Problematizing Theories and Practices in History Teaching in Korea

Abstract

This study aims to identify the meaning of history teaching theory and to characterize classroom practices with the application of newer theories of history teaching. Recent research reveals that teachers have made a great deal of endeavors to renovate their own teaching including developing alternative instructional materials and collaborative classroom observations. National History Curriculum also put emphasis on the use of primary sources in order to develope historical thinking. However, the Curriculum materials seem not to provide structured and systematic guidelines for the readers of the Curriculum to be able to generate their own curricular to realize in history teaching. Theories of teaching and learning history would be able to play their roles in explaining general features of diverse classroom practices and in providing applicable guidelines only when the theories are paralleled with research on teachers’ practices and students’ learning. With regard to ‘historical thinking’, history educators in Korea need to speculate the way in which students are able to participate in inquiring the constructive nature of historical knowledge as well as understanding specific historical contents using this kind of methodological knowledge.