'교육의 이해' 강의 개선을 위한 사례 연구

Abstract

This study is an attempt to explore effective strategies for improving the quality of a tertiary level, introductory course in education, called "Understanding Education". The course has been offered every semester as one of humanities courses at Seoul National University and average 220 students are enrolled in this course each semester. Due to the large number of enrolled students, this course is divided into three sessions under the same course name. The sessions are taught by different instructors. For the study, document analysis, observation, and statistical analysis methods were adopted. Official documents at the university, college, and department levels were analyzed. During the period of 2001 Spring semester, all three sessions of the course were also observed. In addition, course materials including syllabi and handouts from three sessions were reviewed. Moreover, three instructors of the course were interviewed. Lastly, student evaluation results of the three sessions were statistically analyzed. The results of the study first revealed that there were confusions among the instructors regarding the nature of the course. Even though the course was officially offered as one of the humanities courses, it was expected to be a professional development course for the College of Education students. Second, all the instructors shared core concepts and issues in education during their teaching even though their syllabi looked clearly different from each other. Unfortunately, the instructors did not have opportunities to discuss the contents or methods of their sessions officially. Third, it was observed that each instructor adopted a variety of teaching methods for his or her teaching. Those methods were not shared among the instructors. Lastly, no sessions were developed based on the students' learning needs or preferences even though one instructor asked students' needs and preferences at the beginning of the course. It appeared that all the sessions were designed as instructor-centered. Based on the results, several strategic directions were suggested along with further research topics.