Improving the design ability of idea developing and creative problem solving should be started from the primary school. This is directly concerned with the problem of fostering human ability on intelligence, information and culture toward 21th century. The aim of this study is to investigate the nature concept and contents of design education in the primary school and to develope its curriculum model.
Design in the primary school conceptually means the process of creative thinking and problem solving activities. Design education becomes, therefore, very important in developing those abilities of children as well as sociality, cooperation and multiple intelligences. On the Basis of these literature review, the traditional design education as a part of the art education is analyzed in three aspects of its contents, behavior and learning style. The contents in design education involve aestheticㆍsymbolic expression area, usefulㆍfunctional management area, scientificㆍtechnological application area, and socialㆍemotional attitude area. And, the basic design behaviors are classified with 'know', 'perceive', 'organize', 'inquire', 'value', 'manipulate', and 'cooperate/interact'. These contents and behaviors are the basis for a consolidation of design education in the primary school.
This concept becomes the analytic frame of the present condition of design education in Korean primary school. Through the analysis, it is found that the portions of scientificㆍtechnological application area in contents and 'inquire' related behaviors are relatively very low. Also, the planning and teaching methods for leading children's opportunity of creative expression are found inadequate. Based on these results, a new curriculum developing model for behavior-oriented design education is suggested which is consisted of five stages; (1)setting up of behavioral objects, (2)selecting subject matters, (3)constructing behavior specifications, (4)planning instructional processes, and (5)evaluation. This model can be taken detail shapes from more case studies and, then, developed as a programme in the future.
