고등학교 단위제 운영의 문제점 및 그 개선방안 연구

Time allotment practices in the high school have usually been expressed in terms of the number of units to be completed, and one unit means the amount of school learning undertaken by a 50- minute period of instruction per week for one semester, equivalent to 17 weeks . One unit is equivalent to 17 instructional hours and one instructional hour lasts 50 minutes in the high school. It is a small scale unit compared with large scale unit such as the Carnegie Unit in which one unit is equivalent to the 200 minutes a week for a school year.

Under the current small scaled unit system, if a subject matter is alloted as a 4- unit , it could be separated by four times and undertaken for four semesters . The way in which school time is allocated affect the way in which students study in the high school. Schools divide a 4- unit subject matter into 4 pieces and offer them one unit course for four semesters . Thus students can not help taking it four semesters and piling piecemeal accumulation of one- unit courses . Usually high school students in foreign countries take 6 to 8 courses a semester , but Korean students more than 14 courses per semester on the average. Malpractice in unit system has brought force several problems in high school education such as over - divided course offerings , piecemeal learning by student , ov er - burden of student learning , outnumbered course taking per semester, overburden teaching, and malpractice in circulating teacher.

The reasons in usage of divided unit in high schools are ascribed to the following 8 reasons : (1) original definition of small scaled unit, (2) lack of unit usage rule in schools , (3) college entrance examinations at the end of high school, (4) reinforcement strategies by each subject area, according to the strategy the more frequent exposure reinforces the status of subject area among school subjects, (5) belief in instructional effectiveness of divided unit, (6) teacher supply and allocation, (7) usage of school building and facilities, and (8) unexamined educational tradition.

Unit system has four advantages : (1) flexibility in time allotment and organization of timetable, (2) concentration in study and taking smaller number of courses, (3) equivalence among units alloted to several courses, and (4) alternativeness in course offerings. In order to take advantages of unit system, the current definition of unit should be changed to a large scale unit such as the Carnegie Unit. And schools should establish the concentration of course taking through lessoning number of course taking per semester.