• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.484-499
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• 2015

This study explores the impact of a STEM integration teacher professional development program focusing on teachers' perception of engineering and their attitudes toward integrating engineering into teaching. A total of sixty-eight teachers from ten schools participated in the program for five days. Data are collected from three main sources including (1) pre and post concept maps probing teachers' perceptions about the engineering discipline, (2) a pre and post survey measuring teachers' self-efficacy of teaching science/mathematics within the engineering context, and (3) engineering integrated science and (or) mathematics lesson plans and teaching reflections. This study utilizes both qualitative and quantitative research methods depending on the data we have collected. The results show that both science and math teachers thought that integrating engineering into teaching provided valuable outcomes, i.e., promoting students' learning about engineering and improving their interest in science or math through real-world problem solving exercises. Participants also felt more comfortable about integrating engineering in their teaching after the program. The results also imply that the teachers' understandings of engineering become more concrete after the program. This study also provides an overview of the challenges and advantages of teaching engineering in K-12 science and mathematics classrooms.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.517-524
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• 2002

The secondary science teachers' professional needs and their preference for training method between off-line and on-line education were investigated. A nation-wide survey was administered to 145 science teachers from 106 secondary schools. The respondents showed high demands on all items. The prominent need was to motivate students learning science. To the contrary. their need for learning more about history and philosophy of science was the lowest. Veteran teachers and high school teachers had higher demands on designing evaluation items, but nonveteran teachers on evaluating the effectiveness of their instruction and updating their scientific knowledge. Teachers preferred the online education as a training method for most items except laboratory activities.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.437-451
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to analyse beginning science teachers' PCK. For the purpose of this study, two beginning science teachers were chosen in public middle school. Qualitative data were collected through classroom observation recording, semi-structured interviews, and other document data. Data were analysed using the constant comparative method. The results indicated that the two beginning science teachers' PCK had little differences; both have insufficient knowledge of science curriculum and assessment, and their PCK had quite differences in the instructional strategies and the orientations toward teaching science. Though they were aware of students' various levels, their common teaching method focused on delivery of science text knowledge for poor understanding about student. In conclusion, the two beginning teachers' PCK were still similar with preservice teachers. To develop beginning teachers' PCK, it needs to change the paradigm of pre-service teachers education program and to expand in-service teachers training and supporting program.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.334-346
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• 2012

For teachers' conceptions and understandings are critical to their decision making and classroom practice, this study attempts to understand pre-service elementary teachers' views and practices of science inquiry during peer teaching practice. Fifteen 4th year university students in teacher education program participated in peer teaching practice. Their teaching and reflective discussion were video and audio recorded and written lesson plans were collected for data analysis. Five science teacher educators individually looked into the data and shared their comments and interpretations on pre-service teachers' views and practice. The study findings suggest that pre-service teachers emphasized the importance of providing students with motivating resources in the beginning of lesson, employing certain inquiry teaching models, the process of predicting and dis/proving via experiment, and teachers' minimal intervention as the important features of inquiry teaching. Science teacher educators emphasized that it is critical to help children understand inquiry questions in the beginning of inquiry process, to be mindful of children's problem solving and critical thinking rather than following instruction models or simply going through prediction and test process. They also commented that teachers' guidance could lead a good inquiry process in classroom practice, not always interfering students' inquiry. Based on the findings, the study suggests science teacher educators need to understand what and how pre-service teachers view and practice science inquiry teaching and consider these as useful resources where they can start effective teaching for pre-service teachers at the university level.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.531-538
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• 2005

The primary purpose of the study was to investigate the degree of difficulty and the causes of the difficulties in science instruction reported by elementary teachers and students. The secondary purpose was to suggest the effective methods to both of them to improve the efficiency of science instruction. For this study, the survey was carried out on 322 students and 156 teachers in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades. The questionnaires consisted of interest, difficulty and its factors. The results of this investigation are summarized as follows; 1. Teachers had relatively higher interest than students in science instruction content(textbook). Furthermore, the units that teachers showed interest differed from those that students had. This means that there is a significant difference of interest in instruction process between teachers and students. 2. Teachers felt much higher difficulty than students in the content of science instruction. This shows that the degree of interest might have little relation with that of difficulty, and that teaching of science seemed more difficult than teaming. Moreover, there was a difference of difficulty in the units between the teachers and students. The result shows a distinctive difference of difficulty in 8 units of the 3rd grade, 9 units n the 4th grade, and 12 units in the 5th grade (p<.05, p<.001, p<.005, respectively). It means that the difficulty depended on the units. 3. Students responded that they are responsible for difficulty factors of teaming, otherwise teachers thought that students are responsible for it, when the factors were divided into student factor, teacher factor, and curriculum factor. 4. Students demanded many experiments in the lab as well as easy and interesting instructions in order to reduce the degree of difficulty and to improve the condition of science instructions. However, teachers demanded the expansion of experimental equipments and materials as well as the improvement of the lab condition.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.43-52
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• 1986

