Practice improvement in ‘Early Childhood Education Curriculum’ subject: Focusing on changes the student agency of pre-service early childhood teachers at S University

This study explored the student agency changes of prospective early childhood teachers revealed in the process of improving the ‘Early Childhood Education Curriculum’ subject at S University in the metropolitan area. The research participants were 56 students from the Department of Early Childhood Education at S University and one professor who is the researcher oneself for the purpose of improving the 'Early Childhood Education Curriculum' class, the early childhood education curriculum theory lectures, on-site field classes, and TBL(Team Based Learning) were used to provide education to children. Research materials include kindergarten visit reports, research participants' PPT for early childhood education program presentation and key summaries, learning portfolios, class improvement reflection sheets, and researchers' research notes. The data collected during the research process was categorized based on specific concepts and reclassified based on the research problem through inductive content analysis. Excitement was mainly showed when the exercise of student agency was executed and field visit to kindergartens, and unfamiliarity was expressed through TBL early childhood education program presentations and discussion classes and learning portfolio experiences. Second, after improving the ‘Early Childhood Education Curriculum’ class, it is said that students came to recognize themselves as learners who formed student agency at the intersection of reflection and practice. I found autonomy like a compass through TBL, and through kindergarten field-related classes, they found themselves as a valuable resource as a early childhood teacher who lacked understanding of the connection between early childhood education theory and practice. Based on this study, we hope to become a systematic turning point in teaching-learning methods for improving theoretical classes to train high-quality pre-service early childhood teachers.