, there is a freeze at the end of each point in time, which can be viewed as a picture taken with a very high speed and multiple cameras. This point is pointed out to let the students understand the difference between the actual reaction process and the micro-graph, to avoid forming the wrong concept. Students then observe the equilibrium phenomenon in chemical reactions on the website.

The Teacher’s Request The teacher’s request is while observing the phenomenon in the process of microchemical reaction, think about the following questions: Can you explain the micro image you obtained in the experiment? How do the forward and backward reaction rates change? What happens to the concentration of the reactants and the products

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when the rates of forwarding reaction and reverse reaction are the same? What state is this in? It is hoped that the students can make the following answers through careful observation and careful thinking: This is a microscopic image reflecting the changes in the rate of positive and negative reactions in the process of chemical equilibrium; with the increase of time, the rate of forwarding reaction gradually decreases, and the rate of reverse reaction gradually increases; finally, the positive and reverse reaction rates reach the same level, and the concentration of reactants and products does not change. This is a state of dynamic equilibrium.

Summarize the Features of Chemical Equilibrium Teachers should help students to summarize the main features of chemical equilibrium based on the above experiments. Therefore, the teacher should first ask the following questions: According to the two images obtained in the experiment, can you tell me what features the chemical reaction has when it reaches an equilibrium state? With the experience of the above experiments, and after the teacher’s stimulation, guidance, and hints, most students can gradually conclude the following basic features of chemical equilibrium: positive and negative reaction rates are equal; the concentrations of reactants and products are no longer changing to achieve a dynamic equilibrium; and, it is a reversible reaction.

Through Summarizing to Promote Knowledge Consolidation and Transfer In order to consolidate and deepen knowledge in this section, also to cultivate students’ abstract generalization ability, the teacher sums up on the basis of the relation and distinction between two-force balance and chemical equilibrium, students are required to fully grasp the basic features of chemical equilibrium and give out a complete and accurate definition for chemical equilibrium under. To promote the application and transfer of the knowledge learned in this section, the teacher also assigned two closely related practices, and quite inspiring application problems. In this case, when the teacher introduces the subject of this lesson through the tug-of-war situation, he is also implementing the advance organizer strategy—the two-force balance derived from this situation is the advance organizer of the learning content of this section. Two-force balance and new chemical equilibrium in this section, although there is no generic relationship or overall relations (i.e., the former concept is neither super-ordinate nor the latter subordinate concept), there is a parallel combination relation between the two and also have some relevant even common attributes (this advance organizer is called parallel organizer), it is through the related or common property between new and old knowledge that they will be able to establish some of the non-arbitrary substantive relations, so as to achieve meaningful rather than mechanical learning. When the degree of inclusiveness and abstraction

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of the advance organizer is neither higher nor lower than that of the current teaching content (i.e., there is no generic relationship or umbrella relationship between the two), but they have some related or even common attributes, the integration and coordination strategy can be adopted for the organization of teaching contents. Integrated coordination refers to, through analysis and comparison of an advance organizer with the current teaching contents that have a similar or common property, and in what way they are not the same, which help and promote learners’ cognitive structure of relevant factors to reintegrate and coordinate, so that the current study of new knowledge is absorbed into a hierarchy of the original cognitive structure, belonging to the t wider, more abstract concept system. In this case, the application of the integration and coordination strategy is reflected in the organization of the current teaching contents in the following ways: • (through video display and teachers’ language description) to introduce the phenomenon of two-force balance in tug-of-war competition and its related features (as the parallel advanced organizer); • Under the guidance of teachers, let students operate and observe water in–out balance and sucrose solution on special websites simulation experiments, such as water and chemical reaction, through careful observation and careful thinking, coupled with the teacher’s enlightenment and guidance, the students gradually knew and understood the definition of balance in chemical reaction based on the concept of dynamic balance and could enumerate the basic features of chemical balance (this is the topic of this lesson). • The teacher pointed out in the summary, two-force balance and chemical reaction in the balance (that is, chemical equilibrium) have the same attribute—a state in which two elements are interacting and the effects of the two are equal; • At the same time, the teacher pointed out the difference between two-force equilibrium and chemical equilibrium—the two interaction elements of the former are human physical force or mechanical force, while the two interaction elements of the latter are two different reactants formed by the positive reaction rate and the reverse reaction rate in the chemical reaction. • Through two closely related practical, and quite inspiring application problems to promote consolidation and migration. In addition to giving a parallel advance organizer (two-force balance) at the beginning of this case, an insubordinate advance organizer (dynamic balance) is given later to break through the important and difficult points of this lesson—to understand the basic features of chemical balance. Since chemical equilibrium refers to a dynamic equilibrium in the process of the chemical reaction when positive reaction rate and reverse reaction rate are equal and the concentration of reactants remains constant, there is an insubordinate and subordinate relation between dynamic equilibrium and chemical equilibrium (namely, the latter belongs to the former). As mentioned earlier, in this case, it is best to use a strategy of gradual differentiation. In this case, the teaching process, lets students work the project on the websites; in turn, dong simulation experiments—in–out water balance, sucrose dissolved in water and chemical reaction, etc. (in each simulation experiment, the students are

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guided with the inspiration of the teacher to observe and think seriously), it is the embodiment of progressive differentiation strategy use; it is also because of the use of this strategy that students can initially establish the concept of dynamic balance, expand the concept of dynamic balance and further study chemical balance on this basis, through the process students can be more comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the basic characteristics of chemical balance, to effectively break through the important and difficult points of this lesson. From the overall teaching process above, this section mainly uses advanced organizer teaching strategy (which uses parallel organizers) and super-ordinate advanced organizers—two types of advanced organizers) and in conjunction with integrated coordination and successive differentiation, etc., and meaningful transmission-acceptance of the teaching model of the teaching content-organization strategy.

3 Inquiry-Under-Teacher-Guidance Mode: Procedures and Cases [1, 7, 8] 3.1 Background and Teaching Process of the Teacher-Guided Inquiry Model Learning approach or learning style is an important concept in contemporary learning theory. Most scholars believe that learning approach refers to students’ basic behavior and cognitive orientation in the process of completing learning tasks. Learning style does not refer to specific learning methods and strategies but refers to basic features of learners in the learning process in terms of autonomy, inquiry, and cooperation. The traditional way of learning puts learning based on the objectiveness, passivity, and dependence of human beings, and ignores learner’s proactivity, initiative, and independence. To change the learning style of students is to change driven by other people, passive, and dependent learning style, and advocate independent, inquiry-based and cooperative learning style, making students develop their subject consciousness, initiative and creativity, and becoming the real master of learning. Basic Education Curriculum Reform Outline (Trial) implemented since 2001 has put forward the task of changing students’ learning style and promoting students to study more actively and individually under the guidance of teachers. Moreover, it advocates the learning mode characterized by independence, inquiry, and cooperation, to change the traditional teacher-centered and textbook-centered situation [8]. Under such a background, the teaching mode of inquiry under the guidance of teachers has been gradually formed and developed. Because under the guidance of teachers to explore learning objects (that is, learning topics) is the one or a few knowledge points in the text (this and the next chapter extracurricular integration mode inquiry learning mode in the subject learning is always around nature or social life is essentially different in some real problem).

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Fig. 2 Block diagram of inquiry-based teaching mode

Since the textbooks of any course are composed of many texts, and each text always contains one or more knowledge points, which indicates that this mode can be adopted in almost all daily teaching activities (including regular classroom teaching activities of various disciplines) integrating information technology with the curriculum. In fact, the teaching mode of inquiry under the guidance of teachers has become one of the most effective and commonly used teaching modes that can meet the needs of regular classroom teaching of various subjects. The teaching process of the teaching model of inquiry-under-teacher-guidance is shown in Figure 2.

3.2 Connotation and Features of the Teaching Mode of Inquiry-Under-Teachers’ Guidance Under the guidance of teachers’ exploration teaching mode refers to in the teaching process, students under teachers’ guidance, autonomous, inquiry, and cooperation as the main features of learning. In the current teaching and self-learning and in-depth group cooperation and communication, so as to better achieve curriculum standard of cognitive and emotional goals and objectives teaching mode. Cognitive goals involve understanding and mastering knowledge, concepts, principles, and abilities related to the subject. Emotional goals involve the cultivation of feelings, attitudes, values, and moral character. In the process of implementing the deep integration of information technology and curriculum, the cultivation of knowledge and abilities of subjects (such as reading, writing, computing, map reading, map recognition, experiment, and computer operation) as well as the formation of healthy emotions, correct values, and excellent ideological morality can be gradually implemented through this teaching mode. The basic features of the teaching mode of inquiry-under-teacher-guidance can also be summarized in a sentence: teacher-student combination—not only attaching

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importance to giving full play to the leading role of teachers in the teaching process, but also highlighting the cognitive subject status of students in the learning process. Specifically expressed in the following two aspects:

3.2.1

Attach Great Importance to the Leading Role of Teachers in the Teaching Process

Although the teaching mode of inquiry-under-teacher-guidance mainly adopts the learning mode of independence, inquiry, and cooperation and emphasizes students’ independent learning and independent inquiry in the teaching process, it does not ignore the leading role of teachers in the teaching process. On the contrary, it makes the teacher’s leading role more comprehensive and fully play in the whole teaching process through the following four steps. • The current object of inquiry learning should be determined by the teacher—as mentioned above, this mode of teaching is always carried out around a certain knowledge point in the course (that is, the object of inquiry learning) and from which knowledge point is not determined at will, and which cannot be freely chosen by students. However, it should be determined by the teacher according to the requirements of teaching objectives and the progress of teaching. • In order to make this exploratory learning effective, the students need to put forward a number of enlightening questions to the class, which can cause students to think deeply and be closely related to the current learning object (so that the class students will be able to explore). This step is critical, and whether the questions raised are enlightening and whether they can drive students think deeply, and it is the key to achieve success of exploratory learning. Such questions must be proposed by teachers, and can only be proposed by teachers (students are not aware in the first contact with the subjects, and students cannot raise questions of the current learning as enlightening questions). • To provide various help and guidance by the teachers in the process of exploring, with the problems in the process of exploring, it is the student individual (or group) to complete, but in this process, the teacher is required to provide relevant inquiry tools (such as geometry sketchpad, modeling software, simulation experiment system, etc.) and related teaching resources and learning tools, as well as methods and strategies of inquiry-based learning in need of guidance. If this aspect of learning support and guidance is not inadequate implementation, it will frustrate students’ learning confidence and enthusiasm, so that the effect of inquiry learning is greatly reduced, or even completely failed. • After the completion of the inquiry process, the teacher helps summarize and improve—generally individual students first (or study group) do the summary (rather than directly by the teacher to do the summary). To sum up, although inquiry-based learning can achieve a lot, students are beginners, they may inevitably have a bias or even wrong ideas, through the discussion and exchange of the whole class, brainstorming and learning from each other, to a certain extent,

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can overcome these one-sided views or even wrong ideas. However, if we want the whole class to achieve a more in-depth understanding and mastery, learn the knowledge points can arise from perceptual knowledge to rational knowledge, not only know what, and also know why, these need help and improvement from the teacher. After all, compared with students, teachers have a more comprehensive, thorough, and in-depth grasp of the whole course, and can achieve a strategically advantageous position. 3.2.2

Highlighting the Cognitive Subject Status of Students in the Learning Process

The teaching mode of inquiry-under-teacher-guidance adopts the learning mode of independence, inquiry, and cooperation, so in the teaching process, special emphasis is placed on students’ independent learning and independent inquiry, as well as group cooperative learning activities implemented on this basis. The teaching objective of a lesson is mainly completed by the students’ independent inquiry and cooperative learning activities of the study group. In this process, due to the students’ initiative, enthusiasm and creativity can generally get more sufficient play, so this kind of teaching mode can achieve mastery of more in-depth understanding of knowledge and skills to, more conducive to the formation and development of innovative thinking and innovative ability, and to the cultivation of innovative talents. It can be seen that the key to the success of this teaching model is whether the students’ dominant position in the learning process can be fully embodied, which is of vital importance. But this is only one aspect of the problem. To make exploratory of teaching mode (under-teacher-guidance) real success, in addition to fully mobilize students’ initiative and enthusiasm, as mentioned above, in the process of exploring several stimulation problems, learning tools are also needed, with teaching resources and tactics to help and support. However, teachers’ leading role cannot be separated from the proposal of heuristic problems and the provision of relevant tools, resources, and strategies. It can be seen that in order to implement the inquiry-based teaching model successfully, it is not enough to only have the initiative and enthusiasm of students, but also need the guidance, help, and support of teachers. In other words, the successful implementation of inquiry-based teaching mode involves two aspects: it should not only highlight the cognitive status of students in the learning process but also give full play to the leading role of teachers in the teaching process. Without either of them, inquiry-based learning is fruitless and cannot have a good effect. Because of this, we think that the combination of the teacher role and the student role is the most essential feature of the teaching model of inquiry under the teachers’ guidance.

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3.3 Steps of the Teaching Model of Inquiry-Under-Teachers’ Guidance The following five steps should generally be involved in implementing this teaching model:

3.3.1

Creation of Situation

Creating a situation is not only the need for teachers to introduce teaching themes but also the need to stimulate students’ learning motivation and self-exploration motivation. Teachers varied ways of establishment situation: can set a question for further research, this problem need to use the knowledge they learned the current), also can play a closely related to the current study theme video, or recite a poem, and pored over a period of music, a vivid little story, an example of a typical case, presentations, especially the course-ware, the design of a lively and interesting roleplay…. (Of course, all of these activities should have a prerequisite—they must be closely related to the topic being studied, or they will not achieve the purpose of creating the situation.) Teachers create situations that can stimulate students’ learning motivation and inquiry motivation through the above methods. Once students enter the situation created by teachers, they can form psychological preparation for learning under the influence and effect of the situation and generate interest in the inquiry.

