• Educational Technology International
• /
• v.11 no.1
• /
• pp.69-92
• /
• 2010

The purpose of this study is to examine middle school teachers' use of technology and problem-based learning (PBL) in their teaching practice. Factors related to teachers' use of technology and PBL are also investigated including: teachers' computer and Internet skills, feelings of preparedness to use the Internet, attitudes toward the use of web resources, pedagogical beliefs, science teaching efficacy, and the use of general teaching strategies. Twenty-seven middle school science, math, and technology teachers participated in the study. Research results describe the participants as slightly proficient in computer and Internet skills, positive toward use of web resources, and neutral on feelings of preparedness toward use of computer and the Internet. Participants also tended toward constructivist pedagogical beliefs and used various teaching strategies. They, however, reported low science teaching efficacy. Teachers' use of computers and the Internet correlated with pedagogical beliefs and feelings of preparedness toward the use of computers and the Internet. The study also found the relationships between the use of PBL and teachers' computer and internet skills, pedagogical beliefs, and the use of general teaching strategies. Also discussed are meaningful implications for teachers' professional development, especially for the programs designed to facilitate the use of web-enhanced PBL.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.27 no.6
• /
• pp.529-545
• /
• 2007

Questioning forms an integral part of most strategies for effective teaching when the class consists of difficult content. Science including chemistry is usually content-rich, but difficult to understand without supporting lab experiments, subsidiary visual materials and model kits. Engaging the attention and interest of students in such a subject, therefore, is the key to the success of a daily lesson in the classroom. However, generating meaningful questions requires a certain level of information and metacognitive skills on the part of the teacher. The purpose of this study was to find out the framework of effective teachers' questioning with a large group in chemistry class: how teachers used questioning to engage their students in such a big class, to identify a variety of forms of feedback provided by students and to develop a model of question-inducing strategies. We investigated the teachers' recognition of their questioning and the students' recognition of teachers' questioning by surveying over 82 teachers and 434 students in Korea. The survey findings show that the questionnaire can be categorized into four elements: the theme of the teachers' questions (T), students' inquiries (I), methods of teachers' questioning (M) and encouragement of students (E). These elements can be analyzed and sub-categorized to find out which elements are effective in good questioning, even though the elements are interwoven tetrahedrally.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.22 no.5
• /
• pp.991-1009
• /
• 2002

This qualitative study investigated two preservice teachers' conceptual ecologies in professional development during the science teacher preparation program. The notion of a conceptual ecology contains nature of knowledge, science and science teaching, learning, and content knowledge and comfort level. The data were collected during the participants' preservice year and their practicum experience. Both data collections and analyzing were from the various sources of interviews, teaching observations, journals, and information and profiles by the participants' supervisor. Two preservice teachers serve as cases representative of this study. Results show that problems preventing the preservice teachers from moving closer to conceptual change teaching were their understandings of the nature of science and the nature of knowledge. The preservice teachers' views about knowledge come from, and what knowledge is, are largely shaped by the nature of science and learning drive pedagogy and classroom practice. Knowledge of and comfort with the subject matter are also important.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
• /
• v.18 no.1
• /
• pp.41-51
• /
• 1999

The purpose of this study was to Investigate about current status of authentic science performance assessment in elementary schools. A total of 707 elementary teachers was involved and the data from questionnaire was gathered. The questionnaire was comprised two categories: items on the epistemological aspect & items on the actual condition. The major findings are as follows: 1. There are some elementary teachers who don't have a clear understanding on what authentic science performance assessment is even though most of teachers admit the importance of authentic performance assessment in their science teaching. 2. Malty teachers have chosen and have used experimental activities or performance tasks rather than they have developed tasks of their own. 3. Malty teachers have pointed out 'tile lack of time for performance assessment preparation' and 'the limitation of class time' as tile problems of working on science performance assessment in elementary schools.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
• /
• v.25 no.2
• /
• pp.53-62
• /
• 2004

For teachers to develop new beliefs regarding science teaching and learning, they must undergo a process similar to what they are trying to provide their students. Seventy-one Korean secondary school teachers including 20 earth science teachers have participated in such process. In the four-week long summer workshop hosted by University of Iowa, science teachers were exposed to several activities and lectures wherein they experienced student-centered lessons by playing the roles of both teachers and learners. This study examined the influence of such experience on the teachers’ beliefs about science teaching and learning. Changes in teachers’ beliefs were found in seven question items on the subjects of goals of science learning, the roles of science teachers and students, and classroom practices after workshop participation; it was found that teachers’ beliefs of science learning and teaching shifted from teacher-centered to student-centered. Although this shift does not denote a complete shift from one extreme to the other, it is meaningful to note that teachers’ beliefs after attending the workshop were interpreted to be either anti- or contrary to teacher-centered. One of the possible factors for making such positive changes may have been teamwork or the teachers’ cooperative learning experience.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
• /
• v.28 no.4
• /
• pp.450-466
• /
• 2009

