The Center for Curriculum and Instruction (CCI) is mainly committed to improving teaching and learning in primary and secondary schools and beyond. The center integrates theories of learning sciences and their applications in educational practices. It supports cultivating the next generation of teachers who are capable and creative in teaching and research, and aims to serve as a platform for scholarly communications and cooperation at home and abroad.
1. About the Faculty members
So far, CCI includes one director and five full-time faculty members. As a team, the faculties jointly promote learning science and teacher education, with special emphasis on STEAM education and AI + subject education. Within these broad umbrellas, each faculty specializes in one or more research topics, which are detailed below.
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XU Binyan, Tenured Professor, Director of CCI, has made outstanding contributions in the fields of international comparison of mathematics education, textbook research, and teacher professional development. She was an Executive Committee Member of the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction (ICMI) and Co-Chair of ICME-14.
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GUO Wenjuan, Assistant Professor, Associate Director of CCI, focuses on the development of autonomous learning ability, project-based learning and teaching design, and teacher feedback strategies. She has published more than 20 research results in various top core journals at home and abroad.
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CHEN Jing, Associate Professor, focuses on collaborative learning, classroom ecology, and academic motivation. Her research highlights the interweaving relations between cognitive and social development during adolescence, which has been published in several top-tier journals.
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YAN Xiaomei, Lecturer, has an interdisciplinary academic background and rich industry-university-research experience. Her research focuses on the improvement of scientific literacy in middle school science classrooms and the mechanism of scientists' participation in youth science education in informal settings.
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CAO Lu, Assistant Professor, focuses on the integration of learning sciences and STEAM education. She specializes in designing innovative classrooms through "productive failure" theory and educational game design.
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CUI Qi, Assistant Professor, focuses on the development and application of domain-specific large language models for STEM education. She also investigates the construction of knowledge graphs and their role in powering AI-driven intelligent pedagogy.
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2. Achievement during the past five years
2.1 Academic research
CCI is committed to building an academic brand centered on "the integration of learning sciences and classroom practice". By far, the faculties in CCI together have received 17 research grants from national, Ministry of Education, and Shanghai municipal funding agencies, have published 31 papers in top SSCI/CSSCI journals, including Child Development, Learning and Instruction, Instructional Science, and China Educational Technology, and have published 10 textbooks, monographs, and book chapters.
CCI values bridging academic research with educational practices. For instance, Assistant Professor CAO Lu pioneered the "productive failure + digital intelligence technology" dual-core teaching model, which has been successfully applied in multiple primary schools.
2.2 Student empowering
CCI has been dedicated to empowering students’ learning by applying educational theories and cutting-edge findings into their own teaching practices. As one student said, "Here, what you feel is not only the pressure of academic studies, but also the power of being supported in growth. The efforts of teachers are visible and memorable to us."
Faculties in CCI offer a total of 15 graduate-level courses and have won many teaching awards at the university and the national level. For instance, GUO Wenjuan has won "the First Prize in the Young Teachers' Teaching Competition of Shanghai Jiao Tong University"; CHEN Jing’s course “Adolescent Learning & Development” has been awarded as "Excellent Graduate Course of Shanghai Jiao Tong University"; The teaching case created by YAN Xiaomei and her students was successfully selected into the 6th National Teaching Cases for Professional Degrees in Education.
Beyond one-on-one mentoring between advisors and advisees, CCI conducted joint group meetings to support advisees at every critical stage of their academic development. Regular joint group meetings include orientation, workshops on literature review and academic writing, workshops on research methods, and pre-proposal defense of graduation thesis.
With meticulous academic care and support for students, students supervised by CCI faculties have won fruitful awards. For instance, many students have been awarded the titles of "Shanghai Outstanding Graduate" and "Shanghai Jiao Tong University Outstanding Graduate", and many of them have won prizes in the National Tian Jiabing Teaching Skills Competition (TJB competition), including the first prize in mathematics, first prize in chemistry, and second and third prizes in English. Accordingly, our faculty members, GUO Wenjuan and CUI Qi have been awarded as “Excellent Instructor” in the TJB competition.
2.3 Academic exchanges
CCI has been actively joining and creating opportunities for academic exchanges. CCI has successfully hosted "The 3rd International Symposium on Excellence in Education (SFEE 2024)", which has been highly praised by scholars at home and abroad. With this opportunity, the center has built an active academic ecology. First, it brings together well-established scholars around the world, such as the University of Hamburg, the National Association for Environmental Education, the Korea University, the University of Sydney, and so on. The dialogue among researchers delivered rich and vivid pictures about excellent teaching practices for the future.
Regularly, teachers of CCI hosted sessions and workshops at academic conferences such as the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, the Chinese Higher Education Association, and Sino-European scholars' thematic seminars on "inclusive education, teacher training and social support".
In addition, teachers of the center also serve as editorial board members and reviewers of many SSCI journals. For example, CHEN Jing and YAN Xiaomei serve as editorial board members of Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, Frontiers in Psychology, and Social Science. And all these endeavors have been continuously expanding the academic influence of the center.
2.4 Social service
The center is deeply integrated into the national and regional educational development and is committed to serving society with evidence from scientific research. First, CCI provides core support for the whole process of pre-service teacher training through the master's program. Second, CCI provides consulting services for K-12 school teachers and administrators. Third, faculties at CCI are invited to carry out dozens of teacher training programs at all levels, radiating cutting-edge research results to more than 100 primary and secondary schools across the country.
Recently, to build a scientific and professional basic education quality evaluation system, the Shanghai Jiao Tong University Basic Education Evaluation Committee was established to provide professional support for the development of basic education at SJTU. Professor XU Binyan was appointed as a member of the Shanghai Jiao Tong University Basic Education Evaluation Committee, and Assistant Professor CUI Qi was appointed as a special lecturer of "Effective Seedling Cultivation" for Jiao Xiaomiao.
Written by CHEN Jing and GUO Wenjuan
Proofread and Edited by CHEN Ruoxi
Copyright © 2021年 上海交通大学 教育学院