3.3.2

Inspiring Thinking

After the students’ interest in learning has been aroused by the creation of the situation and their psychological readiness for learning has been formed, the teacher should timely put forward some questions that are enlightening and can cover the current teaching knowledge points (avoid questions with obvious answers or knowing questions). Students answering these questions will help them learn and master relevant knowledge and skills—the process of actively and efficiently completing the current learning tasks. At the stage of problem thinking, teachers should give specific suggestions and guidance on how students should solve problems, what cognitive tools or learning resources should be used to solve problems, and how to use these tools and resources, including how to deal with new problems encountered in the process of inquiry. Students should carefully analyze the questions raised by the teacher, make clear the learning tasks they need to complete, and form a preliminary exploration plan through comprehensive and in-depth thinking.

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Independent Learning and Independent Inquiry

In the process of implementing this step, students make use of cognitive tools and learning resources provided by the teacher (or the tools and resources obtained from the Internet or other ways under the guidance of the teacher) to independently explore the questions related to a certain knowledge point raised by the teacher. This kind of self-learning and self-inquiry activities include: students using relevant cognitive tools (different cognitive tools required by different disciplines) to collect various information related to the current knowledge points; students taking initiative to analyze, process, and evaluate the obtained information; and students’ forming knowledge and understanding on the basis of analysis, processing, and evaluation (that is, students complete the independent construction of the meaning of the current knowledge). In the process of students’ self-study and self-inquiry, teachers should pay close attention to the process of students’ learning and inquiry, and timely provide students with guidance on how to effectively acquire and use cognitive tools, learning resources, learning methods and strategies, etc. At present, many middle school teachers say that mathematics and mathematics are more difficult than humanities in integrating information technology and curriculum. The reason lies in that humanities can often promote students’ independent learning and independent inquiry by letting students search for information on the Internet. In other words, for the study of humanities, online information can be used as a cognitive tool for students’ independent learning and independent inquiry. For learning mathematical disciplines, only in a few cases, students can take advantage of online data as autonomous learning and independent inquiry tools (such as some application cases involving mathematical subject study, or discipline development history of occasions), while in most cases they must use some special software tools to meet the requirements of autonomous learning and independent inquiry (such as concerned with the abstract mathematical concept of three-dimensional space and micro-cosmic, the transient of the physical change and there is some risk of chemical changes in the process of understanding and mastering, cannot only rely on for information to solve. Only by providing students with highly interactive software tools or through simulation experiments can students learn and discover independently, and conduct cooperative learning and cooperative exploration in groups).

3.3.4

Collaboration and Communication

To further deepen students’ construction of meaning on the current knowledge, we should, based on the independent inquiry, organize students’ discussion in groups or class for collaboration and communication—by sharing learning resources and learning achievement in the process of collaboration and communication, which further deepen students understanding of the current knowledge and understanding. In this process, teachers should provide tools for students to collaborate and communicate, and provide timely guidance on collaborative learning strategies such as how to carry out group discussion and how to face differences among group members.

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In addition, teachers should also participate in students’ discussions and communication when necessary (they should not only do off-site guidance). The process of collaborative communication is not only the process of students’ internalization of knowledge and emotion but also the process of students’ understanding and mastering various learning methods.

3.3.5

Summary and Ehancement

Summary and enhancement is the last step to implement under-teacher-guidance mode, its purpose is, through teacher-student mutual supplement and complete summary after these two stages: independent inquiry and cooperative communication, which may still exist deficiencies in understanding of the current knowledge so that more comprehensively, more profoundly learn the current knowledge about the requirements of the teaching goal (including both cognitive and affect objectives). In the process of implementing this step, students’ activities include discussion, reflection, self-evaluation, and mutual evaluation. Teachers’ activities include leading students into learning situation, asking questions related to transfer and development, creating relevant situations, and summarizing current knowledge contents (to help students understand the internal connection between current knowledge points and other relevant knowledge points). Among them, putting forward problems of transfer and expansion can require students to apply what they have learned to solve a problem, or require students to apply what they have learned to complete a work.

3.4 A Case Study of the Teaching Model of Inquiry-Under-Teacher-Guidance 3.4.1

Primary School Mandarin Teaching Case—A Wonderful Singer

The Wonderful Singer is a popular science story in the third volume of Primary School Mandarin, Beijing edition. The content is about the little oriole to find a golden voice singer to organize a choir. But when it tracked down three singers—a cricket, a frog, and a cicada; it learned that none of them made their sounds from voices. Finally, the little Oriole choir was built, but it included a group of excellent singers who did not use their voices. Ms. Ma Lianjun, a teacher from Ermao Primary School, Changping District, Beijing, adopted the teaching mode of inquiry-under-teachers’ guidance to teach the second period of this class. The process is as follows:

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Creation of Situation, Stimulation of Interest The teacher told the class that little oriole wrote us a letter (PPT presents), in order to participate in the forest concert, we plan to organize the choir of Golden Voice singers. I hope everyone will sign up. The teacher asked the students to read the open letter first, and then guess which singer the little oriole finally found with a golden voice? After reading the little oriole’s letter, the students became very interesting and soon guessed the singers like crickets, frogs, cicadas, and so on. At the same time, the teacher presents the picture of the singer on the blackboard utilizing stickers. The situation creation not only aroused students’ strong interest but also made them focus their attention on the topic of this lesson. At the same time, it also guided students to review the text. Questioning and thinking. The teacher asked, where did the little oriole find these singers? How did they sing? What part of the body do they use to make sounds? And so on, let the students think seriously; meanwhile, the teacher wrote on the board: Where? How was the singing? With what sound? Independent learning and collaborative inquiry. Students are divided into groups. First, students read the text independently with questions, then underline words or sentences that can answer the teacher’s questions through group discussion and negotiation, and try to fill in the form to answer the above questions.

Class Communication and Deeper Understanding Representatives of each group will report to the class the answers to the above questions after discussion by this group. The teacher wrote on the board to guide all the students to read the relevant words and sentences. To sum up, to highlight the topic. In the course of summarizing the discussion, the teacher will begin with Why are they called wonderful singers? further inspired students to find the answer from the text—beautiful singing, without using throat.

Expand Reading and Broaden Horizons This section design intends to let students expand the reading teaching resources in the knowledge box and story box and other contents. These extended readings introduce a lot of wonderful phenomena in the animal world (relating to animal sleep, food, parenting, and many other aspects), thus broadening students’ horizons and enriching their knowledge. At the same time, the students were inspired to read and think if they could make up a fairy tale according to some wonderful features of animals. Obviously, by expanding the reading section, we can greatly deepen and extend the requirements of the subject and teaching objectives of this lesson.

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Learning and Using Combined and Writing Practice The teacher encouraged students to tell more readers about the wonderful phenomena in the animal world that they have learned. Students are encouraged to write on the topic of Wonderful… (or make up their own topic) and write about it (preferably in a fairy tale as well), so that the students can get more out of the teaching process. In the first half of this class, the teacher implemented the inquiry-based teaching mode (including creating the situation, inspiring thinking, independent learning, collaborative inquiry, whole class communication, summary, and improvement, etc.). Filling in the form is equivalent to providing a cognitive tool for students’ independent learning and collaborative inquiry—filling in the form can promote students’ further thinking and understanding of the text. The creation of a situation, the design and provision of forms, the organization of group cooperation activities, and the improvement of the summary are the main manifestations of the role of teacher guidance in this teaching mode. Independent learning, collaborative inquiry, and whole class communication are the main parts of this teaching model. After that, teachers give students plenty of time to expand reading and writing. This enables students’ initiative, enthusiasm and even creativity to be brought into full play, which further highlights students’ cognitive subject status in the learning process. Therefore, it is more conducive to the development of students’ innovative consciousness, innovative thinking and innovative ability. It should be said that the above two steps of expanding reading and writing expression do not belong to the general inquiry teaching mode, but should be regarded as the enrichment and expansion of this teaching mode in the context of a specific Mandarin subject. Many teaching practices have proved that such an expansion is indeed very effective for Mandarin subject and can be widely promoted as a mature experience.

3.4.2

Junior Middle School Mandarin Teaching Case—The Wonderful Clone

This case was designed and taught by Teacher Ye Yulan from Rongshan Middle School, Foshan City, Guangdong Province. The Wonderful Clone is an exposition in the second grade of junior high school. Ms. Ye used inquiry-under-teacher-guidance teaching mode of under the network environment, and completes the teaching of this lesson on the basis of students solving problems of words independently with the help of reference books, and carefully preparing and collecting relevant materials about cloning. The whole teaching process is described as follows:

Establishment of Situation Leading into a new lesson: the teacher played human cloning animation to establish a situation first, and then used the story of Journey To The West, which is familiar to the students, to lead in the new lesson. Monkey King has a unique skill that made

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us envy; he often, in a pinch, pluck a hair from a monkey and turned it into a large group of monkeys, the same as himself. If you were a football fan, you would wish there were another Ronaldo. If you were a music lover, of course, you would like to have another Pavarotti. To have another Edison and Einstein is also a dream of many people. An ancient Greek philosopher once said, there cannot be two identical leaves in the world. In other words, all of the above ideas can only be idealistic and impossible to realize. But now new technology, cloning, may be able to do just that. So, what is a clone? What is so wonderful about it? Let’s go into this wonderful world together today.

Inspiring Thinking, Promoting Understanding Then, the teacher put forward four inspiring questions in succession to guide the students to think seriously step by step; thus, promoting of perception and understanding of the text. The first question was, what plants and animals are around us that are born with the ability to clone? (Students should answer according to the introduction of the text and their information, and under the teacher’s guidance find out the common features of plants and animals from the text). The second question is What is cloning? After watching the video about cloning, students were asked to sum up in one sentence What is a clone? (Then the teacher summed up the methods used in the text to explain what is a clone). The third question raised by the teacher is What are the research achievements of cloning technology? (to answer this question, it is necessary to carefully analyze the order of explanation and the features of diction in the text). Where does cloning technology benefit mankind? It is the last question raised by the teacher to help students perceive and understand the text (it involves the great significance of cloning technology for human survival and development).

Reading Expansion and Horizon-Broadening To broaden students’ horizons and learn more about cloning, let them study extra reading materials closely related to the contents of this course.

Discussion and Understanding The reading on human cloning is a reminder that technological progress is a bittersweet march. The more science and technology develop, the more widely and deeply it penetrates society, and the more likely it is to raise some ethical, moral, and legal questions. This is an important aspect to deepen the understanding of the cloning issue; teachers firmly grasp this point—requiring students to carry out cooperative research around the issue, and on this basis to raise their questions and views. Write in the discussion area of the network platform; then the representative arguments are selected and evaluated by the teacher and students.

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Summary, Improvement, and Transfer To further improve students’ understanding, the teacher makes the following conclusive statements: Science is double-edged. The development of science can benefit mankind, and hurt mankind. It is becoming more and more profound in reaching human beings, and more and more touching issues of ethics, morals, law, and the human mind, which will lead to changes and renewal of human moral ethics. Let us ponder how to establish and improve the ethical values of modern society so that we can properly guide the progress and development of science and technology, and enable us to use the scientific sword to benefit society. Then followed by assignment of homework: prepare for the debate on the basis of the information collected on human cloning—whether the clone is a disaster or a blessing. We hope that this activity will promote the consolidation and transfer of what students learned in this course. This is one of the successful lessons of expository text. In teaching, various strategies such as creating situations, inspiring thinking, independent learning, and cooperative exploration are comprehensively adopted. Information technology is fully utilized to integrate various learning resources, to cultivate students’ reading comprehension, and group cooperation and communication ability. Besides, students are instructed to express orally and write on the Internet in class. The classroom teaching design is relatively flexible—the text analysis is not separated from the extended reading as usual, but the extended reading materials are combined with the process of text analysis and explanation. Moreover, the selected extended reading material is closely related to the theme of the text, so that the material can indeed serve for the in-depth understanding of the text. The teaching process is methodical and leads to controversial topics step by step. In addition, students’ interest in cloning and their active participation in teaching activities should be stimulated and maintained throughout.

3.4.3

Mathematics Teaching Case of in Junior Middle School—Golden Section

This case was designed and implemented by Teacher Huang Weifeng of Fenjiang Middle School in Foshan City, Guangdong Province. The teaching content was from the second volume of the eighth-grade mathematics textbook published by Beijing Normal University Press. In the previous teaching, a golden section was mostly used as a proportional line segment. After learning, students could hardly feel the practical value of the golden section and could not feel the beauty brought by the golden section. In addition to the definition and construction method of golden section in this lesson, students also read the relevant information, and find out some examples of the golden from everyday life, make the student feel the specific function of mathematical knowledge, to promote knowledge and understanding of the golden section, to experience the cultural value of the golden section and its role and influence in the history of mankind. The students of this lesson come from Class 1, Grade 2 of

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LDE (Leapfrog Development Experiment), Foshan Fenjiang Middle School. These students are interested in network teaching and have certain computer knowledge. They have mastered the use of Geometry Sketchpad and have solid basic knowledge. But the individual student’s self-control ability is not strong, needs the teacher’s control. The teaching process of this case is as follows:

Creation of Situation and Inspire Thinking The teacher first created the situation by displaying a group of pictures with animation, and then raised relevant questions around the displayed situation to arouse students’ thinking, such as: Why is the shape of the five-star red flag not a square or other shape? Why do dancing ballerinas lift their toes? Why are so many people around the world fascinated by Venus? etc. the students guess the questions and answer them. These questions raised in real situations greatly stimulate students’ interest in learning and paved the way for teaching. Then the teacher gave a group of rectangles and asks the class to choose the one they think is the most beautiful through voting. Then the voting activity led to the allusion of the golden rectangle, and then the new lesson began.

Self-Exploration and Cooperative Communication Teachers assigned students tasks of self-exploration and cooperative communication—students should first use geometric drawing boards to independently measure the length and width of the golden rectangle, as well as the ratio of the diagonal segments in a five-pointed star. Students should explore the existing laws in the process of hands-on measurement; on this basis group collaboration exchange was also carried out, pooling wisdom, deepen understanding. Through such learning, students could discover the golden ratio by themselves and speak the concept of the golden ratio in their own words without teaching.

