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I. Introduction
In this study, how a group of student teachers acquire curriculum knowledge and pedagogical expertise by designing Korean history and culture courses for North Korean refugee students (referred as NK students in the following) is elucidated.2) The focus of teacher education in Korea has changed from knowledge of content to transformative pedagogical knowledge. With respect to teachers as experts in teaching practice, they strive to transform their knowledge of content into an accessible and comprehensible form of knowledge so that their students are able to understand the unfamiliar and foreign nature of the past. Research on history education focuses on the significance of pedagogical content knowledge by which history teachers can identify themselves as professionals with distinguished expertise(Kim, 2015; Gudmundsdottir & Shulman, 1987; Yang, 1993).
As much as researchers and teacher education faculties highlight pedagogical content knowledge in various domains, the need of the hour for student teachers is to acquire knowledge that includes teaching materials, resources, and scenarios for one unit. The disparity between teacher education programs and teaching practice in classrooms will continue to exist unless student teachers have plenty of opportunities to design and customize the curriculum to suit certain group of learners’ sociocultural and cognitive demands in their teacher education periods(Ormond, 2017; You, 2010, pp. 14-15).
The focus of this study was on a particular teacher education program that was implemented in the spring of 2017. I investigated whether student teachers were able to link educational theory to pedagogical content knowledge from their own efforts of designing a curriculum course for NK students. Through the careful observation and reflection of the coursework, the research questions I designed are thus outlined. 1) Did the curriculum design task increase student teachers’ understanding of curriculum theory? 2) Were the contents and teaching methods devised by the students suitable for the group of NK students? and 3) what kind of supportive venues enabled student teachers to overcome difficulties encountered by them in the process of designing their own course curriculum?
II. Curriculum knowledge in History Teacher Education
In Korea, the current history teacher education program consists of three major fields: historical content, history education, and educational theory. Three particular courses comprise the domain of history education, namely, <the principles of history education>, <materials and methods in history education>, and <historical thinking and writing> since the early 2010s3). Student teachers are introduced to the wide range of history curriculum knowledge including nature and characters of history and history education, goals of history education, principles of history content selection and organization, teaching and learning methods, evaluation and methods and so on in the course of <the principles of history education>.
The growing emphasis on the constructive nature of historical knowledge, relevance to teaching practice and teachers as curriculum makers, found in the recent National Curriculum, has guided teachers to cope with such change(Kim, 2014). Teachers’ responses vary from the combination of teaching resources and dynamics of learning strategies to teachers’ own reconstruction of curriculum(Lee, 2015)4) and reflection on their own practice through the lens of new and foreign theory(Kim, 2016). Teachers’ involvement and feedback have been called to enhance the lack of relevance to practice in developing the national-level curriculum.
Given that teacher’s expertise shifts from teaching expertise to curriculum expertise(You, 2010, p. 9), teacher educators need to offer a line of opportunities in which student teachers can select and organize historical content in light of educational goals, learning environments and characters of learners beyond understanding and delivering curriculum itself. As Connelly and Clandinin suggest(1988), teachers need to speculate the possibility and constraints in developing and designing their own curriculum to realize educational goals for their students. Such localized goals and curriculum can not be realized by implementing curriculum-as-plan. The supporters of teachers as curriculum designers suggest the need of repertoire of lived story from their own designing and instantiating the localized curriculum(You, 2010, pp. 7–11) as well as from their own action research(Kim, 2007, pp. 75–87).
This type of development of curriculum knowledge is especially important in times of a changing student population. The increase of a multicultural population in South Korea, including North Korea refugee families, demands that teacher education programs should meet such changing social and cultural needs. The number of NK students, enrolled in public schools of elementary through high school, has increased up to 2517 in 20165); furthermore, their dropout rate was higher than that of South Korean students according to the Educational Ministry report. While the Ministry of Education and local educational bureau assist teachers in various ways such as by developing NK student-friendly teaching materials and providing professional development programs for teachers6), NK students appear to experience learning gaps and maladjustment as a result of the differences in the level of the education system and academic achievement in South Korea.