The purpose of this study was to explore preservice elementary teachers' perceptions on models used in science and science education. Participants were sixty-one undergraduate students who were enrolled in a science education course offered at a university of education located in a mid-sized city, Korea. Data were obtained from the participants at the beginning of the course when they provided their answers to a questionnaire about models. The analysis revealed that a large number of the preservice teachers perceived models as representative of physical realities. By contrast, a relatively small number of them viewed models as representations of ideas or things like theories or hypotheses. Lots of the participants were apt to define a model from the perspective of its functions and considered the purposes of models communication, teaching, and understanding as well as visualization, simplification, and clarification. Most of the preservice teachers believed that there could be multiple models for a single target, and all of them answered that models could be changed in science. It was therefore concluded that the preservice teachers perceived properly the multiplicity and variability of models. Nevertheless, they could not elaborate how a model is used and evaluated in the process of scientific inquiry, and just a few of them mentioned the detailed nature of models. The preservice teachers possessed teacher-centered views of using models in the science classroom, and a small number of them remarked that they were going to use models for students to develop their own models and perform scientific inquiry.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
• /
• v.38 no.5
• /
• pp.367-377
• /
• 2017

The purpose of this research is to investigate characteristics of science content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge shown in the primary school science classes. Through analysis of classroom teaching, explore the features and differences between primary and secondary school science PCK. Using open-ended interviews with the teachers and group discussions on a regular basis to analyze and compare classes of five primary school teachers, the relationship between CK and PCK. Regardless of the school level the teacher's PCK and professionalism is required with varying focus and emphasis. The features of the primary school teacher's PCK are as follows: Firstly, elementary teach secondary teach content, teachers value pedagogical knowledge (PK) content knowledge (CK). The primary school PCK requires more of understanding of students and teaching methods that to subject areas. PCK be without content knowledge, and the teacher's PCK is subject-specific In addition to the characteristics of PCK in the primary school science teaching, ways to set up professional exchange or collaboration between primary and secondary teachers, and to provide supplementary in-service training focused on content knowledge for primary school teachers.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
• /
• v.32 no.4
• /
• pp.422-434
• /
• 2011

The purpose of this research is to investigate the actual conditions of primary school science teaching and ways to improve it. In elementary science teaching, teachers themselves tend to have science misconceptions and insufficient science content knowledge. Experienced teachers argued that it could be hard for elementary teachers with lack of science content knowledge to provide their students with meaningful learning experiences of science. Based on the general characteristics of elementary teaching and the awareness of elementary teachers' insufficient science content knowledge, we explored the real situation of the elementary science classroom. We conducted open-ended interviews with teachers and focus group discussions on a regular basis to analyze and compare classes of five primary school teachers. Data analysis focused on why elementary students avoid science classes in upper grades of elementary school and why elementary science classes always need hands-on activities. We also discussed ways to turn hands-on investigation into minds-on investigation by connecting it to important ideas in science. Based on the results, we suggested ways to improve inservice teacher training such as designing supplementary in-service training focused on content knowledge for primary school teachers, setting up professional exchange or collaboration between primary and secondary teachers, and introducing subject-specialized teachers for the fifth and sixth graders of primary school. In particular, considering elementary teachers' insufficient science content knowledge, employing science subject matter specialists in the elementary school could be a useful strategy.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
• /
• v.6 no.1
• /
• pp.1-12
• /
• 2013

20 preservice teachers at college level participated in this study and interacted with students at elementary and middle school levels during science camp offered by science center in Taiwan. Preservice teachers displayed moderate (above the average, 4 point out of 5) understandings about scientific literacy and scientific views in all aspects of the nature of science before the camp. Then, the researchers designed science camp programs which were expected to promote students' scientific literacy; scientific knowledge, inquiry skills for experimentation as well as for argumentation, affective domain such as the attitude toward science and the understandings about nature of science and the relationship among STS (Science-Technology-Society), all of which were embedded in the programs. Preservice teachers seemed to perceive scientific literacy pretty well (over 4 point) before the camp, however, preservice teachers' understandings about scientific literacy were not much scored (around 3 point, but still moderate scores of average) as expected after concrete inquiry activities. The reasons why this happened could be that preservice teachers were not trained to employ theory into the context to be more practical or the researchers did not develop camp program which included the aspect of scientific literacy successfully. The discussion and implication were made in teacher education in that preservice teachers must be prepared how to bridge theory into practice, and informal science education in that educators at science centers must be trained to be experts in providing the envisioned educational programs to meet the goal of science education, scientific literacy.

• Journal of Distribution Science
• /
• v.11 no.9
• /
• pp.35-42
• /
• 2013

Purpose - The objective of this paper is to identify how different incentive factors influence teachers with different ages and professional titles at LinYi University, China. Research design, data, and methodology - A total of 435 university teachers participated in the study, and the Grey Correlation Degree Analysis method was used to analyze the sample data. Results - The results indicated that teachers with different professional titles and ages have different levels of preference on various incentive factors. Young and assistant-level teachers seem to place more importance on incentives than associate and senior-level teachers. Conclusions - This study has some practical implications. First, the principal and school administrators should pay more attention to young and middle-aged teachers and to how these teachers are motivated through monetary incentives as compared to associate or senior-level teachers. Second, school administrators should pay more attention to teachers' opportunities for career growth and should provide more opportunity for academic promotion. In order to stimulate positivity in teachers, school administrators should adopt various incentive systems.