In this study, we analyzed elementary school teachers' self-diagnosis on their competency for assessment in science. A questionnaire was administered to 217 elementary school teachers and in-depth group interviews with 6 teachers were also conducted. The results revealed that the mean scores of five subcategories, 'choosing assessment methods', 'developing assessment instruments', 'administering, scoring, and grading', 'analyzing, interpreting, using, and communicating assessment results', and 'recognizing ethics in assessment', were 3.82, 3.50, 3.92, 3.76, and 4.09 on a scale of 5 points, respectively. Teachers having more teaching experience showed higher mean scores in all subcategories. However, only the teachers having more than 20 years of teaching experience were statistically better than those having less than 5 years of teaching experience in four subcategories except for 'recognizing ethics in assessment'. There were no significant differences in terms of major, whereas the mean scores of the teachers having master's degree were statistically higher than their counterpart in some subcategories. In addition, the teachers who had completed training for assessment exhibited statistically higher mean scores than their counterpart in four subcategories except for 'recognizing ethics in assessment'. Educational implications of these findings are discussed.

This study aims to analyze science-gifted elementary students' understanding of 'Living Things' with ontological domains. As research subjects, this study selected 80 science-gifted students who belonged to Education Institute for Science-gifted Elementary Students at University of Education, and this study came to the following conclusions. Firstly, the gifted students thought of animals as living things most, out of which humans accounted for the highest rate. They were also found to evaluate the importance of living things depending on benefits and harms to humans. Secondly, when judging 4 domains of living things, animals, plants, static inanimate objects and dynamic inanimate objects, the gifted students did not have difficulty judging animals, plants and static inanimate objects, but 4 of them judged the moon, a dynamic inanimate object, as a living thing. In the aspect of reaction time, they spent more time judging plants than animals. This study classified their standards of judgement on living things into ontological categories. As a result, it was found that 31 and 33 out of them had standards of judgement corresponding to the category of matter and the category of process respectively, and only 16 of them had standards of judgement corresponding to the category of mental states. Thirdly, how to make a waterwheel and images of euglena and paramecium were shown to 10 of the gifted students who suggested simple movements as characteristics of living things. As a result, 7 of them changed their standards of judgement from the category of matter to the category of process, while 3 of them changed from the category of matter to the category of mental states.

Teacher guidebooks are practical and commonly used resources for teachers to deliver the goals and contents of science curriculum in classroom teaching. Thus, the alignment of teacher guidebooks and science curriculum could be critical to undertake the effectiveness of curriculum implication in science classrooms. This study is to investigate how the learning objectives of science curriculum are implicated in teacher guidebooks by analyzing the dimensions of knowledge and cognitive process in learning objectives in both documents. Grade 3~4 learning objectives (82 objectives in the curriculum, 459 in the teacher guidebook, 541 in total) in 2009 Revised science curriculum and teacher guidebooks were coded and analyzed based on the Revised Bloom's Taxonomy. The analysis focused on how the knowledge dimensions and cognitive processes of the curriculum were emphasized and restructured in the teacher guidebooks to examine the coalition between the two important documents. The study found: 1) the learning objectives in Grade 3~4 in both documents were skewed to certain knowledge dimension (conceptual) and cognitive process (understand); 2) there was a high coalition between unit objectives and lesson objectives in the teacher guidebooks, however, relatively low coalition between the curriculum and the teacher guidebooks; and 3) learning objectives in the curriculum were delivered in teacher guidebooks in various patterns (similar, detailed, additional, in portion, and the same), and 'detailed' and 'additional' were frequently shown. There also appeared new objectives in the teacher guidebooks, which were not present in the curriculum. The findings in this study could provide some suggestions to the current project of developing 2015 Science Curriculum in regard to understanding the dimensions of knowledge and cognitive process of learning objectives and their alignments with textbooks and teacher guidebooks.

본 연구의 목적은 스크래치 프로그래밍을 활용한 초등과학 '작은 생물' STEAM 수업을 개발하고 적용하여, 초등 영재학생의 창의적 인성, 창의적 문제해결력, 과학적 태도의 향상에 어떠한 영향을 미치는지 알아보고자 하였다. 개발한 STEAM 수업은 과학 지식과 스크래치 프로그래밍을 통합한 내용적 융합의 방법을 통해 학습자가 창의적 설계와 감성적 체험을 효과적으로 경험할 수 있도록 설계되었다. 연구 대상은 26명의 초등과학 영재학생들이었으며, 양적 및 질적 접근을 통해 자료를 수집하였다. 7차시의 수업을 적용한 결과, 개발한 STEAM 수업이 창의적 인성 및 과학적 태도에 효과가 있었다. 창의적 인성 하위 요소 중, 독립성에서 효과가 있었으며, 과학적 태도 측면에서는 자발성 및 인내심에서 유의한 상승을 보였다. 본 연구는 생명 과학 및 컴퓨터 프로그래밍처럼 STEAM 수업을 위한 효과적인 수단을 통합하는 일이 과학 기술에 대한 학생들의 창의성과 흥미를 신장시킬 수 있음을 제안한다.

