Child Care Curricula According to Teacher's Teaching Method Types

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine different child care curricula according to teacher's teaching method types. The subjects of the study were three hundred and fifty-six teachers, who were divided into four groups according to their teaching method: mixed method(type A), child oriented method(type B), teacher oriented method(type C), and beliefless method(type D). The data on the duration of free play and outdoor play time, activities frequently practiced in class, and outside one the playground were collected. The dimensions of child care programs were measured using Moore(1994)'s "The Early Childhood Dimensions of Education Rating Scale".The results of this study were as follows: first, teachers who used child oriented teaching methods gave more free play time than teachers using teacher oriented or mixed teaching methods. Second, teachers using teacher oriented methods showed the closeness and teachers using child oriented methods showed the openness in child care programs. Last, the activities teachers thought were the most important differed according to the teachers' methods even though in actual practice, there was no difference shown.