The history of North Korean deportation has been influenced by the educational difficulties caused by general factors such as learning deficiencies, psychological and emotional problems, social and cultural prejudice, poverty, and how the history of North and South Korea has been perceived. Such circumstances call for teacher education to develop student teachers’ ability to provide adequate learning content with possible learning methods.7)
III. Designing History Curriculum for North Korean Refugee Students
Previously, I managed the course, <Principle of History Education> by combining reading papers, lectures, and students’ presentations. Reflecting on course implementation and student feedback motivated me to reassess the goals of the course through the eyes of student teachers. Speculating on the framework of “teachers as curriculum planners”(Connelly & Clandinin, 1988), I arrived at the conclusion that student teachers need to apply what they have studied in educational theory to what they plan to teach in the future. This conclusion was confirmed since history teachers participating in the recent National level curriculum development research were asked to demonstrate knowledge of curriculum in order to fulfill their role of field experts(Kim, 2014).
The instructor’s own experience of participating in the development of curriculum and textbooks for NK students has had a considerable impact on designing teacher education program.8) Student teachers have shown great interests in the history curricula and textbooks that I cited as a case for curriculum and materials specific to NK students. As a result of the long-term project of developing a national-level curriculum for NK students(2009–2015), the curricular materials and textbooks present a model of adapted content and instructional approaches for target students.9) The course was outlined in <Table III-1>.
The student teachers need to take this course <Principles of History Education> as one of the mandatory programs for teacher certification. Since the beginning of 2010s, I have assigned student teachers the task of designing curriculum for NK students as a core task. This assignment has been carefully designed because the <Principles of History Education> course consists of two tracks that focus on building competency for “teachers as curriculum designers.” A track of this course deals with theoretical concepts and frameworks with which student teachers are able to understand educational phenomena and issues in history education. In the other track, which is shaded in <Table III-1>, course participants are encouraged to apply their understanding of history education theory to the process of developing their own courses for NK students. As they learned the meaning, significance, and components of the National curriculum, the curriculum design task inspired them to envision their own curriculum. Attempts to develop their ideas freely were guided as well as constrained by an understanding of curriculum theory.
The course objective of developing student teachers’ competency as curriculum designers can be evaluated by examining their perception of the difficulty of the task and how each task of curriculum design contributed to their expertise as teachers. In the spring semester of 2017, seven student teachers participated in this course.10) Subsequently, in the fall of 2017, six of the seven students completed the online survey that assessed course participation. Their perceptions of the difficulty in designing curriculum are presented in <Table III-2>.
Four of the six students found this task difficult to execute because they had no experience with NK students who usually have no intention of disclosing their identities on campus. Furthermore, each student started the task ambitiously so as to provide a sound “solution” for NK students, which they experienced as a further barrier to their course development.
The biggest hardship that bothered me was my desire to try this and that. I tried to try these things because of the desire to solve as many problems as possible in my class as much as I read the thesis about the difficulties of NK students. However, putting every piece together made me revise the scope of contents after all. And it was even more difficult to imagine and reconsider the perspectives of North Korean students.
[17_1_A]
The student teachers recognized that the process of subject selection and goal-setting of content was complementary and reiterative. Once the topic and course title was finalized11), the students faced the difficulty of being unfamiliar with objectives.
I had little experience in writing educational goals which should be closely related to course contents, teaching and learning methods, and method of evaluation. Therefore, I had to constantly revise and refine my educational goals.
[17_2_A]
Another difficulty in setting goals was linked to the fact that the target students were from North Korea. Lack of knowledge of NK students in particular as well as of “young students” in general showed that the students recognized “difficulties” consistently, not only in goals but also in the selection of content, organization, and teaching and learning methods. In addition to the knowledge of NK students’ prior knowledge level and language usage, student teachers were very concerned about ideologically and emotionally mindful approaches when teaching NK students.
Since the educational goals I had set were related to a somewhat higher-order thinking, NK students should have had some background knowledge. Because of this constraint, I was not able to enjoy the liberty of content selection but focused on only a couple of themes, which was quite painful to me. More than that, it raised another problem to distribute and organize the contents in order not to distract the teaching rhythm.
[17_3_A]
It was hard for me to design a course that clearly deals with contemporary South Koreans’ perception on today’s society. Since all of these steps began with the idea that the NK students would suffer less in the future, I had to keep worried about whether it would hurt them more to deal with these topics.
