Study Of The Current Situation And Problems Of Integrated Curriculum Implementation In Compulsory Schools

The integration of the courses has become an obvious feature of international curriculum reform. Accompanied by the occurrence of this phenomenon, the implementation of the integrated curriculum emerges as an important manifestation of this trend. In China, as early as in1980s, the integrated curriculum has been carried out and experimented in schools. In2001, it’s a clear requirement to change the course structure which emphasis too much on discipline-based, lack of integration of the courses, and implement the integrated curriculum in compulsory schools. So far, the new curriculum reform has been a decade long. So, taking Shanghai for example, what is the current situation of integrated curriculum, is there any problem in the implementation, what factors affect it. These are also questions of this study to answer.The integrated curriculum was originally proposed as the antithesis of the sub-division course. It is designed to compensate for the fragmented state of knowledge. It takes the integration of different contents of subjects as the starting, focus on the breaking the independence subject logic embodies, diluting the boundaries between subjects, helping form the overall awareness and concepts about the world, and developing the ability to use different knowledge in a more flexible way. The concept of the integrated curriculum is quite broad, and flexible. For example, in Shanghai, this curriculum includes science classes, social classes, class of expanding, class of inquiry and so on. It needs a process from the text to implementation for the integrated curriculum from the point view of the curriculum policy. In this process, it is affected by many factors, including attitude of the implementation of the main, the curriculum plan, the evaluation criteria, internal features of school, and social environment.This study has found that there are significant inter-school differences in the implementation of integrated curriculum, the degree of implementation and the enthusiasm through a survey about the situation about integrated curriculum implementation in compulsory schools and interviews with classroom teachers. There are several important factors affecting the implementation, including integrated curriculum full-time faculty, school management of integrated curriculum, teacher training and so on. And there are also a few problems during the implementation of integrated curriculum, such as lack of knowledge about the curriculum, the insufficient attention of school leadership, students who are lack of enthusiasm and little supporting resources from community and the society.There are still needs to cultivate full-time teachers who teach the course, change the ideas of school leaders and teachers about the integrated curriculum and let them know the value of this kind of curriculum if we want to cultivate the talents we need. In addition, schools should further improve the management of the curriculum resource and a system to protect it, so the teachers can implement the course without any worry. Only in this way, the real value of this kind of curriculum can be realized.