A Developmental Study on Biological Curriculum and Teaching Materials for General High Schools in Kangwon Rural Areas

농어촌 지역 인문계 고등학교 생물 교육과정의 연구 및 개발

The curriculum especially in Korea plays a crucial role in developing instructional materials. It serves as a criterion for selecting and organizing content of teaching materials. Therefore, the validity of a curriculum can be justified through testing effectiveness of an instructional material developed in accordance with the curriculum. This paper presents an instructional method and material developed based on the current tendency of educational thoughts that emphasize STS and students - centered teaching strategies in science education. The instructional material was organized around the concept and its subconcept of "nutrition" as presented in the high school biology textbooks now in use in the nation as well as in a few world-wide countries. It was also organized by the use of biological events and phenomena which high school students in rural areas can easily encounter through their everyday lives. The significant findings in this study are : ${\circ}$ The achievement levels in experimental groups were higher than one in controlled groups. ${\circ}$ The students as well as the teachers involved in this study showed positive attitude toward the instructional method developed in the process of this study. ${\circ}$ The greater part of the students among the controlled groups hoped that biology would be taught by this kind of teaching procedure and materials.