Digital classroom history for building a narrative community: A program to enhance autonomous classroom management in Japanese elementary schools
Abstract: The purpose of this study is to develop a digital classroom history method that builds a class "narrative community" and to develop a practical model of autonomous classroom management in Japanese elementary schools. In this study, the author focused on the development of digital devices, and devised a curriculum of sharing class changes and creating a classroom history based on photographs taken by the students and the teacher. This program was conceived as a digital classroom history. This practice was implemented in two fifth-grade elementary classes, in one sixth-grade class, and is now ongoing in one sixth-grade elementary class in the 2014 school year. The major findings are as follows; (1) the classroom history presentations utilizing digital photographs visualized the process of the class' development; and (2) an observable effect of the digital classroom histories was that they encouraged autonomous culture creation and problem-solving