[17_3_B]
The student teachers preferred discussions, debates, and/or class participation when selecting teaching and learning methods. This was partly because the instructor had introduced these approaches from the previously developed textbooks for NK students.
I wanted to try out active teaching methods, neither boring and intrusive, but I envisioned a lot of interesting teaching methods in my lesson plan, but some of them might not work well in a classroom practice. To find the most adequate teaching methods seemed quite difficult especially because it was not easy to predict students' reactions and participation. It would be the last thing I want was to conduct evaluation-oriented instruction so I strongly felt I need to find alternative assessment tool to replace a regular paper-pencil test.
[17-4-A]
Such emphasis motivated them to struggle with objectivity and develop an assessment rubric when considering evaluation. They pointed out a couple of check points to legitimize their own assessment tool. These included 1) feasibility of the task, 2) relevance to learners, and 3) an acceptable and objective tool.
Even though they relied on the instructor’s introduction of teaching materials and recent case studies, their own project brought to the various concrete assessment issues such as how to evaluate NK students’ participation and practice in play.
The student teachers demonstrated what they learned by designing their own courses for NK students to the extent that they would never have learned from theoretical and textual approaches. Multiple revisions of unit lessons seemed to be inevitable because they found problems in activity-time management, logically constructed explanations and learning activities in the course of self and peer reviews. Even though student teachers believed that they had selected the most basic content, which could be classified as an introduction, they still found it difficult to include the content in an instructional scenario.
Since the course participants had already dealt with the sequence of selected contents, they were more worried about the scope of each unit lesson than the flow and rhythm of the course. While a document-based approach could be employed powerfully in a history lesson, NK students had to be considered so as to finalize the most adequate approaches among the “so-called” historical heuristic. A student teacher asked whether the NK students were able to read original documents and understand the conceptual connotations. Her solution to it was developing “possible” questions with which students would be able to engage in historical documents. Accordingly, student teachers seemed to start to think like in-service teachers; they considered what their future students may or may not be able to learn.
Semester-long efforts to develop one history/culture course for NK students required student teachers to reflect on a teacher’s role in deciding on and balancing sensitive curriculum issues. When they had completed the curriculum design task, they regarded themselves as more competent than before in the fields of understanding curriculum itself, designing their own curriculum, and customizing contents and methods according to target students.
| never(1) | disagree(2) | neutral(3) | agree(3) | strongly agree(5) | Average | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Understanding of curriculum | 0 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 3.67 |
| Designing curriculum | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 1 | 4.17 |
| Adapting content and teaching methods | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3.67 |
As stated before, the aim of the course was to run two tracks of understanding and applying curriculum knowledge. The participants revealed their increase in understanding of curriculum in general and components of curriculum in particular. The course design task encouraged them to search for National Curriculum resources on various websites (www.ncic.re.kr) and to identify the demands of the current National Curriculum.
The task urged me to keep thinking how my curriculum looked like and goal of the course to substantiate the course contents and one lesson unit. This process absolutely contributed my fundamental understanding of curriculum theory.
[17_6_A]
I think that designing curriculum and unit lesson from the eyes of teacher was not far from theory of curriculum, textbook, and the learning contents.
[17_6_B]
Some students found parallels in the national-level curriculum, textbooks, and own lesson design; they did not see them as challenges or difficulties.
It was not very helpful to understand national level curriculum or textbooks. It's just that I am totally making it ……. and of course I refer to the national level, but it does not seem to make me understand that much.
[17_6_C]
The student teachers were of the opinion this NK student task contributed more to developing their ability of a curriculum design (4.17/5) than to their fundamental understanding of the curriculum (3.67/5). In particular, a series of feedback processes, both from the instructor and students, facilitated ideas to revise and update course plans. Revisiting problems, in parallel with reflective thinking, motivated them to meet the NK students’ needs.
On one hand, the number of lessons was limited to 10, which made me continually reduce the number of content elements and find a good matching one to the topic. And on the other hand, it was necessary for me to develop not just one-unit lesson but also one course curriculum aimed to a course objective in a consistent learning flow so I had checked student’s prior knowledge and adequate learning activities. It seems like a lot to do. Of course it’s still a lot harder [than any other course].
[17_7_A]
If you do not create your own, it is likely that you have only superficial knowledge of the curriculum. In particular, I got a chance to think deeply about the evaluation method.
