[Li Xiang China] Promote the construction of a new pattern of big science education

Science education occupies an important position in the national education system. It is not only an important part of school education, but also a basic project for cultivating innovative talents in science and technology, promoting high-level scientific and technological self-reliance, developing new quality productivity and building an innovative country, which is of great practical significance to improving the implementation effect of the "double reduction" policy. The Opinions on Strengthening Science Education in Primary and Secondary Schools in the New Era clearly puts forward the important goal of "the cooperative education mechanism of universities, primary and secondary schools and home-school societies is obviously sound" and the important measures of "encouraging universities and research institutes to actively connect with primary and secondary schools to lead the development of science education" and "paying attention to systematic design arrangements and helping the organic connection of different stages", which has made a top-level design for the integration of universities, primary and secondary schools to carry out science education.

Adhering to the integration of universities, primary and secondary schools is of great significance to solve the practical problems such as the concept of science education in primary and secondary schools can not meet the requirements of the development of the situation, the relative shortage of resources, and the inability of teachers to meet the needs of practical development, to cultivate scientific and technological innovative talents in collaboration, to improve the effectiveness of science education and the "double reduction" effect, and to build a new pattern of science education. To this end, the author believes that the overall mechanism of science education should be established and improved on the basis of subject coordination; Guided by value synergy, promote the integration of scientific education goals; Guided by core literacy, strengthen the organic connection of science education content; Taking resource coordination as the key, build a platform for coordinating science education resources.

On the basis of subject cooperation, establish and improve the overall mechanism of science education

The cultivation of innovative talents is not closed and fragmented, but a complex project involving education, science and technology, industry and other fields. To promote the integration of science education in universities, primary and secondary schools, the educational concept of mutual cooperation, mutual integration and integrated promotion runs through the whole process and all links of science education. First of all, it is necessary to establish and improve the overall mechanism of science education based on the cooperation of different subjects such as leaders, management subjects and education subjects.

On the subject of leadership and management, Party committees, governments and education administrative departments at all levels should establish a management system to promote the integration of science education in universities, primary and secondary schools, and give full play to the leadership function of "commanding the overall situation and coordinating all parties". On this basis, the education administrative department should set up relevant institutions to be responsible for specific matters. At the same time, an institutionalized communication mechanism should be established between universities, primary and secondary schools to strengthen dialogue and contact in promoting science education in an integrated way, strengthening the cultivation of scientific spirit and innovation ability of young children. In particular, universities should play a leading role in demonstration and actively form a science education alliance with primary and secondary schools.

On the subject of educating people, on the one hand, we should strengthen the coordination of school, family and social science education. Parents should create a good environment for innovation, cultivate children’s awareness of innovation, support children to actively participate in scientific and technological innovation activities, and form a long-term mechanism for cooperation between universities, primary and secondary schools and families to carry out science education. At the same time, functional departments such as science and technology, education, news propaganda, and literary and artistic creation, as well as science and technology museums, museums, exhibition halls, and children’s palaces, should perform their functions well and make use of their own resource advantages to jointly create an organic and unified pattern of science education between small classes in schools and large classes in society. On the other hand, we should strengthen the cooperation of teachers in various disciplines within the school. Teachers in all disciplines should establish the concept of grand science education, actively explore the modes and means of interdisciplinary science education, and infiltrate scientific ideas and spirit, scientific knowledge and methods based on their own disciplines. Teachers of science education should strengthen communication with teachers of other disciplines, and jointly explore the law of the integration of science education in universities, primary schools and secondary schools. In addition, it is necessary to improve the system of part-time science education teachers, recruit scientists, famous professors, well-known entrepreneurs and outstanding innovative and entrepreneurial talents to join the science education team, enter the science education classroom, develop and design diversified science education resources, and participate in after-school service activities in primary and secondary schools.

Guided by value identification, promoting the integrated setting of scientific education objectives

The goal is the driving force of science education and the main basis for guiding the construction of science education content, the choice of implementation path and mode, and scientific evaluation. For the first time, Report to the 20th CPC National Congress of the Communist Party of China made a "trinity" overall deployment of education, science and technology and talents, and put forward the requirement of "focusing on cultivating top-notch innovative talents", which provided fundamental value guidance for promoting the integrated setting of scientific education goals. Furthermore, the cultivation of innovative talents is not achieved overnight, but a systematic project involving the whole chain of education. As an important part of cultivating innovative talents, science education in all sections of universities, primary and secondary schools must firmly establish the concept of collaborative education, and take the cultivation of young people who have the potential of scientists and are willing to devote themselves to scientific research as the value orientation throughout, so as to cultivate top-notch innovative talents and lay a solid foundation for accelerating the construction of a strong country in education, science and technology and talents.

Under the guidance of value recognition, to promote the integrated setting of scientific education goals, we should make an overall plan for the integrated collaborative education goals of science education in universities, primary and secondary schools, strengthen the systematic recognition of the integrated goals of science education, sort out the hierarchy and structure of the goals, and grasp the integrity, stages, levels and cohesion of the target system under the premise of ensuring the overall goal of cultivating people in Lide. Under the background of the integration of science education in universities, primary and secondary schools, the goal system can be divided into four levels: overall goal, learning period goal, curriculum goal and classroom teaching goal, and the goal field of each level can be divided into four dimensions: scientific concept, scientific thinking, inquiry practice and attitude responsibility. The combination of level and dimension goals lies in classroom teaching goals, which is the micro-level of the goal system and the concentrated presentation of teaching goals of different levels and dimensions. At the same time, we should adhere to the principle of "segmentation" and not "separation", follow the cognitive process from low to high, from exterior to interior, from sensibility to rationality according to the specific academic situation, students’ growth law and physical and mental characteristics of each academic period, scientifically set the specific goals of science education in each academic period, and form a logical, scientific and reasonable science education target system.

