Author in this study explored teachers' perceptions and opinions on rising issues and problems about newly revised and adopted school curriculum, and sought for solution to overcome and figure out its problems related new curriculum in their understan...
Author in this study explored teachers' perceptions and opinions on rising issues and problems about newly revised and adopted school curriculum, and sought for solution to overcome and figure out its problems related new curriculum in their understanding and practicing it in elementary school.
All research materials and data used in this study were obtained from previous studies, national curriculum, school curriculum󰠏related literature, county󰠏based school curriculum, and participants' interview and observation. In this study, both deductive method and classification to analyse collected data followed by phases recommended Spradly(1980). The case study was employed.
The present study explored curriculum and educational program based on the previous studies conducted in the domain of physical education across the cultural diversity of nations. The aim of this case study, one of a variety of methods of qualitative research, of understanding and implementing elementary school physical education curriculum was first to explore how well teachers understand the curriculum newly revised and adopted by educational government and second to understand how teachers devise and implement given curriculum in elementary school. Thus, it is no doubt that I provide fundamental and rich information to find and figure out educational matters currently issued in elementary school physical education and its curriculum. Then, I also believe that such information will further help enhance better practices not only for research school, but also for elementary school physical education.
Participants in this study were teachers in Cham Sa Rang elementary school, Seoul. Teachers reported and identified five broad directions and several suggestions on the matters of elementary physical education curriculum.
First, in teachers' understanding of 2007 revised and adopted physical education curriculum, most teachers in understanding the curriculum conflicted in this matter, expect for few teachers in physical education. It is because of their lack of interests about the curriculum in present, the deficiencies of appropriate teacher training program sponsored by Korean educational institution, and no interest in understanding the subject teachers do not matter or teach.
Second, teachers in elementary schools were more likely to try to understand the contents of curriculum through the textbook in understanding newly addressed educational curriculum rather than being interested and participate in the curriculum󰠏centered training program supported by educational institution. In aligned with it, elementary school teachers were also dissatisfied with the curriculum of which has been often and easily changed and revised.
Third, in considering and devising the curriculum in elementary school, the school that is attached in a college of education and is studied by educational institution have reformed the curriculum imitated based on collected data for elementary school education. With regard to the school curriculum made by these school, better ideas to improve the curriculum in elementary school physical education is needed to implement because the teachers, including instructors/lecturers for only physical education in elementary school teach students based on this curriculum.
Fourth, in adopting and implementing physical education curriculum, physical activity teachers and sport instructors during physical education class followed its contents as planned, but physical education class was optionally ran by each class teacher. That is, physical education class is arbitrarily governed and totally dependent by class teachers because of their busy school works, priority of subjects in curriculum, and deficiencies of knowledge and information about physical education. Prior reason that the class teacher seem to less care about physical education class is that physical education class has been gradually changed as sport lecturers' oriented and determined class in terms of organizing and planning the class rather than class teachers over time. In addition, concerning the student evaluation, physical education teachers/sport lecturers used various methods to evaluate students as organized by the curriculum. These teachers in physical education were interested in their class and evaluated students based on given curriculum, but the class teachers who were charged of their classes actually did not care about physical education as one of their classes.
Fifth, to improve and develop the curriculum for the bast practices and the comprehensive understanding, it is necessary to provide time and opportunities for teacher to take into account on the curriculum and feel responsible for their physical education class (as well as classes in other subjects) through systematic training program to enhance teachers' comprehensive󰠏and󰠏concrete understanding about practices and necessities of elementary school physical education curriculum. In other words, it is necessary for educational practice and policies to help teachers better understand and implement of its curriculum over the long haul.
For future research and directions, it is required to develop the training program for helping teachers clearly understand the physical education curriculum and concretely map out their class plans. And it is also necessary for researchers to explore teachers' understanding and knowledge learned over thorough training program so that it will further be useful to provide important information how they understand and interpret the meaning of physical education curriculum. Finally, it needs to be considered that elementary schools can be in different districts and various societies. That is, it is important to highlight the implication of this study findings for practice and policy in different elementary school cultures and societies.