After two "Ninth Five-Year Plan" work, computer rooms have been popularized in rural primary and secondary schools. However, due to the rapid upgrading of computer products, the machines purchased seven or eight years ago can no longer meet the current teaching. Take our school as an example. The machines in the school computer room were uniformly configured by the Education Bureau ten years ago and later upgraded. Celeron 1.7 cpu, 128M memory computer can only meet the teaching of OFFICE series. The information technology textbooks published by Wuhan Publishing House, and the softwares such as PHOTOSHOP and FLASH required by Grade Seven, 8th grade and 8th grade are difficult to run, especially about sound processing. Moreover, due to the lack of relevant hardware, some school computer rooms have not formed a local area network, and teachers can't broadcast teaching live, so they can only give one-on-one tutoring, which seriously affects teaching efficiency.
In rural primary and secondary schools, the class hours of information technology have always been the main reason that affects teachers' teaching. In schools with good hardware environment and teachers, an information technology class is usually one week, while in some backward schools, the information technology class is even two weeks. The characteristics of information technology itself require a high degree of knowledge continuity. For students who have to accept both theoretical knowledge and practical operation, a 45-minute class is rare. In addition, the recess time is too long and the knowledge is not consolidated. Therefore, the teacher in each class should spend some time reviewing the content of the last class. As a result, the teaching progress can't keep up and the teaching content lags behind. Teachers can't complete the prescribed teaching content and students can't complete the practical content, which seriously affects the teaching quality.
Secondly, the degree of specialization of information technology teachers is not high and there is a lack of research on information technology teaching.
The shortage of information technology teachers used to be the main factor restricting the development of information technology education. Later, through various efforts, the number of information technology teachers has been greatly supplemented, but the number of teachers who "switched careers" from other disciplines to information technology disciplines has occupied a large number. This can indeed make up for the shortage of information technology teachers, but it will also greatly reduce the professional quality of information technology teachers. Although the government and the Education Bureau have increased the recruitment of information technology teachers, many computer graduates are unwilling to teach in rural schools due to factors such as treatment and working conditions.
Information technology is a subject that emphasizes practical application, and the updating speed of teaching content is very fast, which requires teachers to process and sublimate teaching content and teaching methods on the premise of mastering basic knowledge. Information technology teachers who are not computer majors are now teaching while learning, and they have no energy to study the teaching content, let alone the energy and ability to study the teaching methods. Moreover, in most rural primary and secondary schools, information technology teachers not only undertake the teaching work of this subject, but also undertake the roles of school file administrator, student status administrator, courseware producer, website editor and so on. Due to the insufficient popularization of computer technology in rural areas, many information technology teachers have become professionals in solving computer problems. When the network, computer, printer and multimedia equipment fail, they are busy in classrooms, offices and conference rooms. In the face of complicated work, information technology teachers can't say no, but at the same time, the time and energy devoted to the teaching and research of this subject are greatly reduced, which seriously affects the quality of information technology teaching.
Third, there are many classes in the same class, and repeated teaching kills the teacher's passion.
Although the number of information technology teachers has increased compared with the past, it is very common that there are only one or two information technology teachers in one school in rural primary and secondary schools. It often happens that a teacher is responsible for the information technology teaching task of one grade or even two grades. At present, some rural primary and secondary schools have more than a dozen classes in one grade, and teachers have to repeat the same teaching content about ten times. Too much repetition of teaching content has killed most teachers' teaching passion. In addition, the class size is too large (about 50 students), and the number of machines is not enough. Often, two or three students use one computer. Teachers need to devote part of their energy to organizing and managing teaching. Therefore, many teachers are exhausted after a few classes, their teaching enthusiasm is reduced, and their teaching passion is gone, so they begin to cope with teaching mechanically.
Fourth, students have poor information technology foundation and different starting points, and they have no correct understanding of information technology courses.
At the beginning of this semester, the author conducted a survey of students' information technology foundation in more than ten classes of two grades in our school. The results show that more than half of the students have studied information technology courses in primary schools and have a certain information technology foundation; Some students didn't come into contact with information technology courses until junior high school, and the foundation was zero. However, in the actual teaching, the author found that students with certain information technology foundation can only turn on and off the computer correctly, many students can't even type the most basic pinyin input method, and students with zero foundation know nothing about computer screens and keyboards. The learning of information technology is a continuous process, and the content and foundation of the previous learning have a direct impact on the subsequent knowledge learning. In class, teachers can't take care of every student, which leads to division. Students with good foundation are getting better and better in information technology, while students without foundation are still at a loss. For a long time, some students have lost interest in learning information technology courses.
