Ⅰ. Purpose of study and Problems
The former junior high school entrance examination was so competitive that it was called even "exam hell". It was a bad influence upon the normal development and growth of primary school children. But a newly revise...
Ⅰ. Purpose of study and Problems
The former junior high school entrance examination was so competitive that it was called even "exam hell". It was a bad influence upon the normal development and growth of primary school children. But a newly revised examination system, based on lot, without examination, effective since 1969, has greatly contributed to the normalization of primary school education and to the betterment of the physical, social and emotional conditions of children.
This study is intended to inquire into the kinds of worries, anxieties and problems primary school children, under competitive conditions of living, are confronted with. This study involves the problems of ① health ② personality ③ family life ?nd relational concepts. More studies are needed to identify the suitable grade levels for teaching each type concept.
Objectives of elementary school concept learning are (1) unlearning of wrong concepts which children learned before entering school, (2) guiding against meaningless abstract learning, (3) relating words to reality, (4) building firm foundation for learning hierarchical conceptual structures of each discipline area, and (5) training ability to define concepts accurately. Teachers must always be ready to relate words to real life situations by giving many accurate exemplars and non-examples from children's world.
Modified De Cecco Model used by this study is as following:
step 1. Describe the performance expected of the student after he has learned the concept
step 2. Children respond to the open-ended question concerning the concept, and compare, classify and choose the important attributes
step 3. Provide the student with useful verbal mediators
step 4. Provide positive and negative examples of the concept
step 5. Require the student to define the concept
step 6. Verify the student's learning of the concept
The application of the Model to children of the attached elementary school showed meaningful deferences in achievements between the experimental and the control groups in test scores on language understanding, reasoning ability and defining ability in the three months period during which time children had 7 to 8 class experiences of learning my the Model.
Some of the characteristic behaviors shown by children in the experimental classes are as follows: (1) Children actively expressed opinions without fear of failure and criticism because the open-ended questions in the concept learning process did not requirer the one right answer; (2) Children's participation in the learning activities was improved because of increased learning interest and permissive learning atmosphere, and through the provision of varied opportunities for verbal and non-verbal activities such as whole group and small group discussions and individual works for classifying pictures, making long lists of guesses and associations and individual works for classifying pictures, making long lists of guesses and associations, and identifying the criterial attributes from those lists; (3) The students showed fast growth in the ability to derive definitions using all the criterial attributes that they helped to identify. Children learned to use many kinds of dictionaries for reference instead of one or two to copy from, as well as many other resource materials to compare with their own definitions, and in many cases they found that those they had derived through concept learning activities were more adequate and meaningful than those they fond in the materials: (4) Accuracy in finding the criterial attributes gradually increased and the time needed for the process was gradually shortened through the repeated comparing, classifying and choosing experiences. (6) The Model enabled thorough learning reducing the necessity for relearning of the same concepts, thus leaving more time for learning new concepts: (7) Through the whole