The purpose of this study was to analyze the stresses of teachers for elementary science class. To do these, the Science Teacher Stress Inventory has been developed the Science Teacher Stress Inventory, which consisted of 45 stress factors with subcategories such as student characteristics, teacher characteristics, expertise of science education, school environment, and administrative procedures. 120 teachers for elementary science class have participated in this questionnaire survey. The results of this study are as follow: First, stress from teacher characteristics is perceived as having more stress factors than five stress factors (student characteristics, teacher characteristics, expertise of science education, school environment, and administrative procedures). but all of the five stress factors was under normal. The detail question of stress such as 'Having to guide educational guidance and course in life education', 'Having to cope with the demand of new curricula', 'Pace of the school day is too fast', 'No time to attend training of the experiment (preliminary experiment)', 'Not enough time to complete lesson preparation and marking', 'Having to cope with non-teaching delegated duties', 'Fear of getting injured as a result of lab accidents' are perceived as having a lot of stresses. Second, there were not statistically significant differences in their personal variables such as gender, the course of high school. but there were statistically significant differences in their personal variables such as whether elementary subject exclusive science teacher, career in education experience, teaching grade. Third, coping ways of stresses are active support for better science teaching conditions, training of the experiment for expertise of science education, developing a workbook for science class.

In this study, in regard to the change of the paradigm to STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics), we have looked into the ways to apply scientific inquiry through the arts, discussed the educational implications for the ways to step forth with the science and the arts in educational field. In the development of the strategies related to the optical illusion arts, to make sure that the design-oriented science education to reach its goal to make effective teaching, students need to be understood in the method of the artistic designs. Totally it had two rounds for inspection about operation of the convergence with curriculum. As a result, students changed attitude to concentrate in class naturally while doing their art work, participating in person rather than simply looking. It is caused by the scientific approach to strategy of illusion arts. In addition, we could see that students change into a proactive manner as well as teachers comments that they are communicate and make a complete the work with others. A lot of researches give that science can provide the ideas as a method to arts, arts can provide creative ideas to science, but it is still lacking that research can be applied to education specifically on how to. An efforts in the number of collaborative research will continue to introduce, as this study STEAM of science and arts in the field of education be shifted paradigm.

This study, based on literature review and theoretical discussion, reinterprets the learning environment instruments from cultural perspectives and suggests the applicability of learning environment instruments for understanding science classroom cultures. To do this, the existing learning environment instruments are first investigated and compared in terms of their features and utilizations appeared in previous studies. The learning environment instruments are then reinterpreted in the light of culture. Finally, we suggest the possibilities to use the learning environment instruments to understand science classroom cultures. The results of this study can be summarized as follows. First, the learning environment instruments, by interpreting them culturally, could be interpreted in cultural ways and used as the alternative ways to explore science classroom cultures. Second, the learning environment instruments, such as WIHIC and CLEQ, could be interpreted both along the dimension of phenomena in classrooms and the dimension of students' psychology in order to investigate science classroom cultures. Third, the instrument items could be interpreted culturally in different ways according to the description types of instrument items. Thus, when learning environment instruments are used in culture research, the description types should be sufficiently taken into account. Based on the results of this study, educational implications are discussed in terms of exploring classroom cultures and of culture research.

This study analyzed the effects of science outdoor activity applying a Brain-Based Evolutionary (ABC-DEF) approach on elementary school students' interest and academic achievement. Samples of the study were composed of 3 classes of 67 sixth graders in Seoul, Korea. Unit of 'Ecosystem and Environment' was selected as a object of the research. Textbook- and teachers' guidebook-based instruction was implemented in comparison group, brain-based evolutionary approach within classroom in experimental group A, and science outdoor learning by a brain-based evolutionary approach in experimental group B. In order to analyze the quantitative differences of students' interests and achievements, three tests of 'General Science Attitudes', 'Applied Unit-Related Interests', and 'Applied Unit-Related Achievement' were administered to the students. To find out the characteristics which would not be apparently revealed by quantitative tests, qualitative data such as portfolios, daily records of classroom work, and interview were also analyzed. The major results of the study are as follows. First, for post-test of interest, a statistically significant difference between comparison group and experimental group B was found. Especially, the 'interests about biology learning' factor, when analyzed by each item, was significant in two questions. Results of interviews the students showed that whether the presence or absence of outdoor learning experience influenced most on their interests about the topic. Second, for post-test of achievement, the difference among 3 groups according to high, middle, and low levels of post-interest was not statistically significant, but the groups of higher scores in post-interest tends to have higher scores in post-achievement. It can be inferred that outdoor learning by a brain-based evolutionary approach increases students' situational interests about leaning topic. On the basis of the results, the implications for the research in science education and the teaching and learning in school are discussed.