Chapter OneIntroduction
1.1 Research Background
In proposing high request for educational innovation, it should serve for trainingthe talents of creative thinking and ability to innovate, aiming at the cultivation oflearners’ disciplinary competencies, which are the necessary quality and corecompetence of achieving integrated development to adapt inpiduals to the futuresociety and take a lifelong learning. In the era of knowledge economy, it is moresignificant to learn how to learn than mastering knowledge. Learners need to be good atdeveloping the quality of creative thinking and the ability of higher-order cognitiveskills for deep learning. Besides, the cultivation of learners’ disciplinary competencies,usually is based on both specific subject education and practices of nurturanceeducation. On the one hand, the curricular teaching is responsible to intentionallydevelop learners’ knowledge, competencies as well as integrated quality according tocharacteristics of the specific subject; on the other hand, learners must possess theability of deep learning to internalize knowledge and acquire competence, which formsscientific thinking ways and rational quality structure through deep thinking andstudying. In other words, the development of students’ deep learning is closelyassociated with the cultivation of disciplinary competencies, its emergence relies onspecific subject background of learners. Meanwhile, deep learning helps studentsachieve the goal of cultivation of disciplinary competencies to a large extent that it isthe processing which involves experience, directly and indirectly, by means of thinking,investigating, deducing and introspecting, etc. to form the knowledge structure, and theactual capacity of solving problems as well as the stable learning quality. Therefore,deep learning plays a necessary role to meet the needs of talents in the era of knowledgeeconomy. Based on the requirement of deep learning theory, teachers make efforts todismiss the disadvantages in exam-oriented education, facilitate the transformation oflearning ways, and promote learning quality so that the cultivation of Englishdisciplinary competencies can be effectively achieved.
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1.2 The Significance of the Research
Theoretically, this study attempts to improve students’ deep learning in Englishteaching through investigating the present situation of English learning, and makingcontrast experiment with designing teaching plans based on previous studies’preference. As studies of deep learning theory at home emerged just ten years, thoughthe focus on the discussion of the theory and teaching strategies gained large attention,the more efforts need to be made for the purpose of prompting its popularity andoperability. Therefore, with learning previous studies about deep learning, designs andsuggestions of the proposed teaching plans will be given，based on practical experimentto enrich the theoretical reference, in order to weaken the gap between the theory andpractice.
Practically, on the other hand, this private school, as an new, modern andhumanized advanced private school, providing the author with a valuable chance toobserve and experience the teaching process, also a possibility to explore the presentsituation of students’ deep learning and design teaching plans to experiment. It is thehigh time for teachers to rethink their roles in the class teaching and reflect on theirtraditional teaching ways to meet needs of new curriculum reform. Thus, this studycould provide the front-line teachers with reference in practice on English teaching toimprove students’ deep learning and achieve the goal of both teacher and students’mutual development.
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2.1 Deep Learning
Deep learning gains much focus in ten years, however, it is not so popular forteachers to study and apply in practices. Thus, it’s necessary to introduce studies aboutdeep learning as following.
2.1.1 Definitions of Deep Learning
It is widely accepted in education field that the concept of deep learning is firstlyput by American scholars Ference Marton and Roger Saljo1 in the on QualitativeDifferences in Learning: Outcome and Process，1976, who put forward that “learningshould be described in terms of its content”, which identifies different levels ofprocessing of information that called surface-level learning and deep-level learningrespectively among groups of Swedish university students, who are asked to readsubstantial passages of prose that marks the different descriptions of learning in termsof its content. It pointed out that in surface-level processing the subject focuses on thesign ( i.e., the discourse itself or the recall of it) and deep-level processing indicated thatstudents had concentrated on what is signified ( i.e., what the discourse is about). Theterm “deep learning” attracted attentions from other scholars. The definition of deeplearning is described by Tracy Wilson Smith and Susan A. Colby that it involves anintention to understand and impose meaning, which encourages students to focus onassociating different aspects of the content, formulating hypotheses about the structureof the problem or concept, and relating more to gain an intrinsic interest in learning andunderstanding. This definition emphasizes the mental engagement of students inlearning and understanding. Kieran Egan develops the “depth” on Deep Learning fromthe perspective of epistemology that involves the sufficient breadth, sufficient depth,multi-dimensional richness and ties in knowledge learning, as he points out that “withregard to the knowledge we learn in breadth, we rely always on the expertise of others;when learning in depth, we develop out own expertise.
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2.2 Theoretical Foundation of Deep Learning
In this part, the author introduces theoretical foundation of deep learning,including constructivism learning theory, cognitivism and meta-cognition. Theoreticalstudies support deep learning with reasonable evidence to carry out and reliable basis toinstruct.