Drawing Exercises and Deepening Understanding To promote students’ understanding of the important concept of the golden section, this lesson adopted the following ways to strengthen drawing exercises. First, students used the V-class network teaching platform for in-class exercises (teachers can give comments in this process) to consolidate and deepen students’ understanding of the golden section. Secondly, the teacher introduced the drawing method of the golden section ruler and drew it on the blackboard. Students would learn the drawing according to the teacher’s demonstration or course-ware to further consolidate and deepen their understanding of golden section. Thirdly, the students used the knowledge about the golden section (such as the golden ratio and drawing tools), and see if they could find other drawing methods of the golden section.

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Broaden Horizons and Experiencing Values Students were required to read a large number of materials related to the application of the golden section in the fields of architecture and art. During the process of autonomous reading, teachers are required to carry out an inspection tour and answer questions raised by students at any time. Students were also asked to express their feelings after reading the material (for class communication). Through the study of this step, students could further understand the cultural value of the golden section and its role and influence in human history through examples in the fields of architecture and art.

After-Class Expansion and Promotion of Transfer After class, students were required to complete the following assignments: Each student design an object or pattern based on his/her observation of life, giving full play to his/her imagination, and apply the golden section principle learned in this class. At the same time, each student group was assigned to complete a resource pack on the theme of the golden section (including information collected about the golden section, their designs, and reflections after learning). The purpose of this step was to promote the consolidation and transfer of knowledge through the application and innovation of the learned knowledge, to further understand the significance and value of the knowledge, and make students feel that mathematics is around them—it comes from life, but also applied to life, to transfer students’ knowledge.

The Teaching Design of the Golden Section has the Following Features First, it sets a relatively rich problem situation and proposes real problems worth thinking from the situation, to naturally trigger students’ serious thinking and exploration. Secondly, the students use the geometry sketchpad as a cognitive tool for independent exploration and discovery, which can give full play to the initiative and enthusiasm of the students, improve their interest in learning, and fully reflect the advantages of integrating information technology into the teaching process. Third, through the combination of software operation and experimental observation, and the combination of independent inquiry and collaborative communication, it effectively promoted students’ understanding of the golden section, enhanced students’ practical awareness, and formed relevant drawing skills. Fourth, through the application of examples of architecture, art, and other fields, which concretely embodies the cultural value of the golden section, so that students can be deeply impressed and benefit from it. As the students themselves said: learning the golden section makes me deeply aware of the connection and fun between mathematics and life.

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With its unique scientific charm, golden section has beautified our lives, benefited mankind, and brought us countless intangible gold. We don’t know where it came from, but it has come into our lives and even taken up residence in us. We already have this wealth, we should use this precious wealth to continue to explore, continue to find, let the golden section for us to segment more gold! Through this class, I realize that mathematics comes from life and serves life. Mathematics must be applied to practice to have vitality—pay attention to the practicability of mathematics, can learn mathematics well, use mathematics well, can truly realize the value of mathematics, can improve the quality of our life through mathematics, improve productivity, achieve our purpose of learning.

3.4.4

High School Physics Case—Free Fall Movement

This case is designed and taught by Li Yang, a teacher from Jingyuan School Shijingshan District, Beijing. Free Falling movement is the content of Chapter 2, Sect. 4, of the standard experimental textbook for ordinary high school curriculum (Compulsory 1). It mainly focuses on the concept and law of the free-falling movement and uses this knowledge to solve some problems in real life. The students in Ms. Li’s class had been learning the content of linear motion earlier and had a preliminary grasp of this knowledge. However, due to the short learning time, the mastery of this knowledge is not good enough. At the same time, this lesson paid more attention to the study of physics knowledge, but ignored the study of physics research methods. In addition, there is a general lack of awareness of connecting physics knowledge with real life. Given the above points, Ms. Li designed the following steps in the lesson:

Creation of a Situation, Arousal of Interest This lesson used the video of bungee jumping from real life as the actual situation to stimulate students’ interest in learning and introduce the subject of this course.

Enlightening Thinking and Self-Inquiry While playing the video, the teacher asked the question: Is bungee jumping a free fall? While watching the video, the students contacted the physics knowledge they had learned to think seriously and guess the answers to the questions. The teacher then asked the following question: How has free fall been studied and understood in history? What kind of motion is free fall? Let the students further explore the relevant materials through self-study.

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Group Discussion and Forming a Plan On the basis of students’ independent inquiry, the teacher asked students to discuss in groups and develop a plan for researching and understanding the free fall movement. In this part, teachers would first help students understand the process of understanding the free fall movement and the concept of free fall, and further guided students to develop a research plan. The teacher’s instruction for making a research plan was as follows: We know that free fall is a linear motion, so is it a linear motion with uniform variable speed? If yes, what is the acceleration? What’s the direction? Given the existing knowledge and teachers’ suggestions, the students would discuss in groups and gradually form a research plan through free association.

Collaborative Inquiry and Implementation of the Plan Students in groups implement the research plan. In the course of implementation, the students were asked to observe and explore the features and laws of free fall movement. Simultaneously, teachers were guiding students to complete height estimates, time estimates, and estimation of gravity acceleration. On this basis, the whole class joined again to learn not only physical knowledge but also learn the research methods of physics.

Summary Improvement and Promotion of Transfer The teacher’s summary of this lesson focused on helping students establish the connection between physics and real life, emphasizing the application of physics knowledge to solve practical problems, using physical phenomena in life to consolidate the physical knowledge in the classroom. At the end of the summary, we also used a small game involving the application of physics knowledge—test your reaction time to end this lesson, so as to further promote the consolidation and transfer of the knowledge learned in this section through such a summary.

4 Inquiry Learning Mode: Procedures and Cases [1, 9] 4.1 Background and Teaching Process of Research-Based Learning Model As an important part of the new curriculum reform of China basic education, the implementation of research-based learning has shifted from the pilot experiment stage at the beginning to the comprehensive promotion stage in the majority of schools. As research-based learning that can better reflect the new way of teaching and

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learning, the idea of taking questions as the carrier, taking research as the means, and promoting the development of students as the goal has gradually been deeply rooted in people’s minds. The implementation of this teaching mode has a profound influence on the curriculum structure, curriculum contents, teaching methods, and learning methods. Although research-based learning is only offered in senior high school as a part of comprehensive practice activities in accordance with the requirements of the new curriculum reform, it forms the comprehensive practice activities course in senior high school together with social practice, community service, and labor technology education. But as a new type of teaching and learning methods, concrete embodiment of inquiry learning, can be combined in various disciplines’ teaching process, and the interdisciplinary organization and under the guidance of teachers, to form a new teaching mode, thus the deep integration in information technology and curriculum of primary and secondary school (or university), which gives full play to the important role that other teaching mode cannot replace. This is the social background in which the teaching mode of research-based learning has been implemented and rapidly popularized in various schools in China in recent years. Research learning generally refers to the study that relates to practical scientific research activities. To be specific, it refers to such a way of learning: first of all, students should choose a real problem from the nature or social life as a special topic for research. Students are required to actively acquire knowledge in the research process and apply the knowledge to solve the selected real problem. The so-called research-based learning teaching mode (also known as researchbased learning or thematic research learning teaching mode) is actually a new teaching mode formed by combining the above research-based learning mode with the subject teaching process under the organization and guidance of subject teachers. Compared with the traditional way of teaching and learning in China, the contents and methods of implementation, guidance, management and evaluation, researchbased learning are very different from it. How to implement research-based learning well in the contexts of the new curriculum is a challenge that front-line teachers must face. At the same time, in many urban schools in eastern and central China, the construction of information infrastructure has begun to take shape. It has become an urgent need of the current society and an essential skill for the new generation of teachers as to how to make full and effective use of advantages of information technology represented by multimedia and network technology and give correct guidance to a vast number of young students in the information technology environment.

4.2 Connotation and Features of Inquiry Learning Teaching Mode As mentioned above, research learning refers to a way of learning: first to choose a real problem as a topic to study from nature or social life (choosing in under the guidance of teachers, also by students themselves); then it requests students to

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actively acquire knowledge in the process of research, and application of knowledge to solve practical problems selected. Inquiry learning is an integral part of normal school teaching, rather than students’ spontaneous and individual inquiry activities. Therefore, teachers should be the organizers, instructors, and promoters of students’ research-based learning. Students are active participants in research learning and the main force of the learning process. Choosing a real problem from nature or social life as a research topic explains the theme of research-based learning and the contents and scope involved in such learning. Conducting research indicates that the main method of research-based learning is to combine practical scientific research activities for learning—which means that the learning process is a process of exploration and creation, a process in which students make use of existing knowledge and breakthrough existing knowledge to innovate and discover. Taking the initiative to acquire knowledge and applying the knowledge to solve the selected practical problems explains that the purpose of research learning is for students to actively acquire and master knowledge and skills in the practice of scientific research and in the process of solving practical problems. In other words, the purpose of research-based learning is to enable students not only to recognize and understand the knowledge and skills they have learned but also to truly master the knowledge and skills; that is, to use the knowledge and skills they have learned to solve practical problems. From the above analysis of the connotation of research-based learning, it can be seen that compared with other teaching modes, research-based learning has the following features:

4.2.1

Emphasis on Research Nature of the Study

Research-based learning emphasizes the selection of real problems in nature and social life as the subject of study and research; that is, problems or projects as the carrier of research-based learning. Students’ knowledge acquisition and ability cultivation are accomplished in the process of scientific research on the objective laws of nature and society and in the process of exploring solutions to practical problems.

4.2.2

Emphasis on the Practicality of Learning

Research-based learning emphasizes the close connection between theoretical knowledge and nature and social reality. It is emphasized that the subject of study and research must be practical; that is, it must have practical significance and practical value. Therefore, research-related learning pays special attention to environmental problems, ecological problems, and the harmonious relationship between human beings and nature, as well as social realities, international hot spots, and the significant impact of modern science and technology on human life and social change.

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Emphasis on the Experience of Learning

Research-based learning emphasizes students’ learning process, especially their real feelings and personal experiences in the learning process. The reason why we pay special attention to students’ real feelings and experiences is that perceptual knowledge is the basis of all human cognition. According to Marxist-Leninist epistemology, all human knowledge originates from perceptual knowledge; but perceptual knowledge should be improved to rational knowledge, and rational knowledge should be applied to revolutionary practice, so as to realize the complete cognition process of objective things (including all kinds of things in nature and society). Namely, the understanding of human must complete three stages (perceptual knowledge, rational knowledge, revolutionary practice) and two leaps (leap from perceptual knowledge to rational knowledge, leap from rational knowledge to revolutionary practice), which is likely to know, understanding and master the law of objective things. This is why research-based learning attaches not only importance to rational knowledge (such as the understanding of concepts and principles) in the learning process, but also attaches great importance to perceptual knowledge (i.e., real feeling and experience) and theoretical basis of practical application.

4.2.4

Emphasis on Autonomy of Learning

Research-based learning emphasizes autonomy of learning. The subject of study can be determined by the instructor, or it can be chosen by students according to the current course contents and their own interests and hobbies. In other words, the whole learning process from topic selection, data collection, research report writing, result presentation, defense, communication, and summary is a process of students’ independent learning, independent exploration, and independent discovery, which can be completed by students (individual or group) independently. In this process, teachers play the role of organizer, instructor, and the helper and facilitator for students to construct meaning.

4.2.5

Emphasis on the Openness of Learning

Inquiry learning emphasizes the openness of learning. The theme of the inquiry learning and learning contents according to the subject, not of knowledge pre-decided that there are no related discipline research learning dedicated materials (inquiry learning mode should integrate text information, but text material is mainly for teachers as teaching reference, rather than for the benefit of the students as learning materials); the subject and contents of research-based learning come from nature and social life of the real problem; so, as mentioned above, research-based learning pays special attention to the environmental and ecological problems of nature, social reality problem, international hot issues. Obviously, these are open questions that

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keep pace with the times and are constantly updated and involve a very wide range of fields. From the above analysis, it can be seen that the research nature of research learning is mainly reflected in the characteristics of learning purpose—the learning of knowledge and skills should not only be recognized and understood principles and concepts; in addition, they should be able to really master—that is, they should be able to use the knowledge and skills they have learned to solve the real problems in nature and society. Therefore, they must be learned in the process of scientific research (that is, in the process of solving the real problems). Experience mainly reflects the characteristics of cognition of research-based learning—it attaches not only importance to rational knowledge, but also to perceptual knowledge. Only by completing the above three stages, two leaps complete cognition process (cognitive process), can we fully and profoundly understand and master the laws of objective things. Autonomy reflects the features of research-based learning in learning style. From the aspect of learning content, the features of research-based learning are mainly embodied in practicality and openness.

4.3 Steps of the Teaching Mode of Research-Based Learning This teaching model usually consists of the following five steps.

4.3.1

Asking Questions

In this step, the teacher creates problem situations to stimulate students’ interest in learning and research and then draws out or by students themselves through divergent thinking to put forward the topic of current research-based learning—a real problem to be solved in nature or social life. In the initial stage of research-based learning (about which students have little knowledge), it may be appropriate for teachers to ask students questions to identify topics for current research-based learning. With the development of inquiry learning, the students understanding of the inquiry learning gradually increased, the teachers should help students to learn by themselves to discover, to put forward questions, through careful observation, thinking, digging deep, and divergence and critical thinking for students to learn how to find problems from nature or social life, and then further screening on this basis, putting forward more meaningful and valuable problems as the theme of the current investigative study (the key to implement this step is to observe and think seriously).

4.3.2

Analyzing Questions

In this part, the teacher first introduces the methods of analyzing problems to the students. These methods include: from the outside to the inside, from the shallow to

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the deep, from the near to the far, looking at the essence through the phenomenon, highlighting the key points, grasping the main contradictions, using reverse thinking, transposition thinking, looking at problems with two-point theory rather than onepoint theory, seeing both the positive and negative sides of things, seeing both favorable factors and unfavorable factors. Then, according to the nature of the questions and research needs, I will teach students relevant research methods (such as questionnaire survey, interview, literature research, case collection, experiment, action research, data statistical analysis, etc.); giving some suggestions and guidance to the strategy of research learning. Students use the above methods to analyze the problem, combine the current subject knowledge and prior knowledge and experience, deeply analyzing the current problem, determining the basic nature of the problem, which is the key to solving the problem. Since the object of research-based learning is a real problem in nature or social life, and it is generally more complex, we should first try to decompose it into several relatively simple sub-problems (sub-tasks), and determine the basic nature of each sub-problem and the key to solve the sub-problems. The achievement of this step is reflected by learners’ ability to decompose the research problem into several sub-tasks (the key to implementing this step is to master the method of analyzing the problem).

