The purpose of this study was to analyze the characteristics of the professional development achieved through activities at the Inkwunsarang Research Association (pseudonym), a teacher learning community for human rights education. More specifically, ...
The purpose of this study was to analyze the characteristics of the professional development achieved through activities at the Inkwunsarang Research Association (pseudonym), a teacher learning community for human rights education. More specifically, the study sought ways to support professional development of general teachers for human rights education by exploring professional development activities and their characteristics at the Inkwunsarang Research Association, and by ascertaining the areas of professional development acquired by the teachers participating in these activities.
To achieve these objectives, the following research questions were chosen. First, what kinds of activities were conducted at the Inkwunsarang Research Association for the professional development of teachers and what are their characteristics? Second, what kinds of professional development did teachers achieve through the activities at the Inkwunsarang Research Association?
To answer these questions, a case study was conducted with the Inkwunsarang Research Association, an out-of-school teacher learning community established in May 2015, as the case subject. Eight teachers were interviewed as participants in this research, with supplementary written materials collected and analyzed based on the research questions, and the main results are as follows.
First, professional development activities for teachers in the Inkwunsarang Research Association included human rights lectures, reading discussions, textbook analysis and development of lesson plans and teaching/learning materials, human rights teaching demonstrations, and collaborative human rights instructional practices in the classroom. Teachers participating in this study were able to accumulate basic human rights knowledge through lectures on human rights and reading discussions, establish a concept of universal human rights, and clearly define the direction of the Inkwunsarang Research Association. Based on the professional knowledge developed through these activities, the teachers analyzed elementary, middle, and high school textbooks for human rights-related subjects, developed lesson plans, and created instructional materials. In order to disseminate and proliferate the concept of universal human rights, the teachers also produced a human rights song. In addition, they held two teaching demonstrations to see whether it was possible to apply to the classroom a lesson with the correct concept of human rights, and four teachers put a collaboratively developed lesson plan into practice during their respective creative experience activities classes.
The distinctive characteristics of professional development activities for teachers at the Inkwunsarang Research Association included voluntary initiative and participation of teachers with a common vision, cooperation based on close, horizontal relationships, production and development of knowledge that could be of practical use in the classroom, and the establishment and expansion of collective knowledge for the purpose of providing content for human rights education. The Inkwunsarang Research Association was established by teachers with an awareness for the issue of human rights in the teaching field, and professional development was being achieved through all activities being led and participated in by the teachers themselves. Teachers achieved professional development through reciprocal and organic cooperation based on a horizontal relationship and an emotional connectedness which enabled them to respect each other’s human rights. Professional development activities at the Inkwunsarang Research Association were conducted in such a way that produced knowledge for practical use in the classroom, and through its practice and reflection, the knowledge was developed into a more applicable form for the classroom. In addition, the Inkwunsarang Research Association was producing quantitatively and qualitatively high-standard materials in order to provide general teachers with content for human rights education. In fact, professional development was being achieved by sharing these materials with other teachers.
Second, research participants were able to acquire knowledge about human rights, develop curriculum expertise, improve their teaching abilities, and form their identities as human rights teachers through the activities at Inkwunsarang Research Association. Upon examining these accomplishments in detail, it was found that the teachers were able to establish a concept of universal human rights based on the expansion of their knowledge of human rights. In terms of curriculum expertise development, teachers acquired the ability to see the sequence of the human rights education curriculum and developed the ability to reconstruct the human rights curricula of elementary, middle, and high schools. In addition, their teaching ability was improved; they saw improvement in their teaching method for human rights, and through reflective introspection on previous lessons, their classroom instructional practices were enhanced not only for human rights instruction, but instructional practices overall. They also became enabled to utilize and develop various instructional materials. Finally, the teachers of Inkwunsarang Research Association formed an identity as human rights teachers. They became aware of, and came to respect, the rights of students. They also came to have a sense of responsibility beyond the classroom as teachers for the nation.
By examining in detail the domain of professional development for teachers in human rights education through the activities at the Inkwunsarang Research Association, this study confirmed that the teacher learning community is effective for the professional development of teachers. Based on the results of this study, I would like to suggest the following for the professional development for teachers in human rights education.
First, education policy developers and school administrators should make various mean available that can change the closed and isolated school culture for human rights education expertise developed in out-of-school teacher learning communities to be proliferated within the school. Second, it is necessary to establish an official online space where teaching materials, practical cases, knowledge, and experience of teachers with expertise in human rights education can be shared and transferred to other teachers at the levels of the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development or the metropolitan and provincial offices of education. Third, it is necessary to present not only the objectives, necessity, content, and methods of human rights education to the national curriculum, but also the basic information on human rights and the sequence of the human rights education curriculum, which has been dispersed throughout various subjects.