The purpose of this study is to examine the aspects of diversely implemented integration in scenes of kindergartens by analyzing the implementation of integrated curriculum administered by kindergarten teachers.
In accordance with the above, I set up...
The purpose of this study is to examine the aspects of diversely implemented integration in scenes of kindergartens by analyzing the implementation of integrated curriculum administered by kindergarten teachers.
In accordance with the above, I set up the following research questions.
1. How about kindergarten teachers' understanding and administrative difficulty of integrated curriculum?
2. What kind of integrated curriculum implemented by kindergarten teachers ?
This study take, as its participants, the teachers who were famous for leading class very well, and who have worked for public kindergartens with good reputation. I selected the teachers who had experienced the research teachers for improvement of instruction or worked on class through educational office's projects (e.g., operation of model kindergartens etc.), while having careers in instruction in kindergarten that be taken under the supervision of a detached vice-principal. All of them had experience in the administration of integrated curriculum for more than 5 years. Among the above, I selected the teachers who had willingness to share their practice with other teachers. Due to financial and geographical matters, it's limited only in Seoul area.
Data were collected from focus group interviews in two times, and from gathering documents, and observing the process of class preparation and class through visiting each kindergarten in two times. These collecting data were analyzed in order of transcription and combination of data, coding by the subject and categorizing, case retrieving, and taxonomic analysis.
The result of this study is as followings.
Even though the participating teachers were clearly aware of the necessity of the administration of integrated curriculum, they had been in confusion for the understanding of integrated curriculum. Also, despite of such confusion, they implemented integrated curriculum in various forms which can be appropriated for specific classroom settings, and showed expert-level perception regarding the problems with administration. However, lack of in-depth understanding of integration made them to follow up the former teachers' modes to integrate the curricula, without any creation of strategies for efficient solution to the problems with administration. While their recognition of the problems and open-attitudes toward the diverse organizing modes enabled them to utilize organizing patterns in various forms selectively.
First, the teachers showed a dualistic attitude to integrated curriculum that while they showed supportive attitudes toward integrated curriculum and expressed their ‘natural’ preference of integrated curriculum, they also revealed their confusion on understanding the concept of integration, and expressed problems and burdens by occurring in the administration of integrated curriculum. The teachers who were lacking in theoretical knowledge of integrated curriculum had difficulty creating improvement strategies on problems occurring in the administration of integrated curriculum, even though finding solutions to the problems, they were passive in exchanging information with each other since they did not have confidence. There were many cases in which some of the teachers induced young children to interest in themes had selected primarily in consideration of situational conditions such as available material were limited and the ratio of teacher : children were high. And also there were cases in which some of the teachers selected themes deviated from young children’s interest and not closely related to children’s life due to over-competition among teachers. It has been also found that the teachers were not interested in objectives due to only focusing on activities relevant to themes, and also evaluative plans were unclear due to vagueness of objectives.
Second, the result of implementation for integrated curriculum showed in several types according to the degree and levels of integration, and it could be classified into the omnibus-typed organization and network-typed organization in accordance with relevance among activities. The omnibus-typed was implemented by mutual-independent activities, only related on the theme. That is further classified into the single-area activity form, one activity includes only one subject, and the integrated-areas activity form, one activity includes several subjects. The network-typed was entangled in the shape of web due to the relations between activities in which are not only connected by or through the medium of themes and also have relevance to the other activities. The network-typed is further classified into the inquiry-activity for solving problems, the deepening-activity for the application of skills, and the cooperative project-activity in accordance with the characteristics and the degrees of relevance. Teachers’ awareness and practical situations in kindergartens influenced on teachers' implementation of single-area activity, area-integration activity, inquiry-activity, deepening-activity, and project-activity.