• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.153-163
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• 2011

This study aimed to identify the difficulties that new science teachers in secondary schools experience. Subjects for this study were 190 science teachers attending qualifying training for 1st degree of teaching certificate. Using an open questionnaire, the difficulties these teachers encounter were collected, categorized, and compared between their first year and their succeeding years of teaching in terms of their school level, gender, majors and regions. Results showed that first year science teachers have had difficulties in areas including subject teaching, guidance, administrative affairs, human relationship and self-understanding. On their succeeding years, difficulties about subject teaching were reduced to half while other difficulties remained. New teachers in middle schools have experienced the most number of difficulties about guidance, while new teachers in general high schools have experienced the most number of difficulties about subject teaching. Based on these findings, some recommendations were proposed for new science teachers in secondary schools, school administrators, and training institutions.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.63 no.3
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• pp.166-182
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• 2019

This study examined teachers' difficulties that they encountered free semester science assessment and their problem solutions. Fifteen science teachers who had experiences of free semester teaching and assessment were selected by convenience sampling in this study. The participant teachers mentioned difficulties of accurate scoring in student self/peer assessment and suggested solutions of providing studetns with detailed assessment criteria and opportunities to practice assessment. The participant teachers mentioned a lack of objective assessment criteria for affective domain and suggested solutions of providing criteria prior to assessment and developing assessment framework. The participant teachers mentioned a lack of assessment tools and references for perforamnce assesement. The participant teachers mentioned difficulties of a large teacherstudent ratio for providng feedbacks to students and suggested solutions of decreasing teacher-student ratio and teaching load. The participant teachers mentioned difficulties of identifying student characteristics for assessment reporting and suggested solutions of decreaing teacher work load. The participant teachers mentioned a lack of teacher understanding of process based assessment and inactive attitude to performance assessment and suggested solutions of professional learning community and improving teacher perceptions on performance assessment. The participant teachers mentioned difficulties of a large teacher-student ratio and a lack of time for implementing assessment methods that they learned from professional development programs. With both teacher self-efforts and systematic support, these problems would be solved and success of free semester assessment would be achieved.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.33 no.7
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• pp.1300-1311
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to investigate pre-service science teachers' difficulties in the 'inquiry mentoring' program, which was developed to improve pre-service science teachers' inquiry teaching ability. For this study, I developed the 'inquiry mentoring' program in which pre-service science teachers taught high school students. This program was adapted for 2.5 months, and 45 pre-service science teachers participated and taught 44 high school students. During this program, pre-service science teachers kept 'mentor diaries' and wrote 'mentoring reports' at the end of the program. Interviews were conducted with all pre-service science teachers. Results are as follows: first, pre-service science teachers thought that the difficulties in inquiry mentoring resulted from their inadequacy (mentor factor) than students' inadequacy (mentee factor). Second, pre-service science teachers perceived their lack of cognitive ability, inquiry ability and teaching ability as a mentor factor. Third, pre-service science teachers thought that they had difficulties in students' differences and lack of activity as a mentee factor. Fourth, they described difficulties caused by emotional distance as well as physical distance as an interaction factor. They also mentioned the difficulties related to teaching range and online interaction. Fifth, pre-service science teachers expressed a sense of frustration with the inquiry environment. Additionally, some implications were discussed for pre-service science teacher education through the 'inquiry mentoring' program.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.73-88
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to explore elementary teachers' difficulties on teaching science by analyzing questions that have been posted for a long time in an autonomous online teacher community named Indischool. For this purpose, 409 question postings(the 2007 and 2009 revised curriculum, third to sixth grade) were analyzed using the framework for analyzing questions about elementary teachers' science teaching(modified from Alake-Tuenter et al., 2013). The study revealed that there were more science-SMK questions than science-PCK questions, and most of the questions were 'about lenses' and 'in 2014 and 2015, when the curriculum was changing from the 2007 to the 2009 revised curriculum'. The long-standing difficulties in science-SMK were 'an application of facts and concepts in lenses' and 'an unexpected experimental error in electricity'. In particular, there are the principle of transparent cup-shaped objects acting as lenses, the process of image formation by convex lenses, experimental errors of 'compass movement due to current flow change' and experimental errors 'serial connection of bulbs'. The long-standing difficulties in science-PCK were 'understanding and response to context' and 'understanding and response to aims mentioned in standard document' and these are not related to physical units but to others. In particular, there are request class materials, activity ideas at the end of the semester and understanding the national curriculum guidelines. These teachers' difficulties should be reflected in the science teaching support system like a teacher's guide compilation, teacher's training curriculum development, etc.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Computer Information Conference
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• 2019.07a
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• pp.209-210
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• 2019

정보 교과가 아닌 타 교과에서 교육 도구로써 프로그래밍의 교육적 효과가 증명됨에 따라 프로그래밍을 수업에 도입하기 위한 다양한 연구가 진행되었다. 김성원과 이영준(2017)은 TPACK 이론을 도입하여, 테크놀로지 도구로 프로그래밍 언어를 도입하고, 예비 교사의 수업 전문성 향상을 위한 프로그래밍 기반 TPACK 교육 프로그램을 개발하였다. 개발한 교육 프로그램을 수업에 도입하였지만, 예비 교사는 여러 가지 어려움을 느끼고 있었다. 따라서 본 연구에서는 프로그래밍 기반 TPACK 교육 프로그램을 개선하기 위하여 예비 교사에게 선행 연구에서 개발한 교육 프로그램을 적용하고, 프로그래밍 기반 수업 설계를 하는 과정에서 예비 교사가 겪는 어려움을 조사하였다. 연구 결과, 예비 교사는 예비 교사는 프로그래밍 학습, 프로그램의 설계 및 구현, 교과 특성에 맞는 프로그램 개발, 프로그래밍 언어의 한계로 프로그래밍 기반 수업 설계에서 어려움을 겪고 있었다. 향후 연구에서는 이러한 어려움을 해결하기 위한 교육 프로그램 개선을 진행하고, 개선한 교육 프로그램을 예비 교사에게 적용하여 효과를 검증하고자 한다.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.133-144
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• 2020

