It is not easy to enable our elementary children to be equipped with desirable moral values for their real life through one hour moral education lesson per weak. To overcome this problem, the thesis accommodates children's self-reflective diary writin...
It is not easy to enable our elementary children to be equipped with desirable moral values for their real life through one hour moral education lesson per weak. To overcome this problem, the thesis accommodates children's self-reflective diary writing as a supplementary activity to enhance the effectiveness of moral education practices in elementary schools. For the study, a fourth grade class was selected and the whole students participated in the study for an academic year.
Children were supposed to write each 'self-reflective diary' once or twice a week. Three types of diary writing format were presented, 1) 'Diary of Experience' that helps children to make sense of their real life moral issues by writing about their life experiences, 2) 'Diary of Reflection' that provides children with an opportunity to reflect on each virtue in detail based on what they learned in moral education class, 3) 'Diary of Practice' that encourages children to freely and actively decide what they would practice and work on the values they set on their own. More specifically, 'Diary of Experience' was used for enhancing children's cognitive growth. 'Diary of Reflection' was used as group presentation materials for children's emotional growth. 'Diary of Practice' was used as class materials for growing children's practice capability. The topics for the self-reflective diary writing were presented regularly by the homeroom teacher, and the teacher used 'The Three Stage Model in Dialogical Learning' presented by Dr. Jongmoon Kim. to draw on children's active and free dialogues in moral education classes. While writing their self-reflective diaries, children were also presented some important moral issues to promote their self-reflective practices. The homeroom teacher provided them with written feedback on a regular basis. Parents were also asked to write feedback on their children's diaries a few times during the study.
During the study, it was noticeable that there are some good attitudinal changes through 'self-reflective diary writing.' The major themes of the findings are presented, not to mention the whole process in the thesis. The findings support that 'self-reflective diary writing' can be a meaningful supplement for the weakness of one hour moral education class in order to promote children's moral growth, particularly, their moral practices. Self-reflective diary writing is evaluated as a good moral education strategy by the children and their parents as well. Besides, it is also helpful for teachers to evaluate the process of children's moral growth through portfolio.