Guided by core literacy, strengthen the organic connection of science education content

As an important part of core literacy, scientific literacy is mainly implemented by means of science education. Scientific literacy has been formally put forward for the first time since 1958 and has become the core goal of science education in all countries of the world. As far as composition is concerned, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) believes that scientific literacy is embodied in three abilities: scientifically explaining phenomena, evaluating and designing research methods, and scientifically explaining data and evidence. China’s "Compulsory Education Science Curriculum Standard (2022 Edition)" puts forward that scientific core literacy mainly includes four aspects: scientific concept, scientific thinking, inquiry practice and attitude responsibility. Although there are some differences in expression, scientific literacy is the fundamental embodiment of the value of science discipline, and it is also the starting point and destination of implementing science education. Universities, primary and secondary schools should deeply realize that scientific literacy is different from pure scientific knowledge and skills. In order to truly realize the goal of science education mentioned above, science education in China needs to make students move from learning scientific knowledge and skills to "understanding the nature and characteristics of science and mastering and applying the process of scientific thinking".

In other words, the integration of universities, primary and secondary schools to carry out science education should aim at promoting the development of students’ scientific core literacy, select and organize the corresponding education and teaching contents and strengthen the integration and connection between the contents from the guidance of core literacy cultivation. As far as the overall concept is concerned, it is necessary to correctly handle the dialectical unity of integrity and hierarchy, universality and particularity, cohesion and difference, synergy and innovation contained in the collaborative development of science education among universities, primary and secondary schools. Horizontally speaking, we should proceed from the concept of big science education and the overall knowledge view, and handle the relationship between specialized teaching in different disciplines and organic infiltration and integration of multi-disciplines, so that students can cross the boundaries of disciplines while mastering the structure of scientific knowledge, and integrate scientific knowledge and skills, scientific processes and methods, scientific spirit and attitude involved in multi-disciplines. Vertically, under the premise of maintaining a unified goal, we should adhere to the law of growth and development of students in all sections of universities, primary and secondary schools, adhere to the close connection from top to bottom, step by step and spiral upward, and promote the development of scientific learning in depth as a whole.

Taking resource coordination as the key to build a platform for overall planning of science education resources

Each school section of universities, primary and secondary schools has its own unique educational resources and advantages, which complement each other. It is necessary to build a resource pooling platform by integrating curriculum and teaching materials resources, science education practice resources and science education teachers at different stages.

On the level of curriculum and textbook resources, make full use of Internet technology and new media technology, integrate teaching design, teaching videos, books and other resources of different students, build a national science education resource pool and "science education cloud", build a science education platform integrating resource sharing, online interaction and online publicity, and break the time-space barrier of sharing science education resources of different students.

On the level of practical resources of science education, primary and secondary schools should actively tap their own school-based resources and promote the full use of existing resources. Universities should provide scientific education resources for primary and secondary schools, and open laboratories, libraries, museums, herbarium and other scientific education places as supplementary resources for after-school services to primary and secondary school students in an orderly manner. At the same time, universities, primary and secondary schools should also tap the practical resources of the society, especially local science education museums, museums, exhibition halls and other places to promote the coordination of resources inside and outside the school.

At the level of science education teachers, the national education authorities should strengthen the setting of science education-related majors in colleges and universities, strengthen the training of specialized teachers in science education, and continuously improve the ratio of science education majors to full-time teachers in primary and secondary schools. At the same time, strengthen on-the-job training, and comprehensively improve the scientific literacy and professional level of existing full-time and part-time science teachers. In addition, we can also build a community of science education, teaching and scientific research in universities, primary and secondary schools, and establish a normalized and long-term communication mechanism for science education teachers in the whole school period to discuss and jointly study the theoretical and practical issues such as the content, implementation and evaluation of the integration of science education in universities, primary and secondary schools.

In a word, science education is an important foundation to improve the scientific quality of the whole people, cultivate innovative talents and enhance the national scientific and technological competitiveness. With the unprecedented changes in the world and the accelerated evolution of a new round of scientific and technological revolution, the competition around the commanding heights of science and technology and high-end talents is unprecedentedly fierce, and the important position and role of science education are increasingly prominent. China should speed up the integrated layout and construction of science education system, strengthen the whole process management and promotion of science education in universities, primary and secondary schools, and enhance the effectiveness of science education and the ability to serve and enhance the country’s comprehensive national strength and international competitiveness through efficient coordination at all stages.

(The authors are the directors of the modernization research base of educational governance system and governance capacity in Hunan Province, the special researcher of the Institute of Basic Education Development of Hunan University of Science and Technology, and the special researcher of the modernization research base of educational governance system and governance capacity in Hunan Province; This paper is a phased research achievement of "Research on the Integration Construction of Science Education, Universities, Primary Schools and Middle Schools from a Systematic Perspective" (2024JGSK010) entrusted by the Supervision Department of Off-campus Education and Training of the Ministry of Education.