This research was conducted with childcare teachers who are educating among childcare teachers employed at childcare centers in Seoul and Gyeonggi area to analyze the recognition and difficulties that early childhood class childcare teachers have abo...
This research was conducted with childcare teachers who are educating among childcare teachers employed at childcare centers in Seoul and Gyeonggi area to analyze the recognition and difficulties that early childhood class childcare teachers have about art education for early childhood. The study is also designed to provide the basic data about retraining contents and methods for the childcare teachers in order to operate a meaningful art education for early childhood by exploring the current art education practice running for early childhood in field.
The research questions with regard to the research objective are as followings.
1. How is the current art education practice running for early childhood?
1-1. How is the contents of the current art education practice running for early childhood?
1-2. How is the teaching method of the current art education practice running for early childhood?
1-3. How is the evaluation of the current art education practice running for early childhood?
2. How is the recognition of childcare teachers about the art education practice for early childhood?
2-1. How is the recognition about the importance of the art education practice for early childhood?
2-2. What are difficulties that childcare teachers experience like?
2-3. How is the recognition of childcare teachers about the retraining?
The subjects of the research were 138 childcare teachers who are educating an early childhood class employed at childcare centers in Seoul and Gyeonggi area. The questionnaire with 34 questions was made in order to examine the current education practice and recognition of childcare teachers about the art education practice for early childhood. It was distributed and collected after verified by an early childhood education expert. The data was analyzed with frequency & percentage, average & standard deviation, and multiple reply analysis by each question using SPSS 15.0.
The following is the summary of research results. For the analysis of current art education running for early childhood, first of all, childcare teachers in charge of class plan a class agenda by education themes and focus on education themes the most when preparing activity plans. Also, they collect related early childhood art education materials from the internet the most. Second of all, the small grouping was the most utilized form for a teaching method of early childhood art education, and a small group was formed within 5 members in 20 minutes at a time once or twice a week whereas a large group with 10-15 members in 30-40 minutes once a week. It was also found that childcare teachers provide opportunities for early childhood to fully explore various materials the most in art education, and consider themselves motivators as the most important role to play. Lastly, for the evaluation of art education, childcare teachers use a way to have their children present their completed artwork to his/her peers, and use the evaluation result from art activities to understand each student’s development level or presentation skill and to meet their parents for a student counseling.
For the recognition of childcare teachers about the art education practice running at childcare centers for early childhood, firstly, all of childcare teachers recognized the importance of art education practice for early childhood and picked the development of creativity for the reason of importance. Secondly, for the difficulties that they have, most childcare teachers answered that they have experienced an art-related learning from academy institutes and it was helpful when practicing art activities in field. However, 58% of childcare teachers responded that the art education for early childhood is difficult to run due to the appropriateness of activity hour and theme selection. Thirdly, for the recognition about the retraining, 11.4% of teachers said that they have experienced an art-related retraining for teachers in the previous year, which means that the opportunity of art-related retraining for childcare teachers wasn’t given enough for the past year. Besides, it was found that the most needed contents for teacher retraining regarding the art education for early childhood was variety of teaching materials and utilization method.