Development and formative evaluation of the "Educational Media In-service Teacher Training Curriculum Standards"

Abstract

The first Japanese "curriculum standards" for educational media/ICT in-service teacher training was announced by the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture in April 1973. Since then, the "curriculum standards" has been revised twice. The last revision was made in March 2006, based on the results of a preliminary study that was conducted by the Japan Audio-Visual Education Association from fiscal year 2002 to 2003. This article describes the background, process of the revision, and the features of the new "curriculum standards". Moreover, the results of the formative evaluation of the "curriculum standards" are explained. The formative evaluation involved 33 teachers' consultants and social education consultants who took part in the "Media Specialists Training Course" which was held by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) in October 2009. As a consequence, most of the subjects reported positive opinions about the new "curriculum standards". Therefore, it is suggested that the new "curriculum standards" is necessary and useful to enhance teachers' knowledge and skills, to promote effective use of educational media, to raise media specialists, and to help curriculum planners develop training programmes/courses. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]