4.3.3

Developing a Solution to the Problem

This step usually involves two sub-steps: proposing an initial solution to the problem and optimizing the solution to the problem. The main content of the solution to the problem involves two aspects: one is to clarify what is the nature of the problem (basic nature of the problem, the key point to solve this problem; namely where is the key? Second, we need to make it clear how to solve the problem. As mentioned above, it is generally necessary to decompose it into several sub-problems first, and then give a feasible solution for each sub-problem. In order to find effective solutions, in addition to learning relevant knowledge and skills, extensive and in-depth investigation and research must be carried out (in addition to collecting relevant information on the Internet, individual interviews, questionnaires, actual measurements should also be conducted. And other means to obtain relevant information and data), and also to master scientific research methods. The research subjects in research-based learning can be individual learners or groups. If the subject of the study is a learner, the first sub-link (proposing a preliminary solution to the problem) is completed independently by the learner on the basis of in-depth analysis of the problem. After a sub-step (optimization solution to the problem) is completed by learning teams collectively—in the form of study group activities; that is, the learners’ individual in the group) within the group members have put forward the preliminary scheme to solve the problem, from the scientific nature, validity, feasibility review, modify opinions, to gradually improve and optimize. If the subject of the study is a group, then the first step (proposing a preliminary solution to the problem) is completed collectively by each group based on an indepth analysis of the problem. The latter part will be completed by the whole class

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together—the preliminary solution of the problem proposed by each study group in the class will be reviewed from the scientific, effective, feasible, and other aspects, and suggestions for modification will be put forward to gradually improve and optimize it. Group activities can be presided over by group leaders, the class activities can be presided over by the monitor or temporary representative. Whether research subject is a person or a group, the teacher in the main activities in the process of problem-solving helps organize well, each study group or the whole class, discussion activities, monitors the content of the discussion activities, progress, and effect, to groups or individuals in need of help promptly to provide resources, technology and method of the guidance and support, and should not do the job for the students (the key to implement this step is to grasp relevant research methods and organize group or a whole class discussion activities, to really get optimal resolution).

4.3.4

Implement Solutions to Problems

If the subject of the study is the individual learner, this step is completely implemented by the individual learner. If the subject of the study is a group, this step should be completed by the group. In order to avoid detour, reduce the waste of manpower, material resources, and time, no matter the subject of the research is an individual or a group, in the process of implementing the solution to the problem, attention should be paid to formative evaluation, feedback information collected at any time, and reflection conducted frequently. The solution to the problem, where possible, can make necessary corrections or adjustments, to avoid a major rework or even start all over again. In the process of student implementation (whether individual or group implementation), the teacher’s main jobs are to provide students with selfexploration tools, problem-solving tools, and collaborative communication tools, etc. At the same time, the teacher will give students guidance in problem-solving and collaborative learning strategies. For the occasions where the research subject is the individual learner, it is not excluded, and even advocated the cooperation and communication between the individual learner and other learners, in order to make the research-based learning more effective, so as to achieve a more ideal learning effect. The key to the implementation of this step is to conduct a good formative evaluation. Therefore, we should pay attention to collecting feedback information and making appropriate adjustments to the solution to the problem if possible.

4.3.5

Summarizing and Enhancement

The summary in research-based learning includes individual self-summary, group summary, and teacher summary. The group summary should be carried out on the basis of individual self-summary, and the teacher summary should be carried out based on the individual summary and group summary. Both individual self-summary and group summary should combine the report, presentation, and written summary of research results (research results may be research reports, statistical analysis of

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important data, some application software, some instruments and equipment, some prototype of a product, some solutions). The summary contents should include the research background (domestic and foreign research status), significance, objectives, main research contents, main research results and innovation points, and efforts (or shortcomings), etc. The teacher’s summary is not to replace students’ individual or group summary, but to help them make their own original summary more comprehensive, more in-depth; especially to help them understand the objective things rising from perceptual to rational, make their understanding of scientific concepts and principles and understanding by the partial, fragmentary, local transition to comprehensive, system, complete, try to make every student not only know what, but also why (the key to implement this step is to first make personal self-summary and team concluded; at the same time, not ignoring the teacher role in this promotion and promotion).

4.4 A Case Study of Research-Based Learning 4.4.1

A Case of Mid-Level of Primary School “Lovely Flower”

Lovely Flowers is a case study of research-based learning based on the theme of flowers, which is implemented under the guidance of Wang Fendi, a teacher from Shanghai Matou Primary School. The topic of the study came from the idea of visiting a sick classmate with flowers. A classmate proposed what kind of flowers should a classmate send when he is sick? There are still a lot of flowers we do not know. The study was sparked by a debate and interest over the issue, which could not be reached by consensus. The implementation process is as follows:

Setting Up Groups According to the questions raised by the students (e.g., What are the flowers in spring? What flower is most beautiful? What flowers did the old man send for his birthday? What does each flower mean?) The students were divided into four groups to study the four sub-topics of the etiquette of flowers, what kind of flowers to blossom every month, the most beautiful flowers, and appreciation of famous flowers (the four groups were called Etiquette group, Monthly flower group, Most beautiful flowers, and Famous flower group). At the same time, consider the following factors: dividing students who have computers at home into groups so that they can search for information on the Internet, and assign the extroverted students into groups that need to go out for research (e.g., visiting a flower shop or small garden).

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Information Gathering Each group collects data and information in different ways. For example, Etiquette Group mainly comes from the Internet. The students in Monthly Flower Group first studied all kinds of flowers planted on the campus. On the basis of understanding the campus flowers, they further grasped the different flowering seasons of different flowers through searching on the Internet and visiting the florist owners. The preliminary study of Famous Flower Group is mainly about the observation and practical investigation of each garden, and the later study is mainly about the search and retrieval on the Internet. As ordinary students rarely have access to strange flowers, the Rare Flower Group is mainly to interview celebrities and scholars in the society who are fond of strange flowers and herbs, so as to increase their knowledge. At the same time, students also fond a lot of unfamiliar content from the Internet.

Exchange of Information After a period of information collection, students have grasped the first-hand data. However, due to different sub-topics studied by each group, students in the class are not clear about the contents and results of other groups’ research within the class, so the exchange of information is particularly important. More commonly used and effective communication are: personal report (students introducing their collected information, making multimedia presentation to demonstrate), group report (for each team elected representatives to introduce the class to our group collected data), knowledge contests (students have learned to write correct contest questions for the class, to consolidate and spread knowledge), etc.

Research After collecting a large amount of information and data, students can actively use their brains and conduct research according to the requirements of each sub-topic under the leadership of group leaders. Etiquette Group focused on the study of flowerrelated etiquette and flower-related discourse. What flowers does Monthly Flower Group study? If they are divided by season, what are the flowers of each season? Rare Flower Group studied a series of questions such as what is the largest flower and the smallest flower, what is the flower with the longest blooming period and the flower with the shortest blooming period. Famous Flower Group studied the top ten famous flowers in China and the city flowers in each province and city. In this process, students are also required to make the acquired knowledge into tables and web pages to save. With the passage of time, the research results of each group emerged one after another. When they see their own or the group’s works appear in front of them, the students will feel happy and proud of their sense of achievement.

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Results Showtime Each group chooses a representative to show the research results of the group. Etiquette Group introduces different flowers with different connotations, so different flowers should be sent to different people. Monthly Flower Group introduced different flowers in different months through sketch performance. Famous Flower Group uses the form of quiz to introduce the best flower. Rare Flower Group makes a beautiful web page of rare flowers for everyone to enjoy.

Summary Evaluation The summary is made on the basis of the group’s achievements. First, students finish the self-summary and group summary. Then the teacher organizes the summary report activity between the groups. At the time of summarizing and reporting, teachers should organize the implementation of evaluation carried out in the summary stage, generally refers to as summative evaluation, but formative evaluation should not be ignored in the process of students’ research. Teachers should design operation methods of formative assessment in advance. Extracurricular thematic research activities are challenging for primary school students. Using research activities, students learn actively in an open environment— students take the knowledge of flowers they are interested in as a starting point in practice, turn their interest into a problem, actively participate in research activities, and collect knowledge of flowers from various channels. This is conducive to student’s growth. Research activities provide students with a much broader space than books, in the whole process of research students show great enthusiasm for active learning. In order to understand and master the knowledge of flowers, students go to the library, go to the bookstore, and look up relevant information on the Internet, but also to the park for social practice activities. In addition to collecting information online in class, other tasks need to be completed outside class. By using extracurricular time to carry out research activities, students can freely choose activities according to their own abilities, give full play to their strengths, and to their personality. During the visit to the florist, the students acquired not only a lot of knowledge about flowers, but also cultivated their interpersonal skills and courage. As many activities are carried out in groups, it requires students to have team spirit and be good at cooperating with others, which is a good education for those students who are used to being self-centered. These students have a personal experience and understanding of the concept of the collective and know that everyone’s efforts have a stake in the group’s honor. In such a research-based learning process, the role of teachers has also changed significantly—they act no longer as a constant bearer of knowledge, but as an organizer of teaching activities and a collaborator with students to participate in research. Teachers are also the first time to contact a lot of knowledge about flowers, students

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through a variety of ways to obtain some information that is not familiar with. Therefore, in such a research-based learning process, teachers can also learn a lot from students, so as to achieve the benefits of teaching and learning.

4.4.2

Higher Grades Case of Primary School—Exploring Life

Exploring Life is a research-based learning activity lesson based on network resources. The design and teaching teacher is Tang Xiaoyong, a teacher from Shenzhen Nanshan Experimental School. This case applies to higher grades in primary schools to conduct independent and cooperative exploration around special topics. The topics covered include biology, sociology, religion, and politics. In order to ensure the smooth progress of the activity, students are required to have certain computer operation ability, be proficient in data collection and sorting through the network, and at the same time have a certain ability of self-exploration and cooperative learning. In the process of activities, the students, through the collection, sorting, analysis of the related resources, processing, and application, and to explore through cooperation, understanding the origin of life, life system, and the different understanding of life, and the praise of life and society with the phenomenon of destroying lives; students understood life scientifically, improved the awareness of the value of life. This case is for students to take advantage of summer vacation, and most of the learning content is completed through web-based autonomous inquiry and cooperative learning. Among them, the centralized activity time is 8 periods (2 periods for each centralized activity at the beginning and end of the vacation, and 4 periods for the centralized activity via the school online forum during the vacation). The specific implementation process is as follows:

Stimulating Interest Clarifying meaning: teachers used the first-class hour of concentrated activities to provide students with life-related websites, videos, books and materials, related reports, etc. (involved in the mystery of life, praise life, kill life…), students watching and browsing these specific and vivid materials and examples, stimulated their interest in exploring, and understand and clarify the worth of the topic.

Determining the Theme and Setting Up Groups Students first independently browse the materials provided by teachers, make browsing records, sort out and extract valuable information and ideas according to the records. On this basis, each student put forward his or her most interesting questions and then listed common interesting questions as the research topic. Students freely combined to set up a cooperative group to carry out the research. Then the division

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of labor among team members was clarified and research methods were discussed. It should be noted that in the process of raising questions that students are interested in, the teacher should guide students to classify the questions raised on time manner, so that students can have a deeper understanding and exploration of the questions. When necessary, teachers can make further elaboration on some topics according to the situation. Research groups should be limited to no more than five people.

To Complete Research on a Topic Students must first use the Internet and other means to collect information related to the topic. When collecting information, it is important to use multiple channels (such as reading books), rather than just the Internet. In addition, students should also indicate the source of information and develop a good habit of recording. After collecting a batch of information related to the topic, students should regularly discuss, evaluate, and exchange the collected information through the school network forum, so that everyone can share the collected information. Every student is free to ask questions he/she does not understand, and to answer questions raised by others. If students cannot answer some of the questions, the teacher should give them timely help (teachers should be in an appropriate position of guidance and monitoring in the whole process of research-based learning). In order to deepen understanding of the theme, each group should seriously discuss the selected theme under the leadership of the group leader. Through the division of labor and cooperation within the group to further build the group’s theme website and write the group’s experience of activities. On this basis, the research report on this topic is finally completed. The theme website, activity experience, and research report are the results of this research study. It should be noted here: in the process of deepening the knowledge and understanding of a subject, students may be trapped in a dilemma, then the teacher must guide the students to choose the appropriate angle—choosing the angle, which is small, able to hit the nail on the head, students learning to ask more whys. When writing the report, remind the students to strive for a clear point of view, full of arguments, and be able to understand the selected life theme from multiple perspectives.

Group Report, Evaluation, and Summary This step should focus on 2 periods. Each group will present the results of the research study based on the selected theme (including the results of the theme website, activity experience, and research report) and send representatives to make an oral report to the whole class. During the reporting process, students from other groups should be asked and questioned. After reporting, each group can evaluate the other. Finally, the instructor will make comments and summaries on the development of each group’s learning activities.