2.2.1 Constructivism Learning Theory
Constructivism is a branch of the cognitive psychology, also the crucial theoreticalbasis in deep learning. Jean Piaget hold the view in the constructivism that childrenstructure the knowledge of the world in the process of interaction with surroundingenvironment so that their cognitive structure could be developed. Accommodation andassimilation are involved in the process of interaction. Accommodation refers to theprocess that learners modify their own existed knowledge to take into account the newinformation of the world , it’s the expansion of quantity in cognitive structure; however,assimilation is the process which learners modify the information of the world and fitinto what they already know, it’s the qualitative change. Then O.Kernberg,R.J.sternberg and D.Katz, etc. developed the constructivism theory. O.Kernberg furtherstudied the nature and conditions of the cognitive structure; R.J.sternberg and D.Katzstresses the key function of the subjectivity role in the process of cognitive structure;Vogotsgy’s ZPD theory ( zone of proximal development) highlights the backgroundfunction of the social and cultural history that learning happens in a certain socialbackground where conditions are provided to support and promote learners’development. In a word, the core view of constructivism is that learners as thelearning-center explore and structure the knowledge autonomously, also developthemselves by the interaction of social background.
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Chapter Three Methodology..........................................21
3.1 Research Questions.......................................21
3.2 Research Subjects............................................ 21
3.3 Research Instruments...........................................22
Chapter Four Results and Discussion of Tablet Computer in English Teaching.............. 38
4.1 The Advantages of Tablet Computer in English Teaching..................................38
4.1.1 The Visual Presentation of Teaching Contents with TeachingResource Sharing ......................... 38
4.1.2 Student-centered Classroom Teaching Based on DifferentInteractions with Strong Interest....................40
Chapter Five Conclusion ..................................58
5.1 Findings .......................................58
5.2 Implications............................59
Chapter FourResults and Discussion of Tablet Computer in EnglishTeaching
4.1 The Advantages of Tablet Computer in English Teaching
According to problems found out above, this part states four key advantages andfunctions of tablet computer in assisting with English teaching in classroom, which areused in improving students’ deep learning. In this part, the author states that how to usetablet computer to assist students to promote deep learning in English teaching,especially in listening and speaking skills of English learning, which are distinguishedas important points of language learning.
4.1.1 The Visual Presentation of Teaching Contents with Classroom ResourceSharing.
Nowadays, the new curriculum reform attracted much attention of educators andscholars, understanding and teaching reflection of the front-line teachers even someyounger teachers were insufficient, which most of teachers were unaware of theimportance of higher requirement in the reform or weakness of invariable teachingways on cultivating students’ necessary learning ability. The teacher-centered teachingomits the necessary contents presented to students for the purpose of arousing their owninformation background and interests without any efficient warming-up or leading-inby means of pictures and short videos. Visual presentation of teaching contents,including not only pictures and videos, but also significant knowledge points, is moreattractive and direct to lead students to think about the theme of knowledge, and moreconvenient to share through the tablet computer for better revision. The school carriedout teaching-research activities about the study of new curriculum reform, but teachersstill insist on the teacher-oriented method in teaching with old approaches. In fact,according to some teachers’ words, the overburdened course content and compactteaching progress occupied their time so much that they were out of exhaustion to payattention to learn more modern tools to assist teaching or try their best to make theteaching interesting and high effective. As the survey found, few teachers knew andheard of deep learning theory, they also did not studied in depth on the new approachesor methods in the teaching demonstration, in other words, they might know about it butdo not know how to apply with it by means of appropriate model. Thus, the weakawareness influenced teachers’ teaching practice that made teachers neglect thedevelopment of students’ affection and thinking, either the reasonable adjustment inteaching practice. No deep thinking on teaching from teachers did not bring about deeplearning of students.
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Chapter Five Conclusion
5.1 Findings
Through the thesis, the author firstly searches for the relative studies as well astheoretical foundation about deep learning by means of the literature research, whichmake the author realize the crucial role of deep learning in reformed educationalstandard. Then investigates and analyzes the situation of students’ deep learningthrough the questionnaire survey with collected data that it reveals not so optimistic. Byanalyzing the collected data, the author found that the current situation of students’deep learning is not optimistic. Students are not fully motivated to follow teacher’sguidance and make their own learning happen, they don’t pay attention to their ownlearning process and try to join the effective thinking in class. They are weak inapplying knowledge in the practice with their own thinking, even they did not find thequestions to think over or they think of problems passively, as a result, the learningdidn’t happen. Besides, students are not aware of that when and how their learninghappens. It implies teachers that students need to pay attention to their learning to learn.Thus, students repeat the surface learning and they could not have access to buildhigher-order thinking, which influences the development of core competence. However,it also reflects that most students agree with the function of learning and are willing towork hard for much gain in the future, however, they still need to be simulated in class.
What’s more, the author discussed advantages of the tablet computer in assistingEnglish teaching practice --- (1) The visual presentation of teaching contents withefficient interaction and classroom resource sharing; (2) Student-centered classroomteaching based on different interactions with strong interest. (3) As learning tools withmultiple evaluations on listening, speaking, reading and writing. (4) The forming ofteaching repository facilitates teaching research and feedback from students. As thelanguage learning, the author finds distinguished advantages of the tablet computer forEnglish teaching, especially in speaking and listening, which drive students to thinkeffectively and express as much as they can that lead to higher-order thinking of deeplearning. To prove the effectiveness of tablet computer teaching in promoting students’deep learning, proposed teaching designs are presented with suggestions for referencein practice. What’s more, the author puts forwards teaching suggestions in improvingdeep learning, for example, teachers should design the logical and coherent questionchain for problem solving. From the final results on the questionnaire, it is proved thatteaching designs are effective and meaningful on proving students’ deep learning.
reference(omitted)