How do you feel when your teacher asks you to work on a group project with other students? Do you like to work together with others or work alone?
The program for International Student Assessment(PISA), which aims to evaluate education systems worldwide by testing the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students, carried out a survey of students’ ability to work together in groups. They found that students who do well on tests by themselves are also likely to be better at working with other people.
This finding was true for many countries. Students in Japan, South Korea, Finland and Canada, where test scores are high, also did well in working together to solve problems. But this was not the case for every country. Chinese students, who usually can get high scores as well, displayed just common collaborative(合作的)skills.
“One reason might be that Chinese parents and teachers focus too much on grades, said Zhao Zhongxin, former vice president ( 前副经理 ) of the Chinese Family Education Association. “Students have a lot of exam pressure and they regard school as a place for competition.”
“However, collaborative skills are very important for preparing students today’s society,” he added. “Luckily, more Chinese parents and teachers are realizing the importance of this and are thinking of ways to help students improve it.”
Another interesting finding from the PISA survey was that girls are most likely to be better than boys at working together. They said girls show more positive attitude( 态 度 ) toward relationships, which means they are more willing to listen to others’ opinions.
PISA also found that the classroom environment tends to influence how well students collaborate. In classes where there are a lot of activities that require communication, such as class discussion, students would have better attitudes towards collaborating.
【小题1】From Paragraph 2, we can know PISA is________.| A．a survey system | B．a skill system |
| C．a program group | D．a finding result |
| A．prepare society | B．work with others |
| C．get good grades | D．win the competition |
| A．students today’s society | B．parents’ realization |
| C．collaborative importance | D．collaborative skill |
| A．give students high scores on tests. | B．help students reduce exam pressure. |
| C．provide more communicative activities | D．make girls work with girls instead of boys |
| A．The better grades, the better at teamwork. |
| B．Gender(性别) has no influence on collaboration. |
| C．Please focus as much on collaboration as on grades. |
| D．It's important for students to develop collaboration. |
