Comparative Research On Training Model For STEM Gifted And Talented High School Students In China And America

In the globalization era, scientific and technological innovation talent has become the core to enhance the overall national strength. Major countries around the world have intensified the training for scientific and technological innovation talent succession. Training for the STEM gifted and talented high school students is the key component. At present, there are a lot of such training practice both in China and America, while there is still distance between the two. This dissertation takes the comparative research on training model for STEM gifted and talented high school students in China and America as the study's content with the aim to find differences, analyze reasons and gain inspirations.There are five chapters in this thesis. The first one is introduction. It talks about three problems:why I choose this topic; existed research related to the research and research contents and methods in order to make readers informed about the research background and logic.Chapter 2 and chapter3 focus on one problem:how do America and China educate high school talented and gifted students respectively? This thesis uses the data study and interviewing method to summarize such training model in each country and their features from the following six aspects:educational goals, identification, content, methods, teachers and security on education. The results are the followings:STEM high schools aim to train leaders in the fields of science and technology in the future and thus its goal contains the futures of science and technology talents; the identifying process exams the students'intelligence and non- intelligence, emphasize students'interests in science and pay more attention to the process of study; educational content emphasize the basic literacy and practice; educational methods are enriched with the aim to respect students'differences; teachers are of high quality and most of them are experienced experts; educational security are form many resources which provide policy and research support with the education. As a result, America has established the independent training model for STEM high school gifted and talented students. The aim of training for STEM high school gifted and talented students in China is to promote students'overall developments and find their special advantages which is similar to the goal of general high school; identifying process especially emphasize students'intelligence and uses many tests; educational contents are enriched but whether it is important is decided by College Entrance Examination; educational methods mainly uses acceleration; teachers are experienced in teaching but lack the ability to doing research; educational security is not enough and the educational resources provided for schools is few. Thus, there is no real STEM high school gifted and talented students'education in China at present.Chapter 4 mainly talks about the differences of the above training models between America and China, at the mean try to analyze the reasons for them. Research results are as followings:On the aspect of educational goal, the training in America is independent and special while the training in China is dependent and mainly serve for College Entrance Examination. There are two reasons for this phenomenon. One is difference of the function of STEM education in high school between America and China. The other is whether the school is close to the society.On the aspect of identifying process, America emphasizes students'interests and their abilities showed in the process of learning while China focuses on the results of study. The reason for this difference lies in these two countries have different talent ideals. And the standards for the assessment of talents are different either.On the aspect of educational content, America designs their educational content according to the literacy required by STEM talents but China designs the content according to the exams. The reason for this is we have different goals.On the aspect of educational methods, America's are very flexible but ours are fixed. The reasons for this lie in three aspects:the cooperation between high school and university/college; the sense of providing educational service in the society and the limited understanding of the varied-futures of the high school.On the aspect of teachers, teachers for STEM gifted and talented high school students are at very different stages. Ours lack the research ability extremely. The knowledge-oriented teacher education and the poor professional development system in China cause these problems.On the aspect of educational security, there are gaps of educational supports got by high schools in these two countries. Educational supports in America are rich and useful while in China is few and useless. The main reasons for these differences areAmerica and China are at different development stages, different attitudes towards gifted and talented education between there two countries and the sense of providing educational service in the society.Chapter 5 talks about what we can learn from America. The author summarizes the inspirations in the aspects of educational ideal, practice and security with the hope to provide lessons for such educational practices in China.