• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.152-161
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• 2011

The purpose of this study is to diagnose difficulties and problems that the preservice teachers experience when teaching inquiry-based classes in elementary science and to improve their professionalism through prescriptive instruction consulting utilizing PDRE (preparation, diagnosis, reflective implementation, evaluation) model. The result of this study was as follows. First, preservice teachers considered themselves to be lack of scientific knowledge, but this study confirmed that the application of instruction consulting improved their understandings in scientific concepts and principles and corrected their misconceptions. Second, preservice teachers experienced difficulties in variables that might influence the results of experiments, cautions for the experiments and unexpected results of experiments, and this consulting allowed them to gain instruction ability to cope with such circumstances and solve problems effectively. Third, preservice teachers experienced difficulties in applying instructional model into their classes and preparing lesson plans, but consulting actually made limited but positive changes in their abilities. However, from a longer-term perspective, quantitative increase in their teaching opportunities, the development and distribution of example manuals, and the utilization of various class materials provided by the assistant centers for teaching and learning should be achieved side by side.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.9 no.7
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• pp.145-152
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to assess the impact of the principal's democratic leadership style, teacher competency, work discipline, and work environment on teacher performance during the pandemic. Using the proportional random sampling strategy, a sample of 468 respondents consisted of kindergarten teachers, elementary school teachers, junior high school teachers, junior high school teachers, and high school/vocational school teachers. The study revealed that the principal's democratic leadership style, teacher competence, work discipline, and work environment substantially impact teacher performance. However, the principal's democratic leadership style does not affect teacher performance, whereas teacher competence, work discipline, and work environment have a minor impact on teacher performance. Furthermore, during the COVID-19 pandemic, work discipline is the most critical variable influencing teacher performance. The findings of this study suggest that the principal's democratic leadership style, teacher competence, work discipline, and work environment have a positive impact on teacher performance during the pandemic. During the COVID-19 pandemic, work discipline is the most important variable influencing teacher performance. Considering that democratic leadership has no effect on teacher performance and that this leadership style is widely used by school principals in the world of education, it is assumed that there is no effect on teacher performance.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.13-35
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• 2012

This study investigated the contents and methods of science education classes based on the largely constructivist approach of pre-service early childhood teachers. The subjects of this study consisted of 8 junior students from the Early Childhood department and for reference data, reflective journals, interviews, activity planning sheets, recordings of trial lessons, and lesson analysis were used. The results of this study were as follows. First, changes in key points and contents for children science education were found, and reflective journals, interviews, activity planning sheets, recording of trial lessons, and lesson analysis clearly supported these results. Second, the actual changes in the constructivist approach to children's science education had a great impact upon the individual characters of the pre-service early childhood teachers. However, with the study period being limited to only one semester, it was found that the potential of this study to lead to any practical changes was simlilarly limited.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.30-43
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• 2014

'Basic Inquiry' unit was newly included in the grade 3~4 science textbook developed for 2009 revised national curriculum. The unit deals with six basic inquiry skills such as 'observation', 'measurement', 'classification', 'prediction', 'inference', and 'communication'. This study investigated elementary school teachers' perceptions on the effects of 'Basic Inquiry' unit by questionnaires (N=104 for pre-survey, N=90 for post-survey). The results showed that how the teachers have taught basic inquiry skills before this new textbook and how they perceived the educational effects of the unit after experimental teaching period in three aspects; development of basic inquiry skills, facilitating science learning in other units, and implementation of open inquiry. The reasons of positive perceptions as well as negative perceptions were analyzed and discussed with the suggestions for further study.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.686-698
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions and practices of secondary science teachers who participated in an Earth science teachers' research roup about teaching geologic field trips. Four Earth science teachers participated in this study. Data included field trip observations, semi-structured interviews with teachers and students, and analysis of instructional materials and students' reports from the field trip. Field trip observations and interviews were video- and audio-taped and transcribed. Results indicated that teacher participants focused more on aesthetic objectives for geologic field trip. The participants' instruction tended to show rather teacher-centered explanation due to limited time at each field site though various teaching strategies were used at times to engage students in a scientific inquiry. This group of teachers strived to develop their professional ability to guide geologic field trip by working with a small study group with colleagues, participating geologic field trips, and enrolling graduate programs.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.435-443
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• 2016

The purpose of this study is to analyze the mismatch between instructional design and teaching practice of pre-service science teachers and to investigate the cause of these mismatches. Twenty pre-service science teachers took part in teaching practicum for four weeks from Apr. 2015 to May 2015 and we analyzed their lesson plans and videos of these lessons. After that, we interviewed the pre-service science teachers in order to know the cause of these mismatches and additional informations. The main findings are as follows. First, in the introductory stage, we found more mismatch in the "attention and motivation stimulation" area than any other area. Many pre-service science teachers corrected their 'motivation practice' in different forms. Second, we found out that the most mismatch occurred in the evolving stage. Many pre-service science teachers added learning contents in "learning content presentation" area. Third, in the closing stage, many pre-service science teachers omitted the "leaning content summary" area in the lack of time. Fourth, the number of mismatches by internal factors is similar of by external factors. The mismatches by external factors were mainly by feedback of guidance teacher and change by students' response. In addition, we discussed the implications related to reflective mentoring program, importance of guidance teacher, importance of time management etc.

