• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.185-200
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• 2024

This study explored the changes in the elementary science teaching expertise of teachers who participated in an in-school professional learning community for elementary science instructional research. Six elementary school teachers from grades 4, 5, and 6 at an 18-class S elementary school in a medium-sized city in Chungcheongbuk-do conducted collaborative instructional research on elementary science lessons as part of an in-school professional learning community, which was held 26 times over 7 months in 2020. During the professional learning community, video and audio recordings of the activities, research lessons, course materials, and professional learning community reflection activities were collected for analysis. The collected data were analyzed using qualitative research methods; data processing, reading, note-taking, description, classification, interpretation, reporting, and visualization; and the instructional professionalism elements were extracted based on the instructional professionalism framework. In the early professional learning community activity stages, the participating teachers first discussed their teaching perspectives, their experiences, and their goals for teaching science, which resulted in a selection of research questions. The teachers then collaboratively designed and implemented research lessons for each grade level, after which lesson reflections were conducted. The teachers' abilities to engage in qualitative reflection on the research questions improved after each reflection iteration. It was found that this professional learning community collaborative lesson study experience positively contributed to teaching expertise development. Based on the study findings, the implications for using professional learning communities to improve elementary teachers' science teaching expertise are given.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.15-28
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• 2016

The purpose of this study is to investigate the changes of students' modeling ability in terms of 'meta-modeling knowledge' and 'modeling practice' through co-construction of scientific model. Co-construction of scientific model instructions about astronomy were given to 41 middle-school students. The students were given a before and after instruction modeling ability tests. The results show that students' 'meta-modeling knowledge' has changed into a more scientifically advanced thinking about models and modeling after the instruction. Students were able to be aware that 'they could express their thoughts using models', 'many models could be used to explain a single phenomena' and 'scientific models may change' through co-construction modeling process. The change in the 'modeling practice' of the students was divided into four cases (the level improving, the level lowering, the high-level maintaining, the low-level maintaining) depending on the change of pre-posttest levels. The modeling practice level of most students has improved through the instruction. These changes were influenced by co-construction process that provides opportunities to compete and compare their models to other models. Meanwhile, the modeling practice level of few students has lowered or maintained low level. Science score of these students at school was relatively high and they thought that the goal of learning is to get a higher score in exams by finding the correct answer. This means that students who were kept well under traditional instruction may feel harder to adapt to co-construction of scientific model instruction, which focuses more on the process of constructing knowledge based on evidences.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.10-20
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• 2014

This study compares the perceptions of elementary gifted child and science teacher in a science class for the gifted. In order to explore the research problem, students and teachers answered a written semi-structured questionnaire and participated in interviews regarding the gifted science class. The data was collected and analyzed. Science teachers recognized the characteristics of a good science class, especially in terms of educational content and teaching methodology. First, they suggested promoting inquiry skills, presenting a challenging task in atypical topic selection, student-centered curriculum, and controlling the pace of learning to recognize individual differences. Second, in terms of the science class skills and attitudes category, teachers recommended raising mutual satisfaction through vigorous interaction within a permissible atmosphere. Finally, science teachers need to strive for continued professional growth. Gifted children, meanwhile, want to investigate a wide range of topics without time constraints. Additionally, they may have to explore challenging topics further. They prefer to act like scientists in that they enjoy group activities, communication and cooperation. In particular, they want to be evaluated by others in a totally embedded assessment. Gifted children also expect teachers to understand the life circumstances and needs of the students. In addition, they asked for teachers to respect individual experiments and to show them how to safely use new equipment or research methods. As a result, gifted children and science teachers have to recognize the differences of opinion concerning a good science class for the gifted. This study can help formulate strategies to establish quality management of materials in gifted science classes.

• 한국정보교육학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2004.01a
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• pp.478-485
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• 2004

정보통신기술(ICT : Information and Communication Technology)은 멀티미디어 정보를 교실에 실시간으로 제공함으로써 교실 수업에 매우 다양한 방식으로 응용이 가능하게 되었다. 특히, 국가 주도하고 있는 ICT활용 교육은 교사 중심의 전통적 수업보다 학습자 중심의 수업을 가능하게 할 것으로 기대되고 있다. 이에 따라 교사들은 ICT활용 능력을 갖추고 이를 수업에 적용할 수 있는 지적, 경험적 노력을 필요로 한다. 본 연구는 현장에서 연수를 통하여 이루어지고 있는 ICT활용 교수-학습 과정안 개발을 예비 교원까지 확대하여 이들의 능력을 계발하고 전문성을 제고하고자 하였다. 이를 통하여 교원양성기판의 교육과정에 ICT 활용교육방법의 도입 및 활용을 촉진하고, 교수-학습 방법의 개선 및 교육의 질을 제고하는데 목적이 있다.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.327-335
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• 2004

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of cooperative skill training on problem based learning for elementary school science class. Two experiment groups were involved, in which problem based learning model was used and control group, in which traditional instruction was employed. One of experiment groups was trained in cooperative skills before the instruction. The results demonstrated a significant main effect in the scores of achievement and a significant interaction effect between the instructional strategies and learning ability level. The performance of high-level students in the two experimental groups was higher than that of control group. However, the performance of medium and low-level students trained with cooperative skills training was higher than that of students without cooperative skills training. A significant main effect was also found in self-esteem, but there was no significant interaction between instructional strategies and learning ability. Therefore, this study suggests that cooperative skills training is of great importance for minimizing the free-rider effect and increasing collaborative interaction in cooperative learning.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.556-564
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• 2004