[17_7_B]
While one recognizes a full-fledged opportunity to understand an “evaluation method,” the first criterion with regard to the modification of educational content and teaching methods is “relevance to learners.” The student teachers started to realize that every step of curriculum design needs to restructured through the eyes of NK students.
Among a few teacher education programs that I took, this was the most intensive task that I need to consider learners. I had no choice but to think of learners at every stage, from selection of topics to selection of content, attitudes of teachers, possible learning activities and evaluation. Of course, if they would be more common secondary school students, and could be characterized with a certain level or particular feature rather than NK students, I dare to day I might be able to imagine how to motivate them more easily. However, I cannot but acknowledge that I can teach better students with diverse backgrounds that I would not understand well.
[17_7_C]
Considering North Korean students as target learners, student teachers needed to decide on the relevance of the content and instructional approaches. When selecting content, this specific group of learners’ needs, cognitive demands, prior knowledge, and emotional vulnerability was scrutinized. Pondering on learning experiences from the perspectives of NK students enabled them to consider any psychological trauma or ideological challenge, regardless of the topics they handled.
As the target students was the main reason to select the course, I needed to keep thinking. What made me still difficult to decide is whether the priority of decision call should be the basic knowledge that they need to know and whether it should be avoided that would be a sensitive part of the learners’ mind.
[17_8_A]
While new teachers encounter significant problems in implementing the National Curriculum, their opportunities to raise and solve problems related to any level of curricula appeared to be limited. Since 1990s, the National Curriculum of Social Studies/History have emphasized the active role of teachers to engage in “constructing curriculum” and not just to consume it as stated. The role of curriculum maker that history teachers have been supposed to play asks teacher education program to provide sample opportunities to develop questions related to the curriculum itself; this should be emphasized to the extent that student teachers are able to define what curriculum means in their own terms(You, 2010).
The activity of curriculum design for NK students demonstrates the possibility of developing teachers to be curriculum designers. For the last semester, student teachers were asked to rank course activities in terms of perceived contribution to their curriculum design.12) The results are reflected in <Table III-4>.
| Frequency | Score | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | ||
| Instructor’s feedback | 1 | 0 | 4 | 13 |
| Peer reviews | 2 | 2 | 0 | 6 |
| Critical friend’s feedback | 1 | 1 | 3 | 12 |
| Presentation of course brochure | 0 | 3 | 0 | 6 |
| Other | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
While teachers emphasized the opportunity and benefits of reflecting on their conceptual framework and teaching practice, it appeared to be difficult to find enough time and an appropriate group of people who could understand instructional intentions and exchange positive comments about teaching practice(Kim, 2016). This course consists of tasks for developing one’s own course curriculum and providing critical feedback on partner’s portfolio. Thus, the student teachers pointed out what they learned from reviewing other students’ course designs and lesson plans.
Feedback from the instructor and peers in the class proved to be the most helpful. While the instructor’s feedback focused on the teacher's consistency and appropriateness of the curriculum components and requirements, feedback from critical friends clearly raised many questions from the perspective of the NK students.
It was quite difficult to decide what to do in terms of real time, flow, and the depth of content. I did not at all feel confident about time management, significance of topics, and priority of coverage. To find out the best way to implement my lesson plan, I asked and revised these problems in the process of pair review sessions with my close friend.
[17_8_B]
In addition, each student asked for another’s course design and answered questions that their classmates raised in the round-table format review. The preliminary reviews of each one’s course resulted in insightful ideas in the early stage of the course design as they tried to understand what curriculum theory really means. However, the presentation of course brochures for NK students, held at the final stage of the semester, provided the students with the opportunity to compare and check each one’s final product and missing components.
The student teachers expended a great deal of time and energy in the particular course design. The most significant change was their reflection on educational objectives, subject matter knowledge, teaching, and assessment. One student teacher highlighted that this course provided an opportunity to reflect and revisit his assumption and previous background knowledge of his major subject to the extent that he needed to reconstruct learning content not by including topics that they saw as the most significant ones but by including topics that his future students may be willing to learn and apply in South Korea in the future.
By request, the participants revealed the types and processes of course design as well as advices and references based on trial and error. Descriptions of student teachers’ own courses entailed useful resources such as interviews with NK students.
