A Study On High School Biology Teaching Integrating The Cultivation Of Systems Thinking Skills

Systems thinking skills,an ability proposed from research in the field of ecology within biology,is fundamental in understanding the holistic nature of events,dissecting complex causality,and addressing comprehensive problems.It is now recognized as a superior cognitive skill expected of future citizens,attracting global attention in the realm of education.However,in the context of basic education in China,the cultivation of systems thinking skills has not been effectively implemented,necessitating a substantial effort to address this deficiency.The development of a teaching model that nurtures systems thinking skills,compatible with China’s unique circumstances,has yet to be established.Given that the discipline of biology spans from micro-level entities such as cells to macro-level ecosystems,all of which are complex systems,fostering systems thinking skills in biology education presents a viable approach.The present study leverages specific teaching strategies to integrate systems thinking skills into high school biology instruction,with the aim of enhancing students’ capacity to tackle complex problems.This stduy initially delineates the concept of systems thinking skills and constructs its theoretical framework through a review of domestic and international literature,while also summarizing the teaching strategies and evaluation methods aimed at enhancing systems thinking skills.Following this,the study employs a mature survey questionnaire to investigate and analyze the current state of systems thinking skills among 218 high school students in a district-level demonstration high school in Shanghai,identifying the causes of the problem.The survey reveals that differences in this skills are unrelated to the students’ gender but are influenced by the degree to which the teacher structures subject knowledge during biology class,which also promotes academic performance in biology.Based on these findings,the research addresses the causes of the problem by adopting the SATL teaching model to effectively enhance the degree of knowledge structuring during the teacher’s instruction.Taking "the transfer of genetic information through replication and expression" as a practical case,a teaching design was conducted and quasi-experimental research was performed on 82 high school students in Shanghai over a period of four class sessions.Subsequently,the students’ level of systems thinking skills and academic knowledge were assessed before and after the experiment,with the quality of the pre-and post-test tools also examined through expert consultation and Rasch model testing.The results show that the application of the SATL teaching model in high school biology classroom instruction significantly enhances students’ skills to identify various components within different life systems(such as cells,individuals,ecosystems,etc.),recognize the connections between these components in different life systems,understand how these components interact with each other,and construct models of the relationships between components and their interconnections in different life systems.This study provides a basis for exploring a teaching model for cultivating systems thinking skills hat is suitable for our national conditions.