• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.407-419
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• 2021

This study investigated the perception of science philosophy education targeting 150 elementary school teachers in metropolitan cities and provinces. The questionnaire survey on the perception of the philosophy of science education was composed of a 5-point Likert scale based on the interest and experience of the philosophy of science, the reason for difficulty in using it, and the introduction method, the expected effect. As a result of the survey, elementary school teachers' awareness of the interest and necessity of the philosophy of science was generally high, while the experience of learning and teaching the philosophy of science was low. In addition, to the reason why it was difficult to utilize the philosophy of science, teachers answered that there was insufficient teacher training and development of teaching and learning methods. As a way to introduce the philosophy of science in science education, it was thought that it was necessary to combine the concept learning and inquiry method, and elementary school teachers' perception of the expected effect of using the philosophy of science was generally high. The results of this study are meaningful in that they provide basic data on the direction of the introduction of the philosophy of science in elementary science education.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.338-355
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• 2022

This study explored the effects of pre-service elementary teachers' inquiries into science class dilemmas. By closely examining the characteristics of the pre-service teachers' inquiry processes and changes in their educational decisions, the effectiveness of using dilemmas as part of teacher education was determined. Twenty fourth-year university pre-service teachers participated and conducted inquiries into science class dilemmas over seven weeks. Based on pre- and post-questionnaires, KWHL tables, inquiry reports, discussions, and group class presentations, the major factors that influence the pre-service teacher's decision-making changes were extracted. The pre-service teachers found the science inquiry process meaningful when exploring the science topics covered in the dilemmas, and claimed that elementary school students would be able to engage in meaningful science explorations if they learned science through inquiry. Furthermore, the pre-service teachers explored the thinking processes and background knowledge of the students in different ways. Documents such as teacher's guides and the curriculum were examined and the students' thought processes were identified through interviews with the teachers and students, which were found to reflect their educational decision-making. Moreover, it was recognized by the pre-service teachers that depending on the situation, alternative teaching methods were possible. The focus on the unstructured dilemma problems provided the pre-service teachers with problem-solving situations that triggered scientific inquiry and exploration of student thinking and revealed the complexity of science teaching and learning. Based on these results, the teacher education implications for using dilemma cases are discussed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.38 no.6
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• pp.901-917
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to develop the questionnaire on pre-service elementary teachers' recognition of self-understanding and change capacity for science education and to investigate their recognitions with it. At the beginning of the study, we made a tool to investigate the self-understanding and change capacity of pre-service elementary teachers through literature review and discussions. The former half of the questionnaire was related to self-understanding with factors such as 'self-concept clarity,' 'career identity' and 'self-efficacy:' 'self-understanding as a pre-service elementary teacher' (12 items) and 'self-understanding as a pre-service elementary science teacher' (12 items). Its latter half was about the change capacity with factors such as 'change sensitivity,' 'goal consciousness,' 'collaboration,' 'reflection,' and 'mastery.' It consisted of three parts: 'general change capacity,' 'change capacity as a pre-service elementary teacher' and 'change capacity as a pre-service elementary science teacher' with 17 items, respectively. With this tool, we surveyed 153 pre-service elementary teachers. The results are as follows: First, pre-service elementary teachers have a positive recognition about self-understanding and change capacity, but the recognition of self-understanding and change capacity as pre-service elementary science teachers were relatively less positive. Second, factors of self-understanding and change capacity as pre-service elementary science teachers have a significant correlation with each other. Especially, there was a high correlation between 'self-efficacy' of self-understanding and 'goal consciousness' and 'mastery' of change capacity. Based on these results, some implications for self-understanding and change capacity related to science education were discussed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.43 no.6
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• pp.533-547
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• 2023

This study is an action research aimed at improving the instruction of a teacher educator who teaches science teaching methods to elementary preservice teachers. After identifying the cause of their low levels of curiosity and interest in physics, teaching plans addressing this problem were explored, applied to classes, and reflected upon. Through this process, ways to improve teaching practice in science classes for elementary preservice teachers and pique their scientific curiosity and interest were proposed. A spiral implementation structure that repeats implementation and reflection a total of three times was designed for the prospective preservice teachers who participated in elementary science textbook research physics classes. Self-reports, student participation data, and results from both peer and self-evaluations were collected and analyzed. The reasons for the preservice teachers' low levels of curiosity and interest in science were identified as their inability to recognize and express information gaps and their low levels of willingness to resolve this. Practice expressing information gaps, raising the level of knowledge to be able to recognize information gaps, and a strategy to have the will to resolve information gaps were introduced into the class. To the extent that changes can be made by improving unit classes, elementary preservice teachers can express their curiosity and interest in science through this process.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.555-568
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• 2014