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A Case of the First Grade of Junior Middle School—Looking for the History Around Us

Looking for the history around is a research-based learning course designed for the first year of junior high school under the guidance of the new teaching theory according to the requirements of the new curriculum standards. Students chose the cultural relics and historical sites they were interested in for field investigation and research, students experienced the fun of learning history in the research process. This case was designed by Ling Yi, a teacher from Foshan No. 4 Middle School, Guangdong Province. The teaching objective involves the following three aspects: (1) students understand the historical events that happened around them, including cultural relics, historic sites, antiquities, ancient buildings, and other aspects of historical facts and relevant knowledge; students experience and master the way of independent learning and collaborative learning through research activities, and gradually learn the basic skills and methods of learning history, including learning to express history and improve the thinking ability about history; (3) improving students’ interest in learning history, deepen their understanding of long history and culture of hometown, cultivating the love of hometown and form the consciousness of protecting cultural relics and historic sites. The implementation process is divided into the following three stages:

Preparation Phase The task of this phase is to identify and group the objectives of the research activities. First, the teacher showed the goal, theme, content, and method of the research activity to the students so that the students had a better understanding of it. Then, according to the cooperative learning method, the 56 students in the class were divided into 8 groups with 7 students in each group according to the principle of free combination, and the group leader was selected. Teachers made an appropriate and reasonable allocation of each team member according to the situation of each team, and then each member of the team shall make the specific division of labor according to their own strengths, interests, and requirements of research activities, and determine the implementation plan of research activities.

Implementation Stage The tasks in this stage include selecting the object of study, carrying out a field investigation, carrying out data collection, writing investigation report, and harvesting experience— To select the objects of investigation is to select the objects that the group is most interested in and determine the date of investigation through group discussion according to the principle that the minority is subordinate to the majority. Then,

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the object and date of the investigation will be reported to the instructor, who will allocate them according to the actual situation to avoid the duplication of the project. To carry out a field investigation, teams were required to take advantage of weekends and took on the site shooting of the cultural relics and historic sites inspected with video recording equipment, or record the relevant personnel for research materials; To carry out data collection, each group was required to collect relevant data by going to the library or surfing the Internet for the objects to be investigated and sorted out the data. After the data collection was completed, the instructor should check it, and the group with insufficient data should supplement it. To write the investigation report and harvest experience, each group was required to write a report based on the investigation situation and collected relevant materials. The report included the history and current situation of the objects of investigation, their views and opinions on such history and current situation, as well as their constructive suggestions on how to publicize and protect historical relics and historic sites. In addition, each team member was required to write his own experience according to the work he was responsible for and the problems he encountered in the research process.

Summary Stage This stage included evaluation of research activities and display of research results. The best team members were selected by each group according to the performance of all the team members in the research learning process, and the best team leader was selected by the instructor according to the development of each group, and the excellent investigation report was selected according to the content and quality of the investigation report written by each group. Then, an exhibition was held to show the results of the research activity Looking for the History around me. Each group designed its own way of showing the results. The research results of the group were vividly displayed through multimedia course-ware, historical drama performance, cultural relic production, or scenic spot tour guide. Connect the historical content with the actual life around—in the research activities, students experienced the kindness and heaviness of history; in the research activities, the students learned interpersonal communication, to cooperate with others; training students’ ability to analyze and solve problems in research activities—these are the four salient features of the course Looking for History around. The theme of this research-based learning activity is Looking for the History around, which is a good name—it can attract students not only to actively participate in learning, but also motivate students’ learning initiative. In the process of activities, students actually felt the history found in real life, with their corresponding traces. This kind of subtle influence has narrowed the distance between knowledge and life, which is of great benefit to improve students’ interest and enthusiasm in learning. In this activity, the students really walked into the history around them and had a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of various local historical sites, historical relics, cultural customs, and phenomena. In the process of this research-based

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learning activity, the marks of history were observed by the students themselves, and the warmth and significance of history were felt and realized by the students themselves. Students were the main body of this research-based learning activity, and the learning process of relevant knowledge was a process in which students take the initiative to construct the meaning of knowledge. This research study activity was carried out in a group way. In the whole process of research-based learning (from the beginning to the final group report), the full cooperation of all team members was needed to achieve the expected learning results. Therefore, through research-based learning, students understand and master relevant knowledge, and improve interpersonal communication and cooperation with others in the process of cooperation. In the process of carrying out the research-based learning activity, students were required to investigate not only the relevant content of the topic selected in this group, but also to complete the collection of relevant data and the display and report of the results. These series of activities effectively improved not only students’ ability of independent study and independent inquiry, improve students’ learning skills and learning methods, but also promoted students to form a more active learning attitude and a stronger sense of participation in the research process.

4.4.4

A Case of Grade Two Junior High School—Inexhaustible Spring

The case was designed and implemented by Liu Bing, a teacher from Jinan No. 30 Middle School, Shandong Province. Jinan is an ancient city, famous for its many springs, so it is known as Spring City. Three sides of lotus surrounded with willows, a city of mountains and lakes. Every spring, every household has springs and weeping willows. Such a paradise on earth makes Quancheng people feel proud, Quancheng has also a long history, unique spring culture and reputation throughout the country. The world’s first spring—Baotu Spring, no one knows, no one knows. Spring is the soul of Jinan, spring is the eye of Jinan, spring has become the most beautiful scenery in Jinan. However, due to weak ecological consciousness of people, there have been several phenomena in recent years, such as spring water stopped, artificial landfill, water level dropped and water quality deteriorated. The spring siren wails! At 8:30 on September 16, 2003, Baotuquan Spring, the number one spring in the world, suddenly re-surged. The people of springs were seething at this. Then the Five Dragon Tan, Black Tiger Springs, Pearl springs, and other four groups of springs also re-surged. In excitement, in order to arouse people of spring protection consciousness, the students of Jinan 30 Middle School, junior Grade 2, Class 2, under the guidance of the teacher in a timely manner captured news topics, Telling Stories of Spring City was the subject of activities that were carried out, organized, planned, purposeful and meaningful inquiry activities. The research process and steps are as follows:

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Determining Research Topic and Set Up Sub-Project Groups Around the Main Topic (Week 1) As mentioned above, Jinan is an ancient city with a long history and culture. Spring water is the soul blood of Jinan, which is the witness of a thousand years of history of Jinan, with a profound cultural heritage, so it has a huge research potential and space. Students were born in the city, grew up in the city, in the spring atmosphere, spring resources are rich. In addition, the students are interested, enthusiastic, energetic, and aggressive, which makes the research operable. At the beginning of the implementation, an exciting piece of news led to the theme and motivated students to participate in this research. Then around the main topic, several research sub-topics are determined and corresponding sub-topic groups were set up. Teachers guided the research of each sub-project group and determined the information source of each sub-project.

Collection of Data Through Investigation and Research (Weeks 2 to 3) Each sub-topic group carries out an intra-group division of labor through discussion. At the same time, teachers carried out safety education for students, formulated emergency measures, and let students know what to do for preparing data collection. After acquiring relevant information, each sub-project team summarized the information, classify and process it on this basis, and made further analysis and processing to form the research results.

Display of Research Results (Week 4) Each sub-project group displayed the research results in different forms, the whole class shared them, and the teacher made comments and gave targeted guidance and put forward suggestions for improvement. All students actively participated in the discussion and made up for the missing information. Finally, several representatives were elected by the class to jointly write a proposal to arouse the people of Quancheng to attach importance to the protection of Quancheng culture.

Publication of Baoquan to the Society (Week 5) Before going to the society, the teacher emphasized the safety issue again, did a good job of students’ logistic support, communicated with parents in advance, and contacted the management office of Quancheng Square to do a good job of activities related matters. Then, students stepped into the society and publicize the importance and related measures of protecting spring to the general public, so as to cultivate students’ social practice ability and interpersonal skills, and at the same time, students personally felt the joys and sufferings of carrying out social public welfare activities.

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Summarizing and exchanging of the learning experience (Week 5): each student talked about his or her gains from this round of research learning, and all the teachers and students made comments based on their own feelings. The design intention of this link was to cultivate students’ sense of solidarity and cooperation, serious and responsible working attitude and realistic scientific spirit; to enable students to properly handle the relationship between individuals and others and the collective; and to cultivate students’ love of their hometown and motherland. The theme of the research activity Telling Stories of Spring City has the following several features: first, to timely grasp very typical and representative problems of students’ concern, taking place in their sides—Baotuquan spring—after re-surging as a focal point for research, the subject of the research happened very close to the students, which effectively inspired the students’ learning enthusiasm, initiative, and caused deep thinking of students. Second, because students were very concerned about the research topic and had high enthusiasm and initiative to participate in this learning, so in the whole process of research, a series of activities such as determining sub-topic, group division of labor, data collection, research results display, and social publicity were carried out in an orderly manner. Third, by visiting the old people protecting the springs, inquiring in the library, searching on the Internet, understanding the folk legends about the spring, participating in the publicity of the spring and other social practice activities, students have a deeper understanding of the spring’s causes, history, value, spring culture, and spring protection. At the same time, it also cultivated the students’ ability to collect, sort out, and analyze information, as well as the ability to analyze and solve problems, which was also the main purpose of carrying out the teaching mode of research-based learning.

5 WebQuest Teaching Mode: Procedures and Cases [1, 10] WebQuest is the main mode of implementing information technology and curriculum integration (an effective extracurricular integration mode) in the West (especially in the United States). However, from the following introduction about the background, connotation, characteristics, and implementation steps of WebQuest, it can be seen that, in a strict sense, WebQuest itself is not a teaching mode, but a teaching design process template used to realize self-inquiry learning. So we did not take WebQuest below as an independent teaching mode, but see it as an extension and supplement of Chinese flipped class of research-based learning; that is, in the design process and implementation methods for our inquiry learning model—extension and supplement to be used for reference.

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5.1 WebQuest Patterns and Implementation Steps Bernie Dodge believes that the implementation of WebQuest should include the following seven steps.

5.1.1

Design an Appropriate Course Unit

Designing a WebQuest course unit takes a lot of effort, and there are four aspects to consider when designing such a course unit: first, it should be consistent with the national curriculum standards; second, it can replace the original unsatisfactory lessons; third, the network can be used effectively. Fourth, it can promote students’ deeper understanding. To facilitate these four aspects of consideration, refer to the design process shown in Fig. 3 below.

Fig. 3 Flowchart of unit design of WebQuest

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Propose a Task that Promotes Higher Cognitive Development

One of the most important elements of the WebQuest mode is the task (i.e., the subject of inquiry). In accordance to Bernie Dodge, tasks that promote higher cognitive development can be divided into 12 types: retelling, compilation, and mystery tasks, news writing, designing, creative work, consensus building, persuasion, selfknowledge, analysis, judgment, and scientific tasks. Tasks provide a basis for student learning and research activities. A good, actionable, and engaging task inspires deep thinking, rather than making students rote-learn. Table 1 lists the types of tasks and their descriptions as reference.

5.1.3

Start with Web-Page Design

In order to facilitate teachers to design web pages, WebQuest has been provided to teachers since 1995 project template. This template has the following characteristics: the basic structure of the WebQuest, each part of the template gives specific strategies to help design WebQuest. For example, the first step is to draft the task and title and write out a quote that will interest the learner.

5.1.4

Completion of Evaluation

Traditional evaluation methods are not competent for complex tasks (especially WebQuest requiring multidimensional evaluation). In the design of the evaluation, the teacher should write down the evaluation indicators, which will help in order to clarify the thinking; at the same time, it is possible to further modify the task when considering the evaluation indicators. The evaluation file provided by the WebQuest template lists some evaluation indicators. Teachers need to complete three aspects of work; one, put forward a number of evaluation dimensions (which is an important difference from traditional evaluation), by putting forward these evaluation dimensions, teachers can clearly express their expectations and make their own feedback on students’ behavior more effective; two, choose a reasonable evaluation dimension, which may be mentioned in the previous link. Some evaluation dimensions are not necessarily needed, and the process is to remove those indicators that are not appropriate (There is no quantitative criterion for how many indicators are appropriate, but diagnostic or formative assessments, indicators should be more, and if it is summative evaluation, it can have fewer dimensions); three, list evaluation criteria, which is the final work to complete for the evaluation.

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Table 1 Types of task and their description Task type

Task description

Retelling

Students are asked to get a message and show that they understand it in a certain way. Possible retelling methods include presentations, web pages, posters, short reports, etc.

Compilation

Let students collect some kind of information from the original data, and compile the information in a certain form, structure. Students’ work can be uploaded to the Internet or non-digitized form to display. Through compilation, you can choose relevant materials while familiarizing yourself with them, and figure out the basis of your choice.

Mystery tasks

Everyone is interested in something mysterious, so sometimes it’s best to stimulate students’ interest by embedding the subject matter in a riddle or a detective story. This method used in elementary school stages is most effective and can also be used for adult learners.

News writing

Have students act as journalists and ask them to put the information they gather in the form of news or features to express it. Students are required to pay attention to authenticity and accuracy in their expression.

Designing

Ask students to come up with a specific plan to accomplish something or carry out a task.

Creative work

Creative work is required in the form of essays, stories, poems, or paintings to show the harvest and experience in the process of learning and research. Evaluation of s creativity level and self-expression level should be emphasized in such task.

Reaching consensus People often have different opinions and views because of different values and worldviews. Let the students understand that people often have difference of opinions, and try to resolve those differences. The difference is very important. The goal of the sub-task is to reach consensus, which fosters in students the ability of this. The core of this task is to enable students to express their ideas clearly, Be thoughtful and tolerant of other people’s points of view Persuasion

In social life, there will always be people who disagree with you, and sometimes other people’s opinion is wrong, which requires patient persuasion, so it is very important to cultivate students’ persuasion skills. The situation can be created by attending a hearing, trial, or debate in order to collect their point of views, then try to change them with letters, comments, correspondence, posters, videos, etc.

Selfknowledge

Sometimes WebQuests can also be used to promote self-knowledge. This understanding and recognition can be obtained through teacher-directed online or offline inquiry, based on web resources. But such examples are few and far in between. A typical example is asking students to think What will I be when I grow up. With the help of network resources, students carefully analyze their strengths and goals they want to pursue. Then make a plan to achieve what they want. (continued)

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Table 1 (continued) Task type

Task description

Analysis

It is an important cognitive ability to understand the basic nature of things and the relationship between things. Analysis, this sub-task, is to develop students of this ability. In this task, it is to ask students to pay close attention to one or more things, analyze the nature of each thing, characteristics, find out the commonalities and differences between them, and tell us. To this end, students may also identify causal relationships between variables and discuss their implications.