It is the purpose at thus survey to get hold at problems in teaching integrated science in middle school. For this purpose, problems and suggestions were collected by questionnaire which were made out by middle school science teachers. Through the analysis of the questionnaire, it was found that the present curriculum of science education in the college of education and the in-service training program were not suitable for training middle school science teacher. Form the results of the analysis, this survey concluded that the curriculum and program mentioned above need improvement as follows. (1) science education curriculum in the college of education should be set up with two part. One is the part that middle school science teachers are trained and the other is the part that high school science teachers are trained. (2) In-service training program should be set off into two kinds. One is the program that middle school science teachers are trained and the other program that high school science teachers are trained.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.140-146
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• 2002

We have studied 73 pre-service science teachers' conceptions about the nature of science (NOS) using 120 true-false test items based on AAAS Benchmarks statements. We have found that participants have inadequate understanding of the NOS, especially in understanding of five categories of conceptions; change and continuity in science, bias in scientific investigations, hypothesis in scientific investigations, things common in science, and science ethics. The result also indicates that there is a difference between primary pre-service teachers and secondary pre-service teachers. From the analysis of consistency, we also found that this inadequate understanding comes from confusion rather than misconception. All the results support that there is a need of intense pre-service teacher education concerning thenature of science.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.200-209
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• 1996

Recent literature in science education has emphasized nature of science in science teaching. The theme has been considered to be an important element for scientific literacy.The purpose of this study was to identify Korean science teachers' points of view on topics related to nature of science, such as definition of science, characteristics of scientific hypotheses, scientific theories and scientific laws, and their construction, scientists, and scientific methods. The relevant 13 items were selected from Views on Science-Technology-Society (VOSTS) by the authors for this study. Most teachers perceived science as an exploratory process or problem solving. Some perceived science as an application of knowledge to make this world a better place to live in. Teachers viewed scientific activities as scholastic and individualistic instead of pragmatic or collective. They did not hold clear understandings of the idea that scientific knowledge is subject to change. As identified in previous studies, teachers thought that scientific ideas develop from hypothesis to theories, and finally to scientific laws. They did not show sound understanding of inventiveness of scientific hypotheses and theories, nor discovery of scientific laws. In summary, teachers' major points of view reflected 'realism'. It suggested that they needed to understand nature of science in the ways which it has been described in recent literature of science education, in order to teach science with personal and social contexts.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.464-472
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• 1997

The purpose of training science teachers is to bring up the ideality and the most excellent science teachers whom our society needs. So, teacher training college curriculums of science education should be the ones that will train competent and respectable science teachers who have the technical and practical theory and knowledge through the process of high level academic experiences and activities. Accordingly, the training system and improvement plan for the problems in employment of science teachers in secondary schools should be as follows: 1. The employment examination for teachers should be abolished instead, the system of an apprentice teacher should be brought in, or private schools as well as public schools should bring in employment examination system. 2. With the modification of science teacher training curriculums, the cooperative studies of science major subjects and science education subjects should be strengthened and the connection between real needs of secondary schools and curriculums of secondary school science teacher training should be embodied. 3. Bringing up excellent science teachers should be facilitated through the establishment of administrative and financial aiding system about teacher training college.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.663-679
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• 2011

This case study focused on three science teachers who participated in the Research Experience for Teachers (RET) program conducted by the Center for Bridging Advanced Science and Education (CBASE). The RET program provides opportunities for participants to experience experimentations in a science laboratory for six months, enabling teachers develop teaching materials based on their experience from the RET program. The purpose of this study was to explore how the teachers had developed their professionalism through participation in the program and which factors promoted the professional development of science teachers. In this research, we defined pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) as the required knowledge for teachers to develop for their professional development. As a result of the RET program, all three participants showed integration of PCK elements: orientation to teaching science, knowledge of science, knowledge of students, knowledge of teaching, and knowledge of sources. The PCK elements which had been developed by the RET program were applied in school context and the teachers' belief became clear and strong. The teachers were able to understand the process of authentic science as they learned it from 'legitimate peripheral participation' in the authentic research context. They also showed dynamic integration between newly established elements of PCK by reflecting on the school context while developing the teaching materials. The professional development of each teacher was different depending on the purpose and PCK, which participants had already possess. This study will provide meaningful implication for the development of professional development program for science teachers based on research experience.