Forming the New Path of Aspiration and Interest

SHS Innovative Competence Education aims at students’ growth, transferring from a score- or test-oriented education to an aspiration- or interest-oriented one. Aspiration and interest is helpful to students’ realization and exploration of their own potentials, and the sustainable development.

The school pays great attention to both detailed and overall education in making various experiments. Talking about the details, SHS sets up several experimental groups. Experimental groups areautomobile, finance, human body, laws, micro film, broadcasting and speech skills; the science and technology experimental class is divided intofivesub-groups, viz, Physics, Chemistry, Computer Since, Biology, and Medical Since, and the Engineering class is divided into 5 sub-groups, that is Engineering, Communications, Energy, Oceanography and Environmental Science. The experimental tracksgreatly emphasize the interest and personalized choices in courses. Students in this class will be given guidance and training from professors in order to continue study and research. The course format is carried out under the following routine: introducing the general concepts in those areas，thenstudents picking up two areas for further study ，at last, students making a final decision on a certain area (Usually 90% of the students stick to their chosen areas). Talking about the overall education, SHS, on the basis of the school course framework, impel the education in an overall way.

Emphasizing the Foundation of School CoursesSHS realized that an optional and modernized course stage must be set up in order to establish a growth-friendly environment for various talents. The school learned advanced experience from international curriculums so as to promote the school course structure. The school strongly encourages a harmonious development of talents’ aspiration, interest and ability. Great effort has been made on the course framework, giving students more than 1,000 itemss and modes for further study.

Highlights in Cultivation and Experiments

Teaching under the concept of “High Conception, High Speculation, High Interaction” was widely promoted in the education reform. In organizing the teaching and learning, a combination of big- or small-classes system, mobile-classes system and supervisor system is applied. In improving students’ innovations and practice, SHS greatly stresses on its characterized experiment teaching in physics, chemistry and biology by means of researches and projects. Technically speaking, SHS explores students’ performances and researches, teachers’ teaching and management on a digital basis. In this sense, SHS establishes an advanced digital management system, which helps the decision-making and management standing on information and data. An evaluation system applies both overall and graded ways on the basis of choosing courses. On resource development, the long-term cooperation with those 15 colleges and institutions aims at digging out students’ potentials by means of courses and projects.

Preliminary Effect on Experiment Exploration

1．Students’ Attainment

(1) Science and Technology Experimental Class. A. Prizes: Till May, 2011, the first class won 5 international awards, 15 national awards and 120 municipal awards; innovative projects cover ten areas, including environmental science, physics, engineering, IT. Till May, 2011, graduates of 2012, and those of 2013 won 2 international awards, 6 national awards, and 73 municipal awards. B. Dissertation and Patents: the first class published 6 dissertations (with two on SCI), and 2 national patents. C. The coherence between aspiration & interest and college entrance: over 95% of the students chose their interested fields.

(2) All students. A. Prizes: During the academic years of 2008 to 2010, students won 17 international awards, 146 national awards, and 278 municipal awards (students from the intensive mathematics classes won the gold medals in three consistent years, and two of them got full marks; 17 person-time joined in China Mathematics Olympiads, and won 2 gold medals and 2 silver medals in the Romanian Master Mathematical Competition; 51 won the First Prizes in national mathematics competition; 32 won the First Prize in Shanghai; 22 won the national First Prize in science and chemistry and 57 got the First Prize in Shanghai). B. the coherence between aspiration & interest and college entrance: the goodness of fit between the aspiration & interest and college enrollment is over 95%.

(3) SHS forms some core indexes of the early identification of innovative talents. These indexes include internal motivation (responsibility and ideological level, matching between interest and potential…); thinking cultivation (critical thinking and in-depth thinking); personality formation (endurance, focus …); development direction (personalized knowledge structure, the formation of professional wisdom and sustainable development on the basis of aspiration & interest …).

2. School Achievements

(1) Projects attracted extensive concerns. Several administrative education departments from different provinces and areas sent representatives to visit our school for investigation and research on the innovative program of early cultivation on talents. The project is supported by the supporting program of the “Eleventh Five-year Plan” of the Education Commission.(2) Academic achievements. SHS accomplished some progressive achievements in the early cultivation of talents, (including more than 10 dissertations and more than 100 case study on students’ growth): three among which were reshipped by periodical literatures reprinted by People’s University; the publication ofEducation of Gifted Students—the Happy Pursuit of Cultivating the Gifted, and a collection of case study, titledHow Kids Study in a Renowned School.