With the development of high-tech brain imaging techniques, the results of brain science researches are providing people with scientific grounds for optimal learning. We need to study how the characteristics or functions of the brain should be applied...
With the development of high-tech brain imaging techniques, the results of brain science researches are providing people with scientific grounds for optimal learning. We need to study how the characteristics or functions of the brain should be applied according to the characteristic of subject. For literature education as well, we need to understand the functions and learning mechanism of the brain and to develop learning models, reflecting the characteristic of literature education.
Thus, this study purposed to examine the components of elementary literature education based on brain science theories for enhancing elementary learners’ literary abilities and, based on the results, to develop a model of brain-based elementary literature education. For these purposes, research questions were formulated as follows.
1. What are the components of brain-based elementary literature education?
1-1. What are the goals of brain-based elementary literature education?
1-2. What are the principles of brain-based elementary literature education?
1-3. What are the contents of brain-based elementary literature education?
1-4. What are the methods of brain-based elementary literature education?
2. How is the development process of brain-based elementary literature education model?
2-1. How is the model of brain-based elementary literature education?
2-2. How is the revised model of brain-based elementary literature education?
To answer Question 1, we reviewed literature related to the major concepts of brain science theories, the nature of literature, and the characteristics of elementary literature education, identified the components of brain-based elementary literature education as goals, principles, contents and methods, and structured the elements.
First, seeing in connection to the goals of the 7thNational Curriculum for literature education, which are to achieve self-realization by developing literary abilities through receiving and creating literature and to raise desirable persons participating actively in the development of literary culture, literature education can develop whole personality through enhancing the learners’ literary abilities. Accordingly, the goal of literature education was suggested as the enhancement of literary abilities, and the areas of literary abilities were sub-divided into reception, criticism and creation.
Second, the principles of brain-based elementary literature education were the use of various symbolic systems, the provision of all-inclusive literary environment, the provision of opportunities for sensitive learning and gesture learning, the provision of opportunities for experiencing positive emotion, the consideration of physical rhythm and the use of attention prompting strategy, the provision of opportunities for exploring meanings and forming patterns, and the provision of opportunities for literary sharing.
Third, the contents of brain-based elementary literature education were suggested as theme, structure(episode), characters(speakers), background, style and viewpoint, associating the components of children’s literature with the structure of literary contents in the elementary literature curriculum.
Fourth, elementary literature education should provide learners with literary experiences for expressing various cognitive and emotional responses while maintaining elementary learners’ characteristics such as imitation, activeness, amusement and integrity. Thus, the methods of brain-based elementary literature education were suggested as behaviors, audiovisual images, and linguistic methods utilizing the whole brain.
In Question 2, based on the components of brain-based elementary literature education, we developed a brain-based elementary literature education model through two stages, namely, model development and model revision. The stage of model development performed analysis, design, development, implementation and evaluation according to the ADDIE model, and the stage of model revision performed again development, execution and evaluation and verified the effects.
First, the steps of model development are as follows. The analysis step analyzed elementary learners’ development characteristics, the needs of learners and teachers, and tasks. The design step stated the goals of learning based on the results of task analysis, developed a literary ability test and a model evaluation tool in order to evaluate the effects of the model and learners’ satisfaction, and examined teaching-learning methods. The development step developed the model and literature teaching-learning plan for a total of 7 sessions. These development steps were verified by specialists. In the implementation step, based on the brain-based elementary literature education model, literature classes were given to an experimental group of 5th-grade students at Seoul G Elementary School for 5 weeks from the third week of April to the third week of May. The evaluation step tested the students’ literary abilities, analyzed their journals and surveyed their needs, and reflected the results in model revision.
Second, the steps of model revision are as follows. The development step revised the model and developed the teaching-learning plan for 7 sessions. In the implementation step, based on the revised brain-based elementary literature education model, literature classes were given to the experimental group for six weeks from the second week of June to the third week of July, and ordinary literature classes were given to the control group. The evaluation step tested students’ literary abilities using the literary ability test and the model evaluation tool developed in this research.
After literature classes were given based on the model, the result of literary ability test was compared between the experimental group and the control group. According to the result, significant differences were observed between the experimental group and the control group in criticism and creation. This suggests that the literature class using the revised brain-based elementary literature education model had a positive effect on enhancing the learners’ literary abilities. What is more, according to the results of analyzing the model evaluation tool, the brain-based elementary literature education model was found to help learners improve their literary abilities and have positive effects on their interest in or attitude toward literature class.
The results of this study presented above suggest that the developed model is valid because it was developed through a systematic process based on the components of brain-based elementary literature education and it was effective in enhancing elementary learners’ literary abilities. This research is meaningful in that it can be used as a valid guideline for developing and implementing a literature education model focused on the enhancement of literary abilities based on scientific information about learning mechanism working in the brain.
On the other hand, we suggest the following researches to be made based on the results of this study. To test the definite validity of the model, the long-term effects of the model should be evaluated through further research. In addition, we need to develop various forms of evaluation tools to measure literary abilities and to make a more elaborately designed research by expanding the scope of subjects or using different variables. Furthermore, it may be meaningful to study how learners’ cognition style of the left and right brains and their intellectual development are affected by literature class using a brain-based elementary literature education model.