The challenges teachers and students face when student-centered policy was incorporated in the classrooms

To cater to the needs of the fast-changing global world, the Korean Ministry of Education responded with efforts to overhaul the school curriculum by implementing a more student-centered approach to teaching and learning. The student-centered pedagogical practices aimed to provide students with opportunities to learn independently and moreover, increase student’s problem solving skills, and to cultivate higher order, critical and creative thinkers. This paper aims to explore the roles, challenges and successes, teachers and students encountered when student-centered approaches to teaching and learning were implemented in the classrooms. The study was exploratory in nature and used focus group methodology to examine teacher and student roles, and to collect their views and experiences on teaching and learning in the classroom context. The data from the focus group methods is most often participant’s words, allowing the researcher to capture language, to explore and gain insight and understanding to what drives or leads teachers and students to act one way or another. The findings revealed that conformist nature of the school system defines not only the roles of the teacher and student but the content of school culture. Moreover, the socio-cultural values and belief of the learning environment are informative and predictive of student and teacher behavior. Therefore, when implementing future reforms or making changes to the classrooms, the existing school conditions should always be taken into consideration.