There is a more serious phenomenon: students lack a correct understanding of information technology courses. In the survey, the author found that almost 70% to 80% of students think that information technology class is a class for playing games and having a rest. Some students even complain that there are too many explanations in class and too little time left for them to play games. Information technology has no weight in students' minds, and what teachers do in class can't get students' response, so teaching becomes unilateral and teachers lose the motivation to teach.
Fifth, information technology classes are on call and there are no organized teaching and research activities.
At present, information technology courses in compulsory education in most areas are still non-standardized subjects, which are not valued by leaders, teachers and students. Because the results of senior high school entrance examination and college entrance examination are related to a person's future and destiny, rural students pay more attention to the study of cultural courses. Before the monthly exam, mid-term exam and final exam, information technology courses are always occupied by mathematics, Chinese and other disciplines. The teaching plan of information technology course has become a decoration, which can be stopped at any time. When it comes to school statistics, entry of student status files, and registration for the senior high school entrance examination, information technology classes are often suspended, and teachers are transferred to complete these tasks. Information technology education in rural primary and secondary schools strives for survival in the cracks, and teachers' career prospects are bleak. Teachers are not active, passively facing daily teaching, muddling along, not striving for progress and not thinking about innovation.
Different from other disciplines, information technology disciplines can organize rich teaching and research activities in grades and schools to improve teachers' teaching level. There are usually only 1 ~ 2 IT teachers in rural primary and secondary schools, so it is impossible to organize teaching and research activities within the discipline. In the teaching and research activities organized by the school, almost all the non-IT teachers are evaluated, so they can't give practical suggestions, and the evaluation is not good. Without organized teaching exchange and teaching and research activities, information technology teachers are like frogs at the bottom of a well, and they are not exposed to fresh and effective teaching methods and experiences, which leads to unchanging classroom teaching, no new ideas and vitality.
What are the solutions to these problems? I would like to talk about my humble opinion here.
First of all, according to the existing conditions, adopt reasonable teaching methods and choose appropriate teaching content.
Teachers should flexibly organize teaching according to the existing conditions and adopt group teaching to let students learn independently. In rural primary and secondary schools with unsatisfactory hardware environment and poor student base, we should pay special attention to group teaching, scientifically and reasonably group students with good information technology foundation and students with poor foundation, select responsible group leaders, give the group leaders the greatest rights and obligations, help teachers manage the group members, and urge and supervise the group members to complete the classroom practice content.
In addition, it is necessary to rationally adapt the teaching materials and appropriately reduce the difficulty of the content. Because there is no perfect information technology curriculum standard in primary and junior high schools, and there is no universal teaching material suitable for each region, the information technology teaching materials in each region are not the same. This requires information technology teachers to choose suitable teaching materials according to the students' foundation, and to adapt the teaching materials at an appropriate time, such as the information technology teaching materials published by Wuhan Publishing House, and the fifteenth lesson "Robot Training Camp" in 8th grade should be revised appropriately. This class should become a robot demonstration class, not a research class, so that students can learn about robot knowledge through online search and picture display, rather than deploying physical robots.
Secondly, improve the professional quality and concept of information technology teachers.
Practice has proved that high-quality teachers are the key to improve teaching quality. Information technology teachers should learn to use modern means of information dissemination, speed up the dissemination of educational information, turn over a new leaf with modern educational concepts, completely abandon silent and conservative ideas and keep pace with the times. So how to improve the professional quality and concept of information technology teachers? First of all, we should make clear what an information technology teacher is. Information technology teachers are technicians, excellent teaching teachers, managers, service providers, researchers and practitioners. Information technology teachers should rise to their own path, be subject-oriented teachers and be research-oriented teachers. Career development should be single-minded, not eager for quick success, calm down and analyze yourself, explore your own expertise and interests, put the development of students first in your career, and study new knowledge tirelessly. Secondly, we should work hard in teaching, ask for advice modestly, and ask for advice from peers and excellent teachers in other disciplines in teaching methods. We should be good at reading, reading some books on educational theory, master works and classic works, and deepen our knowledge and improve our education through reading. Finally, especially rural information technology teachers should have professional beliefs and unswervingly take the road of information technology education.
Thirdly, let information technology teachers return to the classroom and optimize the curriculum structure of information technology courses.
Although information technology teachers are technical teachers, their main job is classroom teaching. Although information technology has not been fully popularized in rural areas, there is a shortage of electricians, but schools can solve the shortage of electricians through recruitment, instead of borrowing information technology teachers to fill in figures, they should return information technology teachers to classrooms and students.
And how to optimize the information technology curriculum structure, the author knows the following aspects.