There are so many articles with similar approaches but you can find good papers that illicit NK students in various ways. I have also obtained organizing ideas and contents from browsing related articles. I also tried to hear their own voices from video clips \because I wanted to improve their self-esteem through healing process. Therefore, I strove to check as many programs as contain NK students’ experience of hard times from North to South Korea.
[17_10_A]
Modifying familiar content for “unfamiliar target students” appeared to be an inevitable concern for NK students’ understanding of the Korean language as well as their prior knowledge.
You can do a lot of research on learners. It is also helpful to look at the curriculum for similar age group. Another issue you need to be careful is absolutely related to the language of the North Korean youth. Of course, NK students also speak similar language in South Korea but you, as a teacher in history/culture course, should be aware of what they know and don’t know such as foreign language. Thus, you need to carefully review the vocabulary used in that 10 sessions you develop.
[17_10_B]
The ideas and advices made during all the stages of the curriculum design were focused on the content and pedagogy for NK students’ cognitive and cultural dispositions rather than those of teachers. Such emphasis was made not on a theoretical level but in the actuality of their own course design. In addition, the description of the process of deciding on themes, titles, instructional goals, and details delineated a mechanism in which social demands upon NK students should be negotiated with accessibility and relevance to the NK students by teachers.
Hello, My name is DW Chung and my course title is <Ten Days’ Tour to Find Myself along Teenager’s Culture of South Korea>. I think this is the first opportunity for you to think about North Korean refugee students, who have always been nearby but never thought of. Sometimes you may feel like floating because you may have never designed any course before, and even for students who you never meet before. It must be evident that you got to learn tons of knowledge in the process of speculating ‘real contents’ for the refugee students, which you shall never acquire from any other courses, titled for learners, contents, and teaching and learning theory. In fact, when I learned the life and difficulty those North Korea refugee students encountered in South Korea from various papers, video clips, articles, etc. I was able to determine what to aim and what to teach.
[17_10_D]
IV. Concluding remarks
Comparing to a written test based on course textbooks and lectures, the student teachers found the curriculum developing task to be fairly difficult in that it required time, energy, and extensive research to transform their ideas into applicable results. One student explained that the task was a life-time experience of constant revisions. In accordance, the student teachers finally demonstrated the quality of their final products, which comprised the results of a series of feedback, peer reviews, and presentation of their course brochures.
For student teachers to design their own history curriculum, it is necessary to consider the following three factors that determine the selection and organization of learning content, namely, national-social, academic, and learner factors. These three aspects must be taken into account when student teachers select and organize learning objectives and content for their students. The changing sociocultural environment and consideration of the needs and interests of learners highlight the notion that teachers should not implement curriculum as prescribed but develop their own curriculum.
Based on the analysis of students’ data and evaluation, I found that the curriculum design task increased student teachers’ understanding of curriculum theory as well as competency to apply their curriculum knowledge in practice. The final versions of students' curricula ranged from the set of mere expression of individual beliefs to refined syllabuses from which future NK students might have benefit. Even though the student teachers’ curriculum turned out to be short of applicability, it has been noted that they recognized this course contributed to their ability to customize contents and teaching methods to suit their target learners. Since the most difficult aspect of curriculum design had been related to the target students of NK adolescents, the ways to enhance the understanding of NK students such as visiting relevant research institutes and educational sites have been considered to put into future teacher education courses.
As long as it seems evident that the student teachers learned what and how to teach by designing their own curriculum, the teacher education programs in Korea need to coordinate the ways with which student teachers are able to carefully acquire knowledge about teaching, both in theoretical domains and in applied pedagogy. This small size pilot study asks for long-term extensive research on teacher education program to explore the possibility of curriculum planners.
Further research is needed on topics including relations between teacher education program and teacher appointment tests in pedagogy-wise and teachers’ needs in light of the goal of history education addressed in the National Curriculum. Any difficulty to implement significant curriculum ideas and drawback found in teaching practice can raise another level of research questions such as multifaceted approaches to reconstructing curriculum and teaching methods in terms of teacher career as well as the role of theory of history education in teaching practice. Since this study drew on student teachers’ attempts and reflection, further studies need to analyze in-service teacher’s knowledge through which individual teachers interpret any given curriculum and determine to reconstruct one’s own localized curriculum.
