The Japanese Journal of Curriculum Studies
Online ISSN : 2189-7794
Print ISSN : 0918-354X
ISSN-L : 0918-354X
Volume 2
Displaying 1-15 of 15 articles from this issue
  • Article type: Cover
    1993 Volume 2 Pages Cover1-
    Published: March 30, 1993
    Released on J-STAGE: October 17, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • Article type: Cover
    1993 Volume 2 Pages Cover2-
    Published: March 30, 1993
    Released on J-STAGE: October 17, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (40K)
  • Sho OGIYA
    Article type: Article
    1993 Volume 2 Pages 3-13
    Published: March 30, 1993
    Released on J-STAGE: October 17, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    In this country the educational reformations are now in progress, according to the educational principle with respect for individuality. But this principle would be impossible to realize, if the conceptions of curriculum exist. Because the National Course of Study distinguishes between curriculm (planning at the level of school) and learning planning (at the level of classroom instruction), and regards teachers in the classroom as curriculum users, not curriculum makers. But, I think, the crucial phase in curriculum development is the implementation of the plans in the classroom. The best place for designing the curriculum is the classroom where the learner and teacher meet, and this teacher is in a better position than outsiders to appraise the learner's needs and interests, and espesially their personality or individuality. The rational-deductive planning model, or Tyler rationale, emphasizes the apparent logic of deriving curriculum programmes from clear specifications of goals and objectives, but tends to discount what is problematic in the task environment (including classroom). Schwab's opinion is that curriculum is, in fact, the interaction of classroom commonplaces : the teacher, learners, subject-matter, and milieu. Schwab's opinion on curriculum will make a correct appraisal of the learner's individuality. So I think the curriculum is an instructional system in classroom. Classroom management strategies and resources will need further development and refinement. The important point to note is that the implemented school-curriculum, instead of the common intended one, has to take into acount the diversity of alternative frameworks and habits of the mind. Classroom management strategies should provide genuine opportunities for learners to be regarded as individuals rather than corporate bodies. The design of appropriate learning tasks has to take into account the starting points of the individualities of individuals concerned. This is the core of classroom curriculum. The structure of curriculum as an instructional system on learner's individuality will be well situated in each of four contiunums as the crucial factors involved in all curriculum -(1) individual learner - disciplines, (2) problems, polices, action - abstractions, (3) flexibility, autonomy - rigidity, (4) integration - compartmentalization.
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  • Shigetaka IMAI
    Article type: Article
    1993 Volume 2 Pages 15-24
    Published: March 30, 1993
    Released on J-STAGE: October 17, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    There appear to be new theories such as system theories, post-modern and poststructural theories. We need to try to apply such new theories to the curriculum. This paper intends to apply the system theory of Niklas Luhmann to curriculum inquiry. The curriculum theories that have appeared until now have such common shortcomings that they didn't question the character of knowledge itself. According to the system theory, we must distinguish the dimension of systems, namely psychic systems and social systems. The former uses consciousness and the latter communication as a mode of meaning-based reproduction. The latter can't have direct access to the former. One can't see others' awareness from the outside. Between social systems and psychic systems there are interaction systems, which consist of several people present. These three kinds of system references must be taken into acount in order to explain the character of knowledge. Each system represents each kind of knowledge. An academic system has academic knowledge which is selected by the code of truth (true/false). The other subsystems such as economic, or "poligious" etc. have their own reflective knowledge of their own. An interaction system gives birth to the knowledge of life. The three kinds of knowledge must be keenly distinguished. We must reconstitute the knowledge taught in schools according to three different kinds of system reference of knowledge.