Judgments

The premise of solving problems is to be able to make correct judgments. Distinguishing different things, judging a certain nature of things, making decisions on the situation encountered, and determining the treatment or solution to the problems faced, which are the manifestations of judgment required under different circumstances. It can be seen that the cultivation of judgment is very important. The subtask of “judgment” requires students to be able to sort, score, or choose a given object within a certain range according to a certain evaluation index (the evaluation index should be concise).

Science tasks

Science promotes human civilization and progress. Science has penetrated into every corner of our social life. Cultivating young people’s love of science, so that they gradually have scientific awareness, understanding scientific methods, and recognize the role of science. The network can present the historical scientific and technological inventions and the latest scientific research materials to students, and allow students to do some virtual experiments on the Internet. Therefore, it is possible to complete the above training objectives for teenagers by designing a number of scientific tasks based on the network.

5.1.5

Designing Learning Process

There are a number of factors that affect students’ learning activities. The learning process checklist below (Table 2) can help teachers to formulate the most suitable learning activities for students to carry out. The checklist considers the learner experience of self-directed learning and collaborative learning and also takes into account the disputable and multifaceted nature of learning topics.

5.1.6

Noting Down All Contents of Learning

Jot down all activities in writing. This step is mainly through the form of text, all activities recorded, so as to provide with reference for more people.

5.1.7

Check and Improve

This step is to check the whole teaching, so as to evaluate the teaching according to the feedback obtained and make necessary improvements in all aspects.

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Table 2 Verify the presentation of the problem in the scenario If

Then

There’s some conflict in your chosen topic, and assign roles and help students find materials can find a solution through the network or data, for solving and internalizing ideas. Some experts disagree with your questions,

let the students play these expert roles

Learners are good at cooperation,

try to have students assign roles themselves, not assign roles beforehand.

The questions have some complexity, and students are not familiar with them,

provide them with information so that they can understand the question and have a common starting point.

Students have experience of working independently, and they can find the right information themselves,

provide relevant resources to them.

A certain sub-task is not familiar to all students, provide students with necessary guidance to complete the task. Students can negotiate when they disagree, and finally reach an agreement,

divide the students into several groups (each group has different viewpoints), for consultative discussion, teacher patrol the groups to provide necessary assistance.

When there’s disagreement the students in your Divide the students into small groups (each class cannot reach an agreement without the group contains only the same opinion), each help of the teacher, group report one opinion, so that the whole discuss and complete the synthesis of different opinions with the teacher.

In addition to the WebQuest model proposed by Bernie Dodge, WebQuest has been promoted and applied in practice for many years. Other WebQuest modes with slightly different implementation steps or links have also been formed. For example, a WebQuest module consists of six steps: introduction, task, process, resource, evaluation, and summary; or the WebQuest mode including introduction, task, process, evaluation, conclusion, and other five steps. Next, we will introduce the implementation of the case Dolly in five steps.

5.2 The Implementation Case of WebQuest Mode Dolly A complete WebQuest model should include a concise introduction (a warm-up), an interesting and challenging task, and a detailed description of a task implementation process (including the required learning resources), and evaluation and conclusion, to stimulate learning, etc. (This WebQuest mode has six parts. Sometimes learning resources are also listed separately). In the specific description of task implementation process, teachers should provide guidance on how to organize information. This case, through the cloning of sheep Dolly Web page, leads to the research topic. The course for this WebQuest unit is the choice of the world’s first cloned sheep, so

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standing firmly at the forefront of the technology for exploration, which appeals to the students greatly. How does this WebQuest model unfold? How the teacher should get into the subject of inquiry? And how to lead the students’ exploration activities into depth? So what we’re going to do is to briefly introduce the basic content of WebQuest according to its five steps.

5.2.1

Introduction

“I decided to clone myself first to dispel criticism that I was taking advantage of some women in despair, experimenting with an unproven procedure.” (Click to see: Seed, 1998 speech.) About 60 years ago, humans used amphibians to asexually reproduce, but they died at the tadpole stage. For the past 60 years, cloning mammals has only been possible in the imagination of scientists (Click here to see the history of cloning.) One day in 1996, a researcher at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, England, suddenly announced that his team successfully cloned a lamb from a mature somatic cell. The next day, the Pope accused the discovery, which lacks respect for life; while it was hailed by the scientific community as a breakthrough for humanity.

5.2.2

Task

The potential influence of clone on the human society has been debated by governments. We are basing this on the WebQuest discussions to decide how to regulate cloning through legislation. In 1997, a member of parliament in the United States proposed a legislation that would ban human cloning, including any person who uses the human body. It is illegal to use a human cell to clone. Anyone who violates this will be fined not more than $5,000 and so on. Although the proposal is only for human cloning, and such a ban is not difficult to achieve, but in the twenty-first century the research on cloning technology is having a profound impact on human society, which involves global famine, animal rights, poor land, disease treatment, scientific research, overpopulation, and many more. The task of participating in this project is to ask questions, get up-to-date information, analyze the correctness of information, and then explain the final result. All these efforts are aimed at answering a basic question: what policies should the government make to control cloning? Keep an objective attitude and don’t jump to conclusions before the research is finished. This system will evaluate on how do you process information, make your point, and communicate effectively with your partner and cooperation.

5.2.3

Process

The scenario created for this learning task is that the US Congress is holding a symposium of experts, to study the broad significance and impact of cloning on the

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United States in social, economic, political, and other aspects. The team will present their findings at the symposium. The task of the study group is to listen to the views of each expert to form your own opinion about cloning, and then comment on laws that have banned human cloning.

Step 1 Interview with Experts At the expert seminar, first by a magazine executive editor raises several questions to Dr. Mutter, the creator of Dolly, the sheep, about the hopes and the fears of human cloning. After listening to such questions, each group member interviewed relevant experts together, using face-to-face interviews to reveal three hopes and three fears about the existence of human cloning. Draft three questions to ask the expert in advance.

Step 2 Group Role-Play Try to look at cloning from a different angle. Each Angle has its own point of view, and their own unique solutions of cloning that caused complex problems. Each study group was assigned a role and fully understood the role of the group. The teacher provided a table, in the columns of these of which includes the United States’ Department of Agriculture, the Institute of Technology and Ethics, the United States Senate, the Society for the Friends of Animals, the Roslin Institute, Biomedical Ethics Research institute, Cloning Technology Company. After reviewing the responsibilities of each role, the teams moved into the assigned character exploration.

Step 3 Attend a Summit Meeting to Discuss Human Cloning Ban Act The activity involves the members of the team sharing their knowledge about cloning.

The Presenter’s Task You have become an expert on the role you represent, and those attending the Clone Summit need to know your views on cloning. You have ten minutes to explain how the proposed ban on human cloning would be extended to other areas or remain the same, and you have to explain your reasons. The images, video, and audio clips you use, and citations to research reports can only be used to enhance your presentation. Your task is to actively and effectively explain your point of view, and if you choose to use PowerPoint, then you should ensure your PowerPoint presentation can go smoothly, if you do not use PowerPoint, then you should make a paper board

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presentation, or use a tape (you can look at the possible scoring standard it describes: if you want to make a good presentation, be sure to have new ideas).

The Role of the Audience Each study group attends as an audience, except for one representative to perform the presentation task. As a listener at the Clone Summit, your job is to listen carefully to what everyone has to say, and you will be invited to a subcommittee at the conference that will decide what steps the government should take. So, while listening to the other person’s point of view, make a note of the key issues raised by other persons and list what your role will support and oppose.

Step 4 Reaching a Consensus The subcommittee will advise the government on the next steps to be taken. Such a committee should be composed of experts from all aspects, so it is not easy to reach an agreement. What is good for cloning research is not necessarily good for animal rights or religious beliefs. You must argue and try to persuade. Work out a plan of action by consulting and advising together. You may not agree on a certain way to state your plan of action, but you must form a common plan of action. You may find that in order to agree on a common plan of action, you have to agree on something you did not agree on before. In this way, a negotiation activity is completed. Once you have got a majority, you can post your report in the right place on the online discussion board.

Step 5 Publishing your Ideas The final task is to make public the report that your committee will recommend to the government, which will give you an opportunity to receive feedback from an expert in the community (who is not part of the current WebQuest learning activities). For the report to be made public, the first step is to find a contact address. It might be an email address in your research material, or it might be an address that you can look up on the Internet, or members of your group might want to send your suggestions to a government agency. In the latter case, you can find the email address you need through the appropriate link and then write to the White House, to a U.S. Senator, or a Member of the House of Representatives. Before you send this email, write a fact sheet for your email. This fact sheet should provide background information for the people you are contacting—they will need it to understand your proposal. And be sure to tell your contact that you really need their feedback; Then paste your report into a letter or send it as an attachment. Make sure that all members of your team have read the above email carefully before sending it. When sending the above email, be

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sure to send a copy of it to the adviser so that the instructor can get a copy of your work.

5.2.4

Evaluation

First, each learner will make a personal evaluation on participating in the WebQuest learning activity around the theme of cloning (the evaluation content includes the selection of the theme, whether the task formulation is meaningful and valuable? Can such topics and tasks arouse learners’ enthusiasm and initiative? Are the steps to complete the task properly and efficiently divided and designed? And so on), then the group evaluates, and finally by the teacher evaluates.

5.2.5

Conclusion

Cloning may be one of the most significant scientific discoveries of the late twentieth century, and its far-reaching effects will be felt in the twenty-first century. Most events in human history go through three stages of development. The first is fear and hatred; the second stage is tolerance, acceptance, and passivity. The third stage is enthusiastic recognition. (Dr. Richard Seed) through WebQuest learning activities centered on cloning, it should help our students to form a correct understanding and attitude toward cloning, and then publicize such a correct understanding and attitude to the world, which will have a better social impact.

5.3 Comparison of Western WebQuest Mode and Chinese Research-Based Learning Mode As stated at the beginning of this paper, WebQuest is an effective mode of integrating information technology and curriculum in the west (especially the United States). But WebQuest is not, in the strictest sense, a pedagogical model in itself, as Bernie Dodge intended it to be, but rather a template for an instructional design process that implements web-based inquiry activities. Therefore, there are both certain connections and great differences between WebQuest integration mode and research-based learning teaching mode.

5.3.1

The Commonness of the Two

The similarities between the WebQuest mode and the research-based learning mode are generally shown in the following aspects:

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The Theme of the Study is Similar As mentioned above, research-based learning is to choose a real problem from nature or social life as a special topic (i.e., learning topic) for research. It requires students to take the initiative to acquire knowledge in the research process and apply the knowledge to solve the selected real problem. And the theme of the WebQuest is a “problem” or a “project” needed to be solved. The “problem or project” here is the real task in real life, so it is completely consistent with the inquiry learning model. The inquiry learning model advocates selecting a real problem from nature or social life as the learning theme.

The Purpose and Goal of Learning are the Same Research-based learning requires students to take the initiative to acquire knowledge and apply what they have learned to solve selected real problems in the process of theme-centered research. In other words, students should not only understand what they have learned, but also be able to apply what they have learned to solve practical problems. WebQuest requires students to form solutions to problems or projects (i.e., real tasks) through analysis and synthesis of online information resources and implement them through self-exploration or group cooperation. Obviously, the purpose of both models is to learn by studying how to solve practical problems, and the ultimate goal of learning is the same—not only to understand what you have learned, but also to use what you have learned to solve practical problems. Such learning aims and objectives are the most essential features of WebQuest and research-based learning, and also the biggest difference between them and all other teaching modes. All other teaching modes, especially the traditional teaching mode, mainly focused on one knowledge point or several knowledge points of a certain discipline (rather than the real problems in real life). The pursuit of learning goals often stays in the cognition of things and understanding of knowledge, not emphasizing the mastery and application of knowledge; in fact, it is only to use knowledge to solve practical problems, we can talk about the real understanding and mastery of knowledge; otherwise, it is just an armchair strategy.

Both Having Two Ways of Implementation: Long Time and Short Time If the theme of research-based learning is a real problem involving multiple disciplines, the implementation process will take a long time (such as 1 to 2 months, or even longer); that is, it belongs to the long cycle mode. If the real problem involves only a single discipline, the implementation process can be shorter (for example, 1 to 2 weeks, or a few days); that is, the short cycle approach. WebQuest is similar. According to the size of the real task faced by its research topic, there are two ways of implementing WebQuest: a long period usually takes more than one week, or even 1 to 2 months. Short cycles only take a few hours.

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The Difference Between the Two

The differences between the WebQuest mode and the research-based learning mode can be summarized as the following three points:

A Big Difference Between the Two Models of the Nature of Academia in the Understanding As Bernie Dodge, founder of WebQuest, said that just as students need scaffolding for learning, so does the development of teachers’ instructional design ability. In WebQuest, we provide teachers with a fixed structure, a lot of rules and guidelines. Teachers do not need to design from scratch, so it is easy to operate and to do. I think that is why so many teachers choose WebQuest. From this passage, it is not difficult to understand that, in the mind of the founder of WebQuest, the essence of WebQuest is to provide a convenient teaching design process template for teachers. In addition, WebQuest means web-based exploratory activity, we can clearly see that the instructional design process template is not common, it is dedicated to the exploratory learning activities under the network environment teaching design process template, in other words, for teachers to provide a kind of easy operation, can be used to implement the inquiry-based learning activity teaching design process template is the essence of WebQuest (at least the founders of WebQuest thinks this way.).

The Nature of Research-Based Learning Completely Different From This This paper has pointed out that research learning has five basic features (research, practice, experience, autonomy, and openness), and especially emphasizing the experience—Research learning emphasizes students’ learning process, especially students’ real feeling and personal experience in the learning process. The reason why we pay special attention to students’ real feelings and experiences is that perceptual knowledge is the basis of all human cognition. According to Marxist-Leninist epistemology, all human knowledge originates from perceptual knowledge; but perceptual knowledge should be improved to rational knowledge, and rational knowledge should be applied to revolutionary practice, so as to realize the complete cognition process of objective things (including all kinds of things in nature and society). Namely, the understanding of humans must complete three stages (perceptual knowledge, rational knowledge, revolutionary practice) and two leaps (leap from perceptual knowledge to rational knowledge, rational knowledge to revolutionary practice leaps), are likely to achieve an understanding of the law of objective things, understanding and master (rather than a little knowledge or theory). This is the theoretical basis for research learning not only to attach importance to rational knowledge (such as understanding of concepts and principles) in the learning process, but also to perceptual knowledge (i.e., real feelings and experiences) and practical application. This exposition clearly shows that the essence of the teaching mode of research-based learning is to make the

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teaching process of school realize the complete human cognition process including three stages and two leaps; that is, to attach importance to both rational cognition and perceptual knowledge and practical application.

