Research On The Application Of Performance Evaluation In Biology Teaching In Senior Middle School

Curriculum is the carrier of school education. Curriculum evaluation, as the core of school education reform, determines the success or failure of educational reform. At present, the most employed evaluation method in China’s high schools is the paper and pencil test, the disadvantage of which has been realized in practice that it is unable to promote the overall development of students. With more and more students studying with the only purpose of passing the exam, they can hardly experience the pleasure of continuous improvement gained during the learning process. Targeting this disadvantage, the State of New York first performed the experimental study of performance evaluation through the establishment of performance standards association, which achieved remarkable results. After that, performance assessment was gradually accepted by all and was even universally implemented. Thus, whether this evaluation approach is suitable for the school biology class in the current stage of China is worth exploring.In this study, documentary method, survey method, experimental method and interview method are employed to explore the application of performance evaluation in high school biology teaching. This paper mainly includes three parts:The first part is about the literature review concerning this topic, including the definition of related concepts and research on performance evaluation at home and abroad. The second part explores the theoretical basis of the performance evaluation, emphasizing the enlightenment from constructivism and multiple intelligences theory. The third part studies the design of performance evaluation of high school biology teaching. First of all, an implementation process of high school biology teaching performance assessment should be designed, including the setting of the specific goals of performance evaluation, the task of the performance assessment, the design of performance evaluation scale. Then is the design of questionnaires required in the study, including preparation and testing of the questionnaire. Finally, four cases of applying performance evaluation to high school biological experiment class and two cases to the "data analysis" part of biology class are designed respectively. The fourth part is the empirical study of high school biology teaching performance evaluation. By setting the control class and experimental class, using the method of controlling a single variable, in keeping other factors constant, the experimental class were evaluated in performance assessment while the control class in traditional evaluation method to investigate the effect of Performance Assessment in high school biology teaching activities according to results of the questionnaire, paper and pencil test and interview.The results show that:students’ interest in learning biology of the experimental class has improved significantly. Besides, the application of performance evaluation in biology class teaching enables the mutual promotion of teachers and students. Teachers’ teaching becomes more targeted and students’ awareness of cooperation and communication is enhanced. What’s more, students’ self-learning ability is improved, and they learn to evaluate themselves and others correctly.By the analysis of the results, the following conclusions can be drawn:(1) Performance Assessment in high school biology teaching is feasible; (2) performance assessment improves the teaching the learning process; (3) teaching becomes more targeted and individualized; (4) performance evaluation promotes the development students’ various abilities.Due to the limitation of my personal level and a number of objective factors, there are still some deficiencies in the research. For example, the scope of the experiment is too small, the coverage too narrow, and the case selection is only limited to the compulsory book one "Molecular and Cellular".Thus, this study is only an initial attempt to study the application of performance evaluation in the real teaching in a small range. To implement a nationwide performance evaluation and achieve more research progress requires efforts and cooperation of various groups including education authorities, schools, teachers, students and so on. Therefore, my research does not end, and I will continue my research during the later teaching process.