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  • Masahiko YAMADA
    Article type: Article
    1993 Volume 2 Pages 25-35
    Published: March 30, 1993
    Released on J-STAGE: October 17, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The purpose of this paper is finding a viewpoint for curriculum reform by means of referring to a way to help pupils change their conduct. The process of changing conduct is given a position in the process of understanding situations of a teacher and pupils who co-operate in shared activities. The logic of the investigation is the logic of A. Schütz's everyday-lifeworld (Lebenswelt) theory ; the intersection of the inner duration and time-space-world. The inner duration has been neglected in curriculum studies and this neglect is one of the reasons of fragmentary learning processes in schools. Most teachers have considered factual knowledge (knowing-that), against empirical facts, as the foundation of habitual conduct (knowing-how). And they have been trying to replace pupils' undesirable habits with desirable ones, by means of giving them factual knowledge about desirable conduct. As a result, there are serious contradictions between a pupil's knowing-that and his/her knowing-how. According to Schütz's logic, one person's knowing-how works in the inner duration, i.e., a continuous flow of lived experiences (Erlebnis), in which knowing-how founds on ethoses and folkways of the social groups to which he/she belongs. Knowing-that is derived from the inner duration toward time-space-world by thematizing (objectifying) past lived experiences. Moreover, such thematizing can be a way for thematizers to be bearers (Trägers) of ethoses and folkways, that is, successers of contents of culture. Schütz's theory with such logic can make it possible to overcome the problem in schools about the relationship between knowing-that and knowing-how. This paper goes into such issues as follows : Preface 1. The Problem in Schools about Changing Conduct 2. The Process of Changing Conduct 3. The Positive Function of Knowing-That 4. A Way to Help Pupils to Change Their Conduct
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  • Masahiro ARIMOTO
    Article type: Article
    1993 Volume 2 Pages 37-50
    Published: March 30, 1993
    Released on J-STAGE: October 17, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    As a solution for problems with which curriculum policy and practices in Japan are faced, the author showed the working hypohesis as follows : 'It will serve to future curriculum improvement to review the factors of educational media and space use in schools.' The author developed "the checklist to diagnose schools' research" which was produced through our participant observation in pilot schools for a decade. I named this checklist METIO from the abbreviation of components (1. Media 2. Equipment 3. Timetables 4. Instruction and 5. Organization). These five categories determined are comprehensive as follows . First, Media and Equipment (ME)- is the key to curriculum improvement whether the plural teaching methods using various media and equipment can be adopted in the case of thinking a continuum of reception and discovery methods of instruction. Second, Timetable (T)- is the key to curriculum improvement whether the timetable can be made flexible for various learning activities and teachers' training. Third, Instructional Organization (I)- is the key to curriculum improvement, whether school staff can be reorganized for instructional effective evaluation. Fourth, Organization (O)- is the key to curriculum improvement, whether a school organization can be reorganaized for a climate conductive to learning and enhance the school staff, including parental and community involvement and support. In comparison with the other system KSUR by ILEA (1977), I referred to this system as focusing on curriculum improvement (school research themes, e.g. individualized education, media education and an integrated curriculum etc.). I put into practice the case study in Japan with descriptions according to the Stake's description matrix (1967). The problem remaining is to reassure the validity of judgements by total diagnosis based on this system. I insist that such an assessment is indispensable in our future School Improvement through School Based Curriculum Development (SBCD).
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  • Hiroyasu ITO
    Article type: Article
    1993 Volume 2 Pages 51-64
    Published: March 30, 1993
    Released on J-STAGE: October 17, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The subject was how to organize the curriculum of Japanese geography lessons in order to produce better teaching in junior high schools for the students who will live in the new society of the 21 century. It is critically important to raise the student's practical ability to make decisions and foster the student's creativity. For this purpose, it is necessary to produce school lessons which will raise the student's Yoken-teki-chishiki. Yoken-teki-chishiki is knowledge fostered through predicting the future using the current data and making practical decisions based on such predictions. In this sense, starting with the study of "neighboring regions" gives students good opportunity to present their thinking based on knowledge they now have. However, the study of neighboring regions tends to be finished rather quickly under the current curriculum. To solve this problem, the overall geography study curriculum must be examined. In addition, Yoken-teki-chishiki shoud be fostered by increasing the student's knowledge of facts. In this sense, it is better to start with learning about the neighboring regions. Therefore, the curriculum of the Japanese geography lessons was examined based on the idea of initiating geography studies of neighboring regions to make school lessons foster the student's Yoken-teki-chishiki. As a result of this examinamion, the following three points have become clear : (1) The neighboring regions as a model study must be placed at the beginning of the curriculum. (2) Geography lessons should go on to the neighboring regions study by using the most efficient teaching materials. (3) The neighboring regions study to improve Yoken-teki-chishiki should also be placed at the end of the curriculum as a bridge to civics studies taught in the third year of junior high school.