The Components of the Two Models are Almost Entirely Different Bernie Dodge thinks the WebQuest model should be composed of seven elements or links, these seven elements or links are: to design a suitable curriculum unit (hereinafter referred to as introduction), choose a can promote the development of high-level cognitive tasks (hereinafter referred to as tasks), web design, complete assessment, make learning activities, write down all the activities in written form to provide a reference for the people, check and improvement. In addition to Bernie Dodge’s above seven elements of WebQuest, after years of practical application in the process of WebQuest, other elements or implementation of WebQuest patterns developed (for example, contain preface, tasks, processes, resources, assessment, and summarize six elements or link mode of WebQuest, and five elements or link of WebQuest mode, containing introduction, task, process, evaluation, conclusion). Whether it is the seven-factor model, or the six-factor model or the five-factor model, its content is similar, and there is no obvious difference.

Elements of the Research-Based Learning Model Quite Different From This As mentioned in Sect. 4 of this chapter, the elements of the mode of researchbased learning (i.e., the corresponding implementation links) are composed of five elements or links, such as putting forward problems, analyzing problems, forming solutions to problems, implementing solutions to problems and summarizing and improving. Among them, forming a solution to a problem includes two sub-links: proposing a preliminary solution to a problem and optimizing a solution to a problem. By comparing the components of WebQuest mode with those of research-based learning mode, it is not difficult to see that the former focuses on operational contents and operation methods. The latter is mainly concerned with the cultivation of the innovative spirit and innovative ability (the ability to analyze and solve problems is the core of innovative ability).

A Big Difference Between the Two In the previous introduction on the connotation and features of WebQuest, it has been pointed out that in the activity of WebQuest, all or most of the information used by students is obtained from the Internet, so WebQuest can effectively motivate students to search for relevant information online, which is also the most important feature of the implementation environment of WebQuest mode. However, various information resources needed in the process of research-based learning are not only limited to

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the Internet, but also include individual interviews, questionnaires, actual measurements, and a variety of other research methods and means obtained by the relevant information. In other words, the implementation environment of the research-based learning model is broader than that of the WebQuest model, so that students can have more and more convenient research and exploration space in the learning process. For this reason, if the teaching mode of research learning can be effectively implemented, generally speaking, the depth and breadth of teaching can be better than WebQuest mode.

6 JITT Teaching Model: Procedures and Cases [1, 11] 6.1 Background of Just-in-Time teaching Model Just-in-time Teaching (hereinafter JiTT) is a new teaching and learning strategy emerging in undergraduate teaching in American universities at the end of the twentieth century. Because this teaching and learning strategy must be implemented in a network environment (i.e., supported by information technology tools), the JiTTbased teaching process is also known as information technology and curriculum integration teaching model, referred to as just-in-Time teaching model, or the JiTT model. We will see below, although JiTT was conducted in class, from its essence is to belong to extracurricular consolidation pattern, and its implementation process and implementation approach has distinguishing feature very much, so in the implementation of Chinese flipped classroom inquiry learning teaching mode of the process, in order to further open in terms of how to implement the way of thinking, widen our sight and in the last section of this chapter western JiTT model is introduced as a reference, which is very necessary and valuable. The first scholars who suggested JiTT of this kind of teaching and learning strategy are from Purdue university in the US air force academy and a batch of physics teachers, in 1999, from the university of four common wrote about JiTT of physics teacher’s first monograph [12]: the combination of Active Learning and Web Technology (Just-in-Time Teaching: Blending Active Learning with Web Technology) (Just-in-time Teaching for short). The book makes a detailed introduction to the connotation and features of Just-inTime Teaching, the implementation process, and application methods, as well as the applicable teaching and learning objects (that is, what types of teachers and students are more suitable for this kind of teaching and learning strategy). One of the main authors of the book Just-in-time Teaching, Professor Gregor Novak has a bachelor degree in teacher teaching for over 40 years, who found that in the process of physics teaching for many years, although the students had his lesson once a week, every time 3 ~ 4 h, but classroom teaching made students feel boring, often difficult to inspire their interest in learning, so he has been thinking about why this appeared in the teaching of an undergraduate course at the university ;.[13]. In his opinion, this is no longer a special problem in any one country,

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but a common problem in undergraduate teaching in almost all countries. How to realize effective teaching is not only a problem facing higher education, but also a problem facing the whole education circle. In the increasing popularity of the Internet era, the network could be used in information transmission, which has unparalleled advantages, such as fast speed, richness and without being limited by space and time-sharing, etc.). It is not just to put it into the teaching of undergraduate course, change the original teacher domination of class, students listening, but to instill into traditional teaching idea, teacher-students communication and exchange anytime, anywhere, greatly stimulating learners’ learning initiative and enthusiasm, to change the traditional education—teaching idea and teaching mode, to achieve effective teaching (i.e., enhance the discipline teaching quality. This is where the creators of just-in-time teaching started with, and it is the background of just-in-time teaching.

6.2 Connotation and Characteristics of Just-In-Time Teaching Model Novak et al. define JiTT as web-based learning tasks study assignment and active learner classroom a new teaching and learning strategy based on interaction [9].

6.2.1

The Web-based Learning Task

Students are required to complete the previews designated by teachers on the Internet in accordance with carefully designed tasks by teachers before class. Complete the preview tasks on the Internet, wrote down your understanding of the preview contents, and the teacher gives feedback through email before class. The preview content is made into web pages by the teacher in advance for students to check at any time. The teacher checks online in a timely manner before class students’ feedback on assigned preview and acts on students’ understanding and the existing problems to readjust the teaching plan to be taught in this class in this class, that is to make adaptive adjustment on the teaching design, teaching strategies, and teaching methods, according to the development level of knowledge ability and cognitive characteristics of different learners—this reflects the original meaning of the name of timely teaching: a teaching suitable for the time, adapting to the needs and characteristics of learner development. In the JiTT mode, another web-based learning task is a problem-exploration (wrap-up puzzles) that takes place after class, which mostly for promoting the development of advanced, complex cognitive skills.

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Learner’s Active Learning Classroom

The main forms take various discussions and debates, including those between teachers and students, students and students, whole class or group discussions and debates, on the basis of what the teacher has implemented the above-mentioned targeted, practical and timely teaching. In the process of these discussions and debates, there are usually some role-playing, drills and exercises, and even demonstrations or experiments. These discussions and debates as well as with other activities, the purpose of not only to promote students in-depth understanding and mastery of knowledge and skills, more important is to really create a learners’ active learning classroom, so as to give full play to each learner in the process of learning initiative, enthusiasm, and creativity, and completely change the traditional teaching of learners are always in a passive acceptance and passive infusion of a situation like that. From the perspective of information technology and curriculum integration, the above timely teaching model has obvious features of extracurricular integration. With such characteristics, the teaching model in the first stage of implementation of web-based learning tasks is mainly not done in class, but before class and after class; that is, to be done in extracurricular time—information about the connotation of the JiTT from above you can see that the web-based learning task contains three aspects: first, students must go to the network to preview before class and prepare to submit feedback to teachers by email after materials; second, teachers should implement targeted and practical teaching according to the feedback materials submitted by students before class; the third is the web-based Wrap-up Puzzle exploration that students carry out after class. Superficially, the first and third aspects of these three aspects involve before class and post-class (i.e., after-class), while the second aspect involves in-class. But in fact, in this mode, the teacher in class the teaching quality and teaching effect that can be achieved in teaching contents, methods, and progress, to a large extent, depends on the situation of the students’ work, of the level of detail, on the network to prepare before the class and they submit feedback through the network to the teacher before the class material; thus on web-based learning task of this stage, in terms of information technology and curriculum integration, we can assert that it is not done in class, but before class and after class, which is outside the classroom to complete; that is, it has the features of extracurricular integration. Then, from the perspective of information technology and curriculum integration, does JiTT mode still have the features of in-class integration? As mentioned above, in addition to the web-based learning tasks this first stage of implementation of the second aspect is related to the classroom, as a teaching mode timely implementation of the second phase, the learners’ active learning classroom must also in class to complete, which can reflect learners’ initiative and enthusiasm of all kinds of discussions and debates, and other activities are all done in the process of classroom teaching. But this is only a surface phenomenon, the essence of things is that all these discussions and debates, and other activities, if want to obtain apparent effect, especially want to achieve higher goals (i.e., to give full play to each learner in the learning initiative, enthusiasm, and creativity in the process of target), in the teaching

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mode and students before class to preview is seriously through the network, whether fully have great relationship (remember: on the active learning classroom, despite the learners can freely, and actively all kinds of discussion and debate topic, published their views, but these views are of much significance and value as well as the cognitive level of depth, and obviously with students’ work on the network before class preview and prepare seriously, whether directly related to the fully—this is because the preview of the content, requirements and the topic of discussion and debate are made by the teacher according to the teaching goal of the course design in advance and inevitably, there is close relationship between the two). In other words, although the second stage of JiTT mode is completed in class, it is due to the following two characteristics of this stage: First, it does not emphasize the application of information technology but emphasizes discussion and debate (that is, it does not involve an integration of information technology and classroom teaching), so it does not have the features of in-class integration. Second, achieve the teaching goal of this phase, also with the students’ before class preview and through the network is closely related to the preparation, since the online preview before class; i.e., extracurricular. Then, the stage of learners’ active learning classroom in terms of information technology and curriculum integration, to some extent, we can also think of it as the features of extracurricular integration. This indicates that just-in-time Teaching (JiTT), as far as its application of information technology (the Internet) is concerned, is mainly completed before and after class; that is, out of the class. The teaching quality and teaching effect of the JiTT mode(including the web-based learning tasks and learners’ active learning classroom teaching quality and effect of the two stage), to a large extent, depend on whether students’ serious preparation before class, whether they prepare fully, and whether they submit feedback to the teacher before the class in detail. Although the teaching mode with elements and implementation involves classroom teaching (i.e., related to classroom implementation), with the relevant parts in the class usually involves the use of information technology, the JiTT mode can finally to achieve the teaching quality and teaching effect (i.e., extracurricular) mainly depends on before class activities, rather than classroom activities. Therefore, we can draw a conclusion that Just-in-Time Teaching, as a Teaching model of information technology and curriculum integration, basically belongs to an extracurricular integration model, or an extracurricular integration-oriented combination model, rather than an in-class integration model or in-class integration model. This is the essential feature of JiTT, which should be fully understood. Due to JiTT mode to the students in the class, you can be fully prepared before as the premise, based on the network; this requires student’s higher self-consciousness for study and independent learning ability; therefore, generally speaking, this model is suitable for technical secondary schools or high schools or above with the network environment, the integration of information technology and subject teaching (especially in universities and colleges of undergraduate teaching is more suitable for). The integration of information technology and subject teaching is not suitable for junior middle school and primary school. This is another important feature of JiTT. In addition, it

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should also be noted that this mode must have a network environment to implement; otherwise, nothing can be done.

6.3 Steps of Just-In-Time Teaching Model [13–15] As mentioned above, JiTT mode is a new teaching mode that organically combines web-based learning tasks and learner’s active classroom learning through the application of network technology. The implementation of this mode involves five steps in three stages, among which the first, second, and third steps are used to complete the first stage of the teaching mode web-based learning task (preview and in-class learning); the fourth step is used to complete the second stage of the teaching model— to realize the learner’s active learning classroom (discussion and debate); the fifth step is used to complete the third stage of the teaching model, Web-based learning tasks (Wrap-up Puzzle exploration). Here are five steps:

6.3.1

Teachers Release Warm-Up Questions Online

According to the teaching objectives of this lesson, the teacher carefully designs the content that students should preview, and puts it on the network in the form of a web page made by the teacher. Students can check it any time. The preview contents include reading materials, thinking questions, and exercises related to this lesson. In order to facilitate students’ preview, the teacher should put forward not only the preview contents and requirements, but also provide a variety of forms and rich resource web pages. The resource pages include papers, monographs, course-ware, teaching cases, and practical activities related to this lesson, as well as many relevant links. Some of these articles introduce the significance and value of the text to be studied from different angles.

6.3.2

Students Should Preview Carefully Before Class and Give Feedback to Teachers

Before class, students should complete the following three preview assignments according to the preview requirements assigned by the teacher and make use of the above-mentioned resource websites: (1) read the reading materials related to this lesson; (2) Write their understanding of the reading contents and complete the assigned thinking questions and exercises; (3) Before this class, students will send the above preview results (their understanding of the reading content, their thinking on the assigned questions and the solutions to the exercises) to the teacher’s via email via the Internet.

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According to the Feedback of Students, the Teacher Makes Adaptive Adjustments to Teaching and Implements Them

Before class, the teacher should check the students’ feedback material through the network on time. According to students’ understanding of contents that will be learned in this lesson, and the existing problems in the materials, the teacher makes adaptive adjustments to teaching design (that is, according to the actual situation of students’ feedback on the current teaching content, methods, strategies and teaching schedule, the teacher makes appropriate adjustments), on the basis of the implementation of targeted, practical teaching, to adapt to a different level of learners’ knowledge ability and cognitive features of the target. Students’ feedback of the preview before class send to the teacher through the network, and the teacher adjusts the teaching contents, methods, and progress of this class according to the feedback of the students—this is a feedback loop. It is the existence of the Internet-based feedback loop mentioned above that enables teachers to make timely adjustments to the current teaching and achieve the goal of adapting to different learners’ cognitive levels and characteristics. So, the feedback loop based on the network is the core component of JiTT model.

