• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.783-790
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• 2016

The 'Integrated Inquiry' unit is a new addition in the 5th~6th grade science textbooks, and was developed for the 2009 revised national curriculum. The unit deals with six integrated inquiry process skills: problem cognition, formulating hypotheses, controlling variables, transforming and interpreting data, drawing results, and generalization. The purpose of this study is to investigate the perceptions and the teaching practices of elementary school teachers on this unit in their school curriculum and where improvements can be made. Data was collected from questionnaires filled out by 92 elementary school teachers. The results are as follows: First, teachers do have a positive perception on the importance of teaching integrated process skills. Second, with that being true, this unit ended up receiving both positive and negative reviews by teachers. This research found that there were good and bad responses on the educational aspects of this unit in three particular areas: dealing with the development of integrated inquiry process skills, facilitating science learning in other units, and implementing open inquiry. Third, teachers have difficulties particularly in problem cognition, formulating hypotheses, controlling variables, transforming and interpreting data, generalization, and drawing results. There is a lack of student understanding as well as a lack of professionalism for teachers on this unit, and many issues related to the composition of the textbook. This study may have important implications for making improvements in this unit and teaching integrated process skills.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.574-588
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• 2011

교사의 과학 탐구 지도에 대한 인식은 실제 수업에서 탐구 지도를 수행하는데 중요한 역할을 할 수 있다. 따라서 교사들이 과학 탐구를 어떻게 인식하는지 이해할 필요가 있다. 이 연구에서는 한국, 싱가포르, 미국 세 국가의 초등교사를 대상으로 과학 탐구 지도에 대한 인식을 조사하였다. 세 국가는 과학교육과정에서 탐구를 강조해 온 역사와 설명 방식이 다르며 전반적인 교육적 상황 또한 상이하다. 총 100명의 초등교사(한국 34, 싱가포르 35, 미국31)를 대상으로 설문을 실시하였으며 설문은 구체적인 교수 상황을 서술하는 교수 시나리오, 이상적인 탐구 수업에 대한 내러티브 쓰기로 구성되었다. 데이터는 외적 기준과 내적 관점 모두에서 분석되었다. 연구 결과 교사들의 과학 탐구 지도에 대한 인식은 전반적으로 전통적 견해에 머무르고 있는 특징을 보였다. 그러나 각 국가의 교육과정에서 탐구가 서술되고 강조된 방식에 따라 차이가 나타나기도 하였다. 이러한 결과가 교사교육에 주는 시사점을 논의하였다.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.519-526
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to analyze the Korean high-school physics teachers' difficulties in teaching textbook physics inquiries. For this purpose, 63 high school physics teachers completed a questionnaire. We asked teachers to evaluate the degree of difficulty in teaching textbook physics inquiries. Additionally, we asked physics teachers to select the two most difficult inquiries to teach and to express their reasons for these selections. The main results are as follows: First, the degree of difficulty for all the inquiry is 2.79, indicating a little easy level of difficulty. The two most difficult inquiries are 'Meissner effect experiment' and 'Investigation of diode characteristics using $Cu_2O$ plate and ZnO powder.' Second, the difficulty reasons to teach physics inquiry was presented in the order of 'environment domain,' 'textbook domain,' 'student domain,' and 'teacher domain.' In particular, the biggest reasons for difficulty for teachers are 'preparation of experimental apparatus' and 'safety.' There are many opinions related to 'problem of the experiment itself' in 'textbook domain' and 'lack of ability to manipulate' in 'student domain.' Based on the results of this study, we added a discussion to activate the high school physics textbook inquiries.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.267-277
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• 2015

This study explored elementary school teachers' perspectives on science inquiry teaching. First, an open-ended questionnaire was administered to elicit teachers' experiences of their approach to inquiry teaching. These self-reported approaches revealed three conceptions of teaching for inquiry learning in science: 'science process skills-centered' category focused on observing, classifying, measuring, and fair testing; 'generating scientific questions' category focused on students' question-generating; and 'illustrate concept and/or content' category focused on science content demonstration by making use of experimental procedures to obtain expected results. Second, teachers were asked to place 18 activity cards either close to or further from an 'inquiry-based science classroom' card. The relative distances from the activity card to the central classroom card were measured. The teachers perceived that students' activity of 'designing and implementing appropriate procedures' was the most important in supporting an inquiry-based science classroom. Understanding teachers' views has implications for both the enactment of inquiry teaching in the classroom as well as the uptake of new teaching behaviors during professional development.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.573-584
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• 2015

Inquiry has been consistently emphasized in science education as a crucial element for learning. Although many researchers came to agree on the importance of scientific inquiry, authentic inquiry activities are hard to be actualized in an educational context. Therefore it is required to critically examine what teachers have difficulty in teaching inquiry. In this article, we looked into inquiry-based science activities in a small group setting where pre-service science teachers faced dilemmas between cognition and practice of inquiry. A case study was conducted on eight undergraduate students who are majoring in science education. The participants attended a weekly science program for middle school students in low SES as teaching assistants and mentors, and took full care of his/her mentees during open-inquiry activities. The results were drawn by analyzing participants' personal and group interviews, participant observations, self-reports, and others. The pre-service teachers viewed the knowledge and procedure of science as an essential factor in inquiry activities along with student's spontaneous attitude. However, in the process of performing inquiry, they faced several dilemmas between ideal cognition and real activities. The aspects of dilemmas could be summarized in three pairs of opposing concepts: 'diverging inquiry or converging science', 'interest-centered inquiry or learning-centered inquiry', and 'student as the subject or student with the insufficient expertise.' We discussed ways of resolving dilemmas and alternative perspectives on scientific inquiry.