• 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.42 no.6
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• pp.579-595
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• 2022

This study is a qualitative case study of secondary science teachers who are doing educational activities in YouTube. In particular, this study attempts to interpret this case based on Foucault's concept of 'Heterotopia', which means a space that allows for private freedom or deviance by reflecting various utopias without the norms and constraints from every day or real space. Five secondary science teachers who voluntarily opened a personal channel on the YouTube platform and actively uploaded their own videos related to science education participated in the study. In order to understand the experiences of five secondary science teachers, data were individually collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews, and the collected data were analyzed using qualitative case study method. For valid interpretation of the study, we also referred to the video contents, teacher training materials, and teaching and learning materials produced by the participants. As a result of the study, seven themes were revealed: 'Desire for one's own unique educational activities,' 'Youtube as an extended classroom space,' 'Expanded network of relationships beyond the classroom barrier,' 'Satisfaction of desire for recognition and experience of identity as a YouTuber,' 'Tension between the educational space and the YouTube,' 'Space to be reborn as a craftsman,' and 'Finding one's own direction as a Teacher-YouTuber.' Given those findings, we found that the identity and desire of secondary science teachers, which were limited in the existing secondary schools and classrooms, was expanded in a new space called YouTube. In addition, we suggested that YouTube could be a space where science teachers can realize their own ideals and feel the joy. And simple regulating teacher's behavior in Youtube space only based on norms and standards shared in traditional educational space would rather hinder their healthy construction of identity and growth.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.127-138
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• 2023

In this study, the implementation of science classes by pre-service elementary teachers were explored to foster the digital literacy of elementary students. To this end, interviews were conducted with four university students in their 4th year of study at 'G' Education University in Gwangju, also their teaching plans and class implementation videos were analyzed. Interview questions were divided into the science class planning stage, the science class implementation stage, and the post-science class implementation stage, and the interview contents were transcribed and categorized after recording. The results of the study are as follows. First, in the science class planning stage, pre-service elementary teachers considered the degree of elementary students' familiarity when choosing digital teaching and learning tools to foster digital literacy. While writing the teaching plan, it was difficult to set standards related to fostering digital literacy. Second, while pre-service elementary teachers had positive experiences such as improving students' participation in classes and increasing student-specific guidance through real-time data sharing, class time was exceeded due to poor use of digital teaching and learning tools. Third, after teaching their science classes, pre-service teachers presented reflections and requirements for the class. Based on these results, the necessity of developing digital literacy for pre-service elementary teachers and the need to improve the curriculum of education university were proposed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.21-29
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• 1997

Many middle school students have difficulty in understanding biological concepts because too many concepts are presented in the textbook compared to limited school hours. So, it is necessary to select concepts which are indispensable. The purpose of this study is to select key concepts in the unit 'The Continuity of Life' by surveying students' and teachers' cognition on the concepts. In this study, 78 concepts were extracted from 'Science 3', unit II 'The Continuity of Life'. To survey how students and teachers think the concepts, Likert type questionnaires were made. 300 third grade middle school students and 34 biology teachers were selected by random sampling and the questionnaires were applied. The following results were obtained:1. Students thought 59 concepts out of 78 were important and the mean score of important level of the concepts was 3.60. Students thought 26 concepts out of 78 were difficult and the mean score of diffculty level'of the concepts was 3.26. The more they think the concepts important, the more they think them difficult (r=0.7462, p<0.001). 2. Teachers thought 55 concepts out of 78 were important and the mean score of important level of the concepts was 3.82. Teachers thought 33 concepts out of 78 were difficult and the mean score of diffculty level of the concepts was 3.31. The more they think the concepts important, the more they think them difficult (r=0.6138, p<0.001). 3. The selected concepts were considered more important by teachers than by students(t=2.0150, p<0.05). However, there was no significant difference in evaluating the difficulty level of the concepts(t=0.7327, p>0.05). 4. It was found that students have difficulty in understanding concepts when they are presented in the textbook to require formal preparation than concrete preperation(t=2.6612, p<0.05).