1. Work hard on the course itself. According to the Ministry of Education's "Guidelines for Information Technology Courses in Primary and Secondary Schools (Trial)", the class hours of information technology courses in primary and junior high schools are not less than 68 hours, but most schools have not reached this standard at present. Here, leaders at all levels need to have a full and correct understanding of information technology education, affirm the importance of information technology education, emphasize and implement the policy of quality education, fulfill the provisions of the "Guidelines for Information Technology Courses in Primary and Secondary Schools (Trial)" to the maximum extent according to the actual situation, and increase the class hours of information technology courses.
2. Work hard on the curriculum structure. For example, the first volume of seventh grade information technology published by Wuhan Publishing House is divided into three activity units: WORD word processing, POWERPOINT slide production and PHOTOSHOP graphic processing. Teachers should consider students' foundation and acceptance ability when designing three-stage teaching courses, scientifically set up the class hours of three modules, avoid the heavy and neglect the light, increase the class hours on the content that students are easy to be interested in, and appropriately reduce the class hours on the content that is difficult and requires high computer hardware.
3. Appropriate evaluation methods should be adopted. At the beginning of the semester, a diagnostic evaluation was taken to understand the students' information technology foundation through questionnaires, interviews and other investigation methods. We should adopt formative assessment in our usual homework management to find students' mistakes and encourage them to study. At the end of a semester, take a summative assessment to check students' understanding of what they have learned this semester.
Fourth, strengthen students' understanding of information technology courses and strive to improve students' interest in information technology courses.
The information technology course in primary and secondary schools is a compulsory course to meet the new requirements of personnel training in the information age. It is a designated learning field with the main goal of cultivating students' information literacy and information technology operation ability, and has the characteristics of operability, practicality and inquiry (innovation). It plays a very important basic role in cultivating information technology talents needed for national construction and international competition and improving the scientific and technological cultural level of the whole society.
And how to make students have a correct understanding of information technology courses? The author thinks that we can start from the following aspects: First, society, schools and teachers should have enough understanding of the importance of information technology courses. At present, the policy of continuing education for rural primary and secondary school teachers has been fully implemented, and special information technology training is held every summer vacation. We can seize this opportunity to publicize the importance of information technology education to every teacher in every subject. Teachers in all disciplines have a correct understanding of information technology courses and attach great importance to them. In a subtle way, let students have a correct understanding of information technology courses. Second, every information technology teacher should stick to his post and use his own characteristics to publicize the importance of information technology courses to students. Teachers should not only publicize the importance of information technology courses to students in the form of preaching, but also let students experience its importance in learning activities, thus forming a correct understanding.
Interest is the best teacher. Psychological research shows that when people are interested in something, they quickly know and accept it; Without interest, understanding is slow, or it is not accepted or even rejected. Therefore, in order to improve the quality of information technology teaching, we must improve students' interest in information technology. Teachers can start with playing games and use easy-to-understand language in class to give students enough time to operate freely, thus stimulating students' interest in learning computers and cultivating their creativity and thinking ability. The information technology course should have its own classroom characteristics and be different from other subjects, so that students can truly be masters of their own affairs and deeply feel that learning information technology course is happy.
Fifth, make use of the characteristics of information technology discipline, organize diversified teaching and research activities and carry out rich teaching evaluation.
The traditional teaching and research form is carried out within the discipline or the school, and the information technology discipline has its unique advantages. In addition to open classes, excellent courses and teaching seminars like other disciplines, information technology disciplines also have a unique teaching and research method-network teaching and research. In rural primary and secondary schools, it is difficult to carry out teaching and research activities within disciplines or schools, and it is difficult to organize teaching and research activities between schools. Teachers can conduct online teaching and research under the arrangement of the information technology teaching and research section. Of course, the subject of information technology can not simply adopt online teaching and research, but should combine conventional teaching and research with online teaching and research to complement each other, and use online teaching and research to promote the development of conventional teaching and research to a higher level. Organizing diversified teaching and research activities can expose information technology teachers to more novel and effective teaching models and methods and improve their teaching ability.
In addition to participating in the annual teacher education skills competition and tutoring students to participate in the information technology competition, information technology teachers should also participate in the evaluation activities of open classes and excellent courses held by schools at all levels in urban areas. Open classes and high-quality classes are demonstration classes carefully designed and prepared by teachers, which reflect teachers' teaching skills and professional background, but sometimes they can't fully reflect the situation of ordinary classes, so it is also very important to hold ordinary class evaluation. Information technology teachers should realize their own shortcomings through various rich teaching evaluations, gather the strengths of others, make up for their own shortcomings, and strive to improve the teaching quality.
In a word, the problems and difficulties faced by information technology education in rural primary and secondary schools are not achieved in a day, but caused by many reasons. We can't expect to solve those problems in a short time. Only when we face up to these problems from a realistic point of view, adopt a scientific attitude, constantly reform and forge ahead, can we make information technology education sprout, take root, become a tree and become a forest in this barren and eager soil in rural areas.
(reprinted online)