Two biology modules were developed previously for the purpose of improving creativity and scientific thinking of secondary school students. A hypothetical-deductive experimental procedure was reflected in the module when students themselves can perform a series of activities of making hypothesis and designing an experiment to solve the questions. They followed a series of scientific processes to determine some characteristics regarding plant pigments and the transport process of materials in living organisms. Four classes of 9th graders in'S' Science High School were divided into the experimental and the control group. The same contents of the modules were taught to the control group by the traditional experimental way. The students' creativity, scientific thinking, scientific inquiry skill and knowledge achievement were examined before and after the interventions. As results, the experimental groups showed more significant improvement on the areas of the students' creativity, scientific thinking, scientific inquiry skill and achievement than the control groups. Results indicated that the specially designed modules in terms of hypothetical-deductive experimental procedure were effective to improve science high school students' creativity and scientific thinking abilities.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.225-234
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• 2007

This research was conducted with an intention to develop a teaching program that possesses a goal of elevating higher thinking ability within the science class and to investigate its effect. The hypothetico-deductive teaching model was developed and its' program was designed to be directly put into the practical use, and apply it in class. The application of the hypothetico-deductive teaching program had a positive effect in the improvement of students' creative thinking ability and critical thinking ability. And it had a positive influence on scientific attitudes. After completing the program the opinions of the students who participated in this research by a poll were gathered and analyzed. The students felt uneasy and had a lot of difficulties during the program activity because they had to keep on thinking newly, critically, and scientifically, but they admitted that they gained the ability to think on their own when the program was completed.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.283-290
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• 2004

The purpose of this study were to develop of courseware using scaffolding strategy and to investigate the effect of courseware instruction upon students' conceptual understanding and affective domain including effort and self-checking. 10th grade students in the experimental and control groups were selected from high school at Cheongwon-gun in Chungbuk, and taught about chemical reaction rate for 3 class hours. The students in the experimental group studied individually through courseware using scaffolding strategy and worksheet and teacher-centered expository lesson was used in the control group. Prior to the instructions, test specification for problem-solving assessment (TSPSA) was administered and the scores of the previous science achievement test were obtained. After the instructions, the posttest on conceptual understanding and TSPSA were administered. Results of this study revealed that the mean score of the experimental group in the conceptual understanding test was similar to that of the control group at statistically significant level. This result implies that the courseware using scaffolding strategy could be a tool of the individualized instruction. The experimental group improved significantly better in three components of the TSPSA such as effort, self-checking, and cognitive strategy. From this result, it is considered that learners' self regulation is improved by being taken over responsibility of learning. So, it is suggested that instruction using scaffolding strategy is needed in science class to improve self-leading learning ability.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.19-28
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• 1999

The major purposes of this study are to examine the effects of portfolio assessment on elementary school student's science knowledge, inquiry ability, science attitudes and to investigate students' perceptions on portfolio assessment. Control group consists of 45 fourth-graders at M-Elementary school located at Miwon, Chongwon-gun, Chung-buk and experimental group 36 fourth-graders of G-Elementary school located in Daejeon-si. The inventories of scientific knowledge I, inquiry ability, and science attitudes were administered to both groups as a pre-test. The experimental group was given portfolio assessment instruction and control group traditional instruction for about six weeks. Inventories about scientific knowledge 2, inquiry ability, and science attitudes were administered to both groups as a post-test. A questionnaire on the perception on portfolio assessment was given to experimental group after the treatment. The results were statistically analyzed with SPSS. Control group showed higher score on scientific knowledge than that of experimental group (p<0.5). No statistically meaningful difference was identified in inquiry ability and scientific attitude. More in-depth analysis revealed that scientific attitudes were improved statistically meaningfully by portfolio assessment. The students' perceptions on portfolio assessment is very positive. Students have positive responses on interests in portfolio assessment, feelings of involvement in learning, self-regulated learning, higher levels of thinking, intentions of participation in portfolio assessment.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.461-473
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• 2002

Concept mapping is a device for representing the conceptual structure of a subject discipline in a two dimensional form which is analogous to a road map. In the teaching and learning of earth science, each concept depends on its relationships to many others for meaning. Using concept mapping in teaching helps teachers and students to be more aware of the key concepts and relationships among them. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the use of concept mapping on science achievement and the scientific attitude in ocean units of earth science. The results of this study are as follows; first, the science achievement of a group of concept mapping teaching is significantly higher than that of the group of traditional teaching. Also, when the achievement levels are compared among different cognitive ability groups, the effect is more significant in mid or lower level student groups than in high level groups. The use of concept mapping is more effective when the concepts have a distinct concept hierarchy. Second, the scores of the test of ‘attitude toward scientific inquiry’ and ‘application of scientific attitude’ of the group of concept mapping teaching are significantly higher than those of the group of traditional teaching, whereas the scores of the test of ‘interest in science learning’ of concept mapping teaching is not different from those of group of traditional teaching. Third, the survey on the use of concept mapping shows a positive response across the tested groups. The use of concept mapping is more beneficial in fostering the comprehension of the topic. A concept map of student's own construction facilitates the assessment of learning, thus promising the usefulness of concept mapping as a means of evaluation. In regard to retention aspect, concept mapping is considered to be more effective in confirming and remembering the topic, while less effective in the aspects of activity and interest. In conclusion, the use of concept maps makes learning an active meaningful process and improves student's academic achievement and scientific attitude. If the concept mapping is more effectively as an active teaching strategy, more meaningful learning will be attained.