Systematization of Teaching Practice Curriculum in National Colleges of Teacher Education：
based on a trend survey
2004 Volume 13 Pages 84-93
Details
2004 Volume 13 Pages 84-93
The purpose of this study is to explain the principles which should be followed in designing a systematic teaching practice curriculum for the four-year course in national colleges of teacher education in Japan.
First, we explain the trend of teaching practice reforms in national colleges of teacher education in Japan. We investigated the actual state of progress of teaching practice reforms by means of questionnaires sent to all national colleges of teacher education during September and October, 2001 (the response rate was 57％).
We found that teaching practice was done at more than one grade as a result of the recent reforms. Roughly speaking, in freshman and sophomore teaching practice students observe and participate in lessons, juniors have the main teaching practice and seniors have post teaching practice activities. However, the connection between the educational objectives and content in these teaching practices has not been explained.
Therefore, we go on to systematize the educational objectives and content of these teaching practices, and then explain principles for designing a systematic and consistent teaching practice curriculum spanning the four years. In this study, we argue that the principles should be based on three strands: developing practical educational ability; gaining an insight into what it is like to be a teacher; and raising awareness of the possibilities that teaching can offer.
Lastly, we argue the necessity of designing a curriculum of experiential and practical programs systematically, in addition to teaching practices in a narrow sense, because there are now many experiential and practical programs, and it is necessary to design the curriculum for teacher education integrating the experiential program with teaching practices.
We are convinced that the systematic curriculum of experiential and practical programs will become the axis of the core curriculum of teacher education.
