• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.72-86
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• 2023

The purpose of this study is to examine what epistemological beliefs pre-service teachers have about science depending on the situation, and to explore in-depth changes in epistemological beliefs through disciplinary reading. For this purpose, 77 essays written by pre-service elementary school teachers after reading Feynman's