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  • Itaru ARIZONO
    Article type: Article
    1993 Volume 2 Pages 65-78
    Published: March 30, 1993
    Released on J-STAGE: October 17, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    This is the result of the survey whose purpose is to analyse the practices and the difficulties in "open education" of 114 Japanese schools that have practiced individualized or personalized instruction with open space (96 elementary schools and 18 junior high schools) and to find the direction of improvement of Japanese open education. The survey was conducted in June, 1992 and it had 5 questions and each question was answered in a free style (sentence). Forty-seven schools responded (collection rate 41%) and forty of them have experienced open education for more than three years. The contents of the survey was as follows : (1) real conditions of the use of open space (2) difficulties in open education practice (3) improvement points of open education (4) opinions and views of the ideal open education (5) tasks of open education. From the result of this survey we can find tendencies among those schools as follows : (1) The use of open space : the teachers use it for individual learning, assembly, all classes learning in the same grade, team teaching, work activities, etc. more than 40 kinds of activities. The most common tendency is 'assembly', and next is 'work activities and individual learning', but 'team teaching' is less common. Most cases are 'assembly and presentation performance'. (2) The difficulties of open education : the most difficult problem is lack of a 'common understanding among the staff, and next is the lack of environment (equipment and tools) for developing broad children's activities. The third is the difficulty of flexible scheduling of open activity content and in sufficient time in curriculum planning. Also there is the difficulty of effective teaching and student guidance. (3) The improvement and tasks of open education : the survey says to weaken the national standard or criterion of curriculum, and especially, to allow the schools to make flexible the construction of subjects and activity areas and to plan synthetic learning activities, and to increase the number of staff and equipment. This paper reports only about questions (1) to (3). However, as a general tendency we can find Japanese open education emphasizes 'activitism' for individualization, just as in open space and still in common classrooms there is whole class instruction. Therefore, we have to recognize Japan's open education has the structure of the mixed styles of individualized instruction and whole class instruction which produces the difficulty of the staff's common understanding and changes their traditional teaching ideas and styles.
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  • Yukio NARITA
    Article type: Article
    1993 Volume 2 Pages 79-86
    Published: March 30, 1993
    Released on J-STAGE: October 17, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The aim of this paper is to tell you how to develop an open curriculum in elementary schools and in junior high schools and the necessity of change of teachers’ attitudes in developing an open curriculum. Recently we have a new course of study for junior high schools in Japan and we need to find a new way of evaluating “interest, willingness, and attitudes” in learning. These points are stressed, as well as, various types and processes of learning in open education. However, in Japan, many teachers are still reluctant in introducing open education.
    Among the teachers we have tried to develop an open curriculum in an elementary school and a junior high school. One is Ogawa Elementary School, Aichi, and the other is Ueno Junior High School, Aichi. In Ogawa Elementary School we developed a new strategy of seven styles of learning for individual students, and in Ueno Junior High School we focused on developing four styles of student learning for individual creativity.
    In order to develop an open curriculum and to change Japanese teachers’ attitudes to open education we need three means or ways to understand the students or an individual basis: (1) to adopt intra-individual evaluation, (2) to make a framework to observe and understand individual students, (3) to use students’ self-evaluations.
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  • Article type: Appendix
    1993 Volume 2 Pages App1-
    Published: March 30, 1993
    Released on J-STAGE: October 17, 2017
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  • Article type: Appendix
    1993 Volume 2 Pages App2-
    Published: March 30, 1993
    Released on J-STAGE: October 17, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (72K)
  • Article type: Appendix
    1993 Volume 2 Pages App3-
    Published: March 30, 1993
    Released on J-STAGE: October 17, 2017
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    Download PDF (72K)
  • Article type: Appendix
    1993 Volume 2 Pages App4-
    Published: March 30, 1993
    Released on J-STAGE: October 17, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (72K)
  • Article type: Cover
    1993 Volume 2 Pages Cover3-
    Published: March 30, 1993
    Released on J-STAGE: October 17, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (38K)
  • Article type: Cover
    1993 Volume 2 Pages Cover4-
    Published: March 30, 1993
    Released on J-STAGE: October 17, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (38K)
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