As a part of the second-year monitoring study on the implementation of the 2015 revised science curriculum in middle schools, this study focuses more on examining middle school science teachers' perceptions on the process-based assessment (PBA). A total of 105 middle school science teachers (44 teachers from science leading schools, 61 teachers from ordinary schools) responded to the survey questionnaire, and 16 teachers participated in interviews. The results include teachers' perceptions on the changes in their teaching and assessment methods, some challenges of implementing PBA, and educational implications of PBA. Survey results indicate that the teachers perceived themselves using more PBA methods after the 2015 revised science curriculum was launched. The teachers in science-leading schools present statistically higher average scores to the items on the PBA utilization than the ones in ordinary schools. However, the teachers felt confused in conceptually differentiating PBA from prior performance-based assessment. They also experienced some conflicts when implementing PBA under the achievement-oriented school atmospheres. In addition, they often faced difficulties in securing objectivity and reliability of PBA and felt the burden of evaluating individual students. This study suggests the necessity of giving more authority and trust to science teachers regarding PBA, constructing more supportive environment to cultivate teacher competency as evaluation experts, and the need to reduce task burden. However, some teachers who actively implemented PBA express some level of satisfaction as observing students' positive reaction to PBA.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.64-73
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• 2020

The purpose of this study is to analyze the difficulties of teachers who teach gifted students in invention and to help address their concerns. To this end, the researcher interviews four teachers with more than three years of experience in guiding gifted students in invention. As a result, they have the difficulties such as difficulties in themselves, relationship with parents, in teaching students, relationship with school and relationship with education office. Supporting measures are 1) strengthening incentives for inventive gifted teachers, 2) continuing in service education, 3) improving the student selection process for gifted students in invention, 4) improving parents' perception of gifted students in invention, 5) improving awareness of school administrators, 6) consistent and continuous administration.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.159-166
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• 2016

This study analyzed perceptions and difficulties in applying Flipped Learning with an interview method grounded on understanding and experience of Flipped Learning in science class. The interviewees selected were six teachers working in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province. Three teachers having over two years of experience in operating Flipped Learning in science were selected, one each from elementary, middle, and high school and another three teachers who had just started to operate Flipped Learning this year were chosen, one each from elementary, middle, and high school. According to the result of a 3-step interview conducted with the participating teachers, they indicated very high satisfaction with the implementation of Flipped Learning in elementary, middle, and high school science classes. They responded that Flipped Learning was particularly more helpful for inquiry activity. The teachers, however, felt burdened by the class preparation and had difficulty in organizing the class. To explore ways to get rid of the difficulties in Flipped Learning, this author discussed the textbook system where one could draw various implications for improving the current class.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.725-739
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• 2022

This study aims to analyze what elementary school pre-service teachers focused on and what challenges they faced in designing and producing a guided science inquiry program based on augmented reality (AR) and to provide some implications for teachers' professionalism and teacher education. To this end, focusing on the cases of pre-service teachers who designed and created AR-based guided inquiry programs, the researchers extracted and categorized the pre-service teachers' focus and challenges from the program design and production stages. As a result, in the program design stage, the pre-service teachers tried to construct scenarios that could promote students' active inquiry process. At the same time, drawing on the unique affordances of AR, the pre-service teachers focused on creating vivid visual data in a 3D environment and making meaningful connections between virtual and real-world activities. The pre-service teachers faced challenges in making use of the advantages of AR technology and designing an inquiry program due to a lack of background knowledge about CoSpaces, a content creation program. In the program production stage, the pre-service teachers tried to make their program easy to handle to improve students' concentration on inquiry activities. In addition, challenges of programming using CoSpaces were reported. Based on these results, educational implications were discussed in terms of the pedagogical uses of AR and teachers' professionalism in adopting AR in science inquiry.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.111-124
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• 2023

The aim of this study was to explore science teachers' perceptions of good science teaching. To this end, the Korean Teaching Observation Protocol (KTOP), which was developed for the purpose of observing and improving science teaching, was utilized. In the first survey, teachers were asked whether they thought each item in the KTOP was important for good science teaching, the extent to which they implemented these items, and the level of difficulty in implementing them. The second survey asked teachers what they believed to be the reasons and solutions for the KTOP items that they had responded as difficult to implement. The responses obtained from 63 teachers in the first survey and 35 teachers in the second survey were categorized based on the characteristics of the responses. The categorized contents were then summarized and discussed for their features. As a result, science teachers responded that all items in KTOP, except for one, are important for good science teaching. However, it was also shown that the level of execution was low in cases where implementation was difficult. For the 13 KTOP items that were considered important but difficult to implement and showed relatively low implementation level, many respondents (69%) attributed the reason to both students and teachers. However, the most common response (60%) was that the teacher should solve those difficulties. From this, it was found that understanding and supporting teachers, as well as enhancing their competencies, are more important for good science teaching than external factors. We hope that this research findings will help to better understand the specific difficulties that science teachers face in their classes and contribute to practical efforts that aim to address these challenges.