• 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.31 no.2
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• pp.143-152
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• 2011

The purpose of this study is to investigate the contents of open inquiry activities of the newly revised 2007 National curriculum for each grade level and to teach open inquiry activities and selection of rational inquiry activities. For this study, 470 elementary students in Seoul, ranging from 3rd to 6th grades were surveyed. The experiment plans written by students were analyzed based on the analysis criteria. These criteria consisted of the reason for the selection, type, and suitability of open inquiry activities. The reason for selecting open inquiry activities were analyzed according to the reason why they want to conduct the activity, degree of getting help and the object of getting help. The types of the open inquiry activities were analyzed according to the field of inquiry, the inquiry method and the period of inquiry. Suitability of the open inquiry activities were analyzed according to the reason of suitability or unsuitability.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.255-263
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• 2001

The purpose of this study is to analyse the eighth grade students' performance of open investigations for two kinds of tasks: the qualitative one which involves the descriptive approach through observation, and the quantitative one which involves the quantitative data processing through control of variables. Researcher's observation, interview data as well as students' investigation reports, self-evaluations were analysed. The difficulties of qualitative open investigation lie in detecting and dealing with unexpected observations, of which the acceptance and interpretation were influenced by preconceptions. On the other hand, managing several variables, making reliable and valid measures, and quantitative data processing constituted main difficulties of quantitative open investigation. Some students could recognize the deficiencies of their methods and findings in qualitative one, but few in quantitative one. These results suggest the teaching point for each task of open investigations.

• Education of Primary School Mathematics
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.3-22
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• 1997

본 연구는 첫째로는 수학교육에서 패턴이 강조되는 이론적 근거를 찾고자 역사적 맥락에서 수학의 성격변화를 탐색하였다. 수학의 성격 변화를 통하여 수학은 수의 탐구, 기하의 탐구, 운동ㆍ변화ㆍ공간의 탐구, 수학 연구의 도구에 대한 탐구로 그 영역을 점차 확대하여 왔으며, '수학은 패턴의 과학이다'라는 정의는 수학이 폭넓어짐에 따라 수학이 무엇인가에 대한 수학의 본성에 접근하는 논의라고 할 수 있다. 이러한 수학에 대한 새로운 관점은 수학교육의 새로운 방향 모색에 시사하는 바를 살펴보고, 특히 수학교실의 변화에 따른 패턴의 강조를 살펴보았다. 둘째로는 수학적 패턴을 밝힘과 동시에 수학 교육에서 수학적 패턴 분석의 틀을 마련하고자 수학적 패턴의 유형화를 시도하였다. 패턴의 속성에 따른 유형화와 패턴의 생성 방식에 따른 유형화를 통하여 수학적 패턴의 유형을 마련하였다. 초등학교 수학에서 다루어지는 패턴은 어떠한 것인가를 현행 4학년 수학교과서 및 익힘책에 제한하여 유형화한 틀로서 조사 분석하였다. 셋째로는 수학적 패턴에 관한 지도 방안의 모색으로서, 지도의 기본 방향을 설정하고 수학적 패턴에 관한 교수 전략을 마련하였다. 교수전략은 크게 패턴에서의 규칙 찾기, 패턴을 변형ㆍ확장하기, 자신의 새로운 패턴 만들기, 패턴을 수학적으로 설명하기로 나누고, 각각에 3-4개의 세부 전략과 세부 전략에 따른 예를 제시하였다.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.405-420
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to contrive the specific teaching plans based on the frame of 2007 revised science curriculum for applying open-inquiry lesson in real education situation and to research the effects of open-inquiry lesson on the student's science-related attitude, science process skill, and to investigate instructing teachers' cognition about open-inquiry. For this study, two fifth grade classes were chosen, one class was the experimental group, who were taught by open-inquiry based lesson, and another was the comparative group, who were taught by traditional method based lesson. The findings of this study were as follows: After open-inquiry lesson, the experimental group students came to enjoy open-inquiry learning and had the positive thought about it. After open-inquiry lesson, the experimental group marked higher mean score than the comparative group in science-related attitude's field but didn't showed the meaningful difference. On the other hand, in science process skill's field, the experimental group showed the significant higher improvement than the comparative one, especially in the subordinate area of basic science process skill. Finally, teachers who instructed students open-inquiry lesson thought open-inquiry lesson is the self-directed problem solving learning which raise the student's science process skill and interest. And the teachers thought the obstacles to instruct open-inquiry lesson are the lack of the student's cognition about open-inquiry and the insufficient circumstance for open-inquiry lesson. Therefore the teachers argued that the prerequisite for settling open-inquiry lesson successfully is to develope open-inquiry lesson curricula and teaching materials.