Even though identical science textbooks are used in elementary science classes, differences exist in teachers' teaching practices. The purpose of this study was to understand the relationships between elementary teachers' beliefs of science learning and their science teaching practices. An Likert-scale survey and interviews were performed on four elementary teachers to obtain information about the beliefs of teachers in science learning. In order to understand their teaching practices and the relationships between teachers' beliefs and their teaching practices, 2 classes per each teacher were recorded and instruction analyses were performed in the aspects of teaching contents, methods, and learning environments. The results showed that teacher A and B, who held traditional beliefs of science learning, taught their classes mainly based on teacher's explanation. While, teacher C and D, who held constructive beliefs of science learning, reorganized the contents of textbooks and applied various teaching methods and strategies in conducting their teaching practices. There were differences in teachers' beliefs of science learning and teaching practices. These differences in beliefs were related with their science teaching practices.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.210-226
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• 2021

The purpose of this study was to understand what orientations elementary school teachers have related to their science classes, what realities they encounter in real classes, how they overcome their frustrations and failures they experience. We employed a narrative inquiry method and analyzed the experiences of two early career elementary school teachers (Miss Park and Mr. Choi). Miss Park wanted to conduct students-driven inquiry classes, in which students become active investigators, but in reality, she faced herself who conducted teacher-driven classes. Mr. Choi wanted to conduct science classes based on constructivism, but in reality, he encountered himself as a knowledge giver rather than scaffolder. However, rather than giving up their orientations, the two teachers tried to keep them in their own way. It was expected that by understanding what strategies beginner teachers take when their theoretical orientation and ideals are not well implemented in actual educational reality, we could find a clue that will lead to a more successful transition from pre-service teacher to teacher.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.17-33
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• 2023

This study examined inservice elementary teachers' thoughts on the development of educational apps by preservice elementary teachers and implications for TPACK education for preservice elementary teachers. A case study was conducted in which preservice elementary teachers developed a science education app, and the three teachers were surveyed for their thoughts regarding this. The results regarding the characteristics of the developed app by preservice teachers were as follows. First, "inquiry" had the highest value among educational goals intended by the preservice teachers. In addition, the scores for tool-type apps and apps in which interaction between learners and instructors occurs were relatively high. Second, most of the preservice teachers developed apps to meet curriculum goals, but their apps showed low-level characteristics in terms of the constructive and cooperative dimensions. The results of the analysis of the thinking of elementary school teachers regarding the education development apps are as follows. First, elementary school teachers assigned the lowest scores to the effectiveness of the apps, and to this problem, the achievement standard with respect to the curriculum and the evaluation and modification activities fir the apps were proposed. Second, the teachers indicated that it would be appropriate to provide the experience of making apps to directly improve the TPACK of preservice teachers. Third, the respondents thought that preservice teachers should develop block coding literacy to create apps using App Inventor. Fourth, the teachers considered it necessary to emphasize simulated instructions, as well as the experience of collecting and handling data through apps to improve preservice teachers' TPACK app development for educational use.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.806-819
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• 2002

The purpose of this study was to investigate students' and teachers' views on the necessity of learning science in Korea. To grade sixth students(n=565) and teachers(n=57) of elementary schools in Seoul, Korea, a question, "Why do we have to learn science?", requiring a short essay of more than 7 lines including the reason and examples was given. From the analysis of short essays with the network analysis, it was found that most students and teachers had views of "we have to learn science to make personal everyday-life easy in aspect of personal usefulness and human everyday-life easy in aspect of social usefulness" with focusing on external value of science and taking examples of everyday-life related. And it was found that students' and teachers' views were somewhat biased toward focusing on external values of science.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.69-79
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• 2021

The purpose of this study was to compare what meanings of earth science pre-service teachers and primary pre-service teachers about science books and reading through science disciplinary reading and how their thoughts on science education are reflected in the science disciplinary reading process. For the study, 24 third-year students majoring in earth science education and 25 second-year students majoring in primary education were selected as subjects for the study at a teacher training college located in the central part of Korea. As a result of the study, first, earth science pre-service teachers used disciplinary reading a lot to acquire knowledge of science content, but primary pre-service teachers used it for the purpose of using it in class, scientific interest, and curiosity solution. Second, earth science pre-service teachers and primary pre-service teachers showed differences in their thinking in using science related books for science education. While earth science pre-service teachers rarely described the use of science books in their classes, primary pre-service teachers actively described science classes. Third, from the perspective of science disciplinary reading, primary pre-service teachers were more actively emphasizing the meaning of disciplinary reading compared to earth science pre-service teachers. In light of the research results that the reading activity in science has a lot of effect, it is thought that a wide range of research on science disciplinary reading should be conducted as a teaching strategy in school field classes.

• Journal of Engineering Education Research
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.3-9
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• 2017

This study examined 39 elementary teachers' perceptions on the frontier science teaching and their teaching efficacy. The results showed: elementary teachers were interested in and were well aware of the importance of the frontier science in human life and in this society. They also agreed with the necessity of teaching frontier science in elementary school. They, however, had perceptions that frontier science may not be appropriate for the level of elementary students. Moreover, the poor educational environment may act as constraints for frontier science teaching. The change of elementary teachers' teaching efficacy(t=-13.67, p<.01) was statistically significant after their participation of developing STEAM program on frontier science and practicing its lessons.