6.3.4

Creating Learner’s Active Learning Classroom

Based on the above feedback loop, JiTT mode also requires teachers to carry out various discussions and debates in the classroom—discussions and debates between teachers and students, among students, as a whole class or in groups. In the process of discussions and debates, there are usually some role-playing, drills, and exercises, and even demonstrations or experiments. The purpose of the discussions and debates as well as other activities is not only for promoting students’ in-depth understanding and mastery of knowledge and skills; more importantly, for creating a learners’ active learning classroom, to give full play to each learner’s learning initiative, enthusiasm, and creativity in the process.

6.3.5

Promoting Advanced and Complex Cognitive Abilities of Students

In order to promote development in senior students of complex cognitive ability, through full discussions and debates in the active learning classroom, the students generally have a more deep understanding of concepts, a firm grasp on the basis of knowledge; JiTT would also require students independently to conduct web-based problem exploring after class (Wrap-up Puzzles)—requiring students to do some of more complex and difficult problems as a project to explore on the Internet. In order to make this part of the study more effective, teachers should make a careful design of the topic and discussion of wrapping up puzzles. The subject and content of this inquiry should be closely around the important concepts and some knowledge points

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learned in the previous stage. In addition, the following points must be addressed when setting up the topic and formulating exploration content.

6.4 Cases of Just-In-Time Teaching Model Tammy Bailey and Jeffrey Forbes, Professors of Duke University in the United States, successfully applied JiTT model in the Introduction to Computer Science course they taught in the summer of 2004, and achieved good results. Because the key to the successful implementation of JiTT mode is the preview before class—teachers must carefully design the preview contents and requirements for the next lesson in advance (it should conform not only to the teaching objectives of the next class, but also be highly enlightening, intelligent, and scientific. In this way, students’ interest in the next class can be effectively stimulated and necessary knowledge preparation can be provided for the teaching of the next lesson.) Therefore, the design of preview contents and requirements is not only the key but also the difficult point for the successful implementation of JiTT mode. The following are several excellent cases of how Professors Bailey and Forbes designed preview contents and requirements in their courses (the case of cryptography class also includes the design of contents of creating learner active learning class) [13].

6.4.1

The Preview Contents and Requirements of the Algorithm Design Course

Ask students to read the basic concept of problem-solving in George Polya’s work [16]. Then complete the following thinking and exercises: There are three fruit boxes in Tom’s warehouse. One box contained apples, one contained orange, and the other contained both apples and oranges. There were labels on the boxes stating the names of the fruits contained in them, but the labels were all wrong (the names of the fruits did not match those contained in the boxes). Can Tom tell what fruit is in each box by taking only one fruit out of the box? When the teacher explains this problem in class, special emphasis should be placed on the problem-solving strategy. For the current problem, the strategy can be divided into two steps: the first step is to determine the contents of one of the boxes, which is simple and can be determined directly (because the fruit is taken directly from a box). The second step is to decide which fruit to put in the other two boxes, which is only an indirect decision strategy since the fruit is not allowed to be taken directly from the box (only once is allowed). How do you decide that indirectly? It can be analyzed from given conditions; The given condition is that the box bears the name of the fruit on the label, but the name of the fruit on the label does not match the name of the fruit contained in the box; Therefore, we can focus our attention on the labeling situation of the other two boxes—there are only three possibilities for

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the different labeling situations of the two boxes, and the problem can be solved by simply distinguishing these three situations. The reason why special emphasis should be placed on problem-solving strategy is to introduce the topic of this lesson algorithm design and lay a solid foundation for the teaching of this lesson. This is because the specific content of algorithm design is step-by-step implementation of the problem-solving strategy. As long as the solution strategy of the problem is clear, the key problem or core problem of algorithm design will be solved. It can be seen that the above design of the preview contents and requirements of this course is very appropriate and effective for achieving the teaching objective of this course (algorithm design course).

6.4.2

Preview, Requirements, and Design of Active Learning Class About a Cryptographic Technology Lesson

• Let the students read the history of Caesar password and introduce relevant information of RSA laboratory (the laboratory is famous for studying encryption algorithm). • Consider the following questions: • Why was the code named after Julius Caesar? What is a key? What is the key to the Caesar cipher? • How RSA and the Internet work with all aspects of civil society (business, technology, education… Etc.) have an impact? Do the Following two Exercises: A. B.

The message CTKTG IGJHI P SDV LXIW DGPCVT TNTQGDLH in the right quote has been encrypted with a mobile password of key 15. Please decrypt it. Assume that you have received the message XII VLRO YXPB XOB YBILKD QL RP in quotes to the right, decrypt it. But all you know is that the message is encrypted with a mobile password, but you have forgotten the key. How do you find the key for the password?

About the Establishment of Learner Active Learning Classroom Design The basic design idea is to ask students to discuss (or debate) in class with enlightening and difficult questions, and then let students carry out cooperative exploration in groups on this basis, so as to arouse the initiative and enthusiasm of students in class to a greater extent. The problem is how to decrypt a piece of message encrypted by a difficult password. It is known that this is a moving password whose alphabet can be changed randomly (but the pattern of substitution is not known beforehand). Ask the students to discuss (or debate) in class first, then divide into groups and work together to find out the answer—students are expected to find the solution through

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their own efforts, even if there are 26 factorials (26!). So many possible alternative patterns. The teacher suggested that as long as we are good at using language features such as letters, vocabulary frequency, and context to reduce the solution space, it is possible to make the password relatively easy to crack.

6.4.3

The Preview Contents and Requirements of Artificial Intelligence Course

• Read some information about Eliza software (it is the first artificial intelligence program to try to talk with a simulated psychologist in human natural language) and Turing test. • Provide students with Eliza intelligent software implemented in the Java language. Then ask students to think and answer the following exercise questions: Spend some time chatting with Eliza. Can you believe that you are talking to a person and not a machine? How long did it take you to make sure you were not talking to someone? Clarify the answer you have given. This kind of preview problem can be used before both classroom teaching and experimental class, but the implementation effect is not the same. In the former case, in subsequent class discussions, students generally assumed that Eliza bogue out because of its conversational patterns—something they could illustrate with their knowledge of natural language and grammatical analysis; In the latter case, it is likely that students will write Eliza program themselves in subsequent lab sessions—it is simply a file parsed by a Java program. When Eliza was first developed in 1966, it was fairly simple, using only a small database of words and phrases, and applying a series of matching rules that could form the required expressions for human responses. But since then, many more complex programs have been developed to simulate conversations—they are called Chatterbots. The aim was to convince people that Chatterbots could talk to people (at least briefly). One of the Chatterbots programs that are currently popular is called Alice. Our next preview question is about Alice: Provide students with Alice intelligent software, and then ask students to think and answer the following exercises: Take some time to talk to Alice, and she will tell you that she is a robot. When you were talking to Alice, how long did it take you to be sure you were not talking to a person posing as a robot? Explain your answer. The Chatterer Alice proposed a test as opposed to the Turing test, in which the subject tried to appear as a computer rather than a human being. The exercises are one of the important roles that can introduce the modern artificial intelligence and its application, including the application in daily life, speech recognition, information filtration, intelligent agent, network game, etc., into subsequent class discussion, and which could effectively break the student to the mystery of artificial intelligence, and inspire the learning interest of artificial intelligence.

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13 Chinese-Style Flipped Classroom …

References 1. He, K. (2008). In-depth integration theory of Information Technology and curriculum. Beijing Normal University Press (何克抗. 信息技术与课程深层次整合理论[M]. 北京: 北京师范大 学出版社, 2008). 2. He, K., & Juan, W. (2008). One of the studies on the teaching mode of integrating information Technology with curriculum—connotation and classification of teaching mode. Modern Educational Technology, 18(7), 5–8. (何克抗,吴娟。信息技术与课程整合的教学模式研究 之一——教学模式的内涵及分类[J]。现代教育技术, 18(7), 5–8). 3. Liangfang. S. (1996). Curriculum theory—Fundamentals, principles and Problems of curriculum. Education science Press. (施良方. 课程理论——课程的基础、原理与问题[M]. 北京: 教育科学出版社, 1996). 4. Zhenguo, Y. (1998). Contemporary Pedagogy (trial version). Education science Press. (袁振 国等. 当代教育学 (试用本) [M]. 北京: 教育科学出版社, 1998). 5. Xuexin, H. (2000). Learn the new. The meaning, structure and application of teaching strategies. Educational research,12. (和学新. 教学策略的涵义、结构及其运用[J]. 教育研究, 2000, 12). 6. He, K., & Juan, W. (2008). The second part of the research on the Teaching Mode of information Technology and curriculum Integration—Meaningful transmission and acceptance teaching mode. Modern Educational Technology, 18(8), 5–11. (何克抗, 吴娟。信息技术与课程整合的 教学模式研究之二——“有意义传递—接受”教学模式[J]。现代教育技术, 2008, 18(8), 5– 11). 7. He, K., & Juan, W. (2008). Research on the teaching model of information technology and curriculum integration—Teacher-Led Inquiry teaching model. Modern Educational Technology, 18 (9), 5–10. (何克抗, 吴娟。信息技术与课程整合的教学模式研究之三——“教师 主导下的探究”教学模式[J]。现代教育技术, 2008, 18(9), 5–10). 8. Zhong, Q., and others. (Eds.). (2001). Zhu Muju reviewed. For the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and for the development of every student—Interpretation of the Outline of Basic Education Curriculum Reform (Trial). East China Normal University Press. (钟启泉等主编, 朱慕 菊主审. 为了中华民族的复兴为了每位学生的发展—— 《基础教育课程改革纲要 (试行)》 解读[M]. 上海: 华东师范大学出版社, 2001). 9. He, K., & Juan, W. (2008). The fourth part of the research on teaching mode of information technology and curriculum integration—Research-based learning teaching mode. Modern Educational Technology, 18(10), 8–14. (何克抗, 吴娟。信息技术与课程整合的教学模式研 究之四——“研究性学习”教学模式[J]。现代教育技术, 2008, 18(10), 8–14). 10. Kang, H., & Xiaoming, C. (2008). Research on the teaching model of information technology and curriculum integration—WebQuest teaching model. Modern Educational Technology, 18(11), 5–12. JITT. (何克抗,曹晓明。信息技术与课程整合的教学模式研究之五— —“WebQuest”教学模式[J]。现代教育技术, 2008, 18(11), 5–12. JITT). 11. He, K., & Chunxuan, L. (2008). Research on the teaching model of information technology and curriculum integration—JITT teaching model. Modern Educational Technology, 18(12), 9–13. (何克抗, 刘春萱。信息技术与课程整合的教学模式研究之六——“适时教学 (JITT) ”教学模式[J]。现代教育技术, 2008, 18(12), 9–13). 12. Novak, G. M., Gavrin, A., Christian, W., & Patterson, E. T. (1999). Just-in-time teaching: Blending active learning with web technology. Prentice Hall. 13. Bailey, T., & Forbes, J. (2005). Just-in-time teaching for CSO. Department of Computer Science Duke University, NC 27708–0129. SIGCSE’05, February 23–27, St. Louis, Missouri. Copyright 2005 ACM1581139977/05/0002. 14. Li, T. (2005). The characteristics of timely teaching and its enlightenment to the reform of Undergraduate teaching in Chinese universities. Foreign Education Research, 11. (田莉. 及时 教学的特点及对我国高校本科教学改革的启示[J]. 外国教育研究, 2005, 11).

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Conclusion

With the rise of people’s expectation of education informationization, we will see that although information technology has developed, education for more than 100 years and education of today does not seem to change a great deal, why? If informationization is well implemented in education, it should be able to substantially improve the educational productivity; that is, it should be able to achieve leapfrog development in terms of greatly refining subjects teaching quality and comprehensive quality of students. In the past, people thought it was impossible. But after our many years of experiments and practice exploration, we firmly believe that if they could really use innovative education informationization theory with Chinese features (also known as the theory of informationization teaching innovation) to guide education, especially the deepening reform of basic education of primary and secondary schools of various levels, this can be done. There are many examples of such leapfrog development—we have been able to turn weak schools in many urban areas and even the rural schools in remote and poor areas into advanced demonstration schools for quality education, and even turn the backward areas into advanced exemplar schools for education. As mentioned earlier, for example, Feng Ning Manchu Autonomous County in Hebei Province, the original one was a state-level low-level income county, compulsory education level low, but after five or six years of innovation theory under the guidance of education informationization experimental study since 2008, the county became an advanced banner of rural education in Hebei Province (several rural distance education project in Hebei Province are held in Feng Ning). Another example, Gansu Longnan Dangchang County, the original was one of the poorest and most backward part of Gansu Province (down the west side of Dangchang close to Zhouqu County, of adjacent to Min County to the north, treacherous waters, natural conditions were very bad, but through our joint efforts with local teachers since 2011, using the innovation theory method to carry out experiments of education informationization. 2015 years later, the quality of compulsory education has been in the forefront of the Longnan region, the local bureau of education leaders proudly said, “In the past our principals and teachers always went to visit and study in Lanzhou, © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 K. He, Innovative Education Informatization with Chinese Characteristics, Bridging Human and Machine: Future Education with Intelligence, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0622-0

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Conclusion

Beijing and Shanghai and now, around the peripheral (or even other provinces and cities) many principals, teachers have come to visit us here, learning and sharing.” Thus, it can be seen that with the help of information technology, the leapfrog development in the improvement of education quality can be completely realized, so that weak schools and backward areas can become advanced schools and demonstration areas; ordinary teachers can become famous teachers, and students with poor foundation can become excellent students in both character and learning. And this is not an isolated case. Only in this way can we realize the education informationization and step into education modernization. If China’s education informationization is to be like what our country’s Education Informationization 2.0 Action Plan calls for—to go in the forefront and lead the world, it should have its own innovation with Chinese characteristics. With independent innovation in the field of education, it can truly reflect our cultural confidence. Then, how should we go ahead in the process of educational informationization? How to make innovation or contribution with Chinese features? The content of this book has 12 chapters—the first 6 chapters are concerned with the six theories of informationization with Chinese features, and the second and third parts are concerned with the specific implementation and large-scale promotion of the six theories mentioned above (that is, informationization teaching innovation theory), which is a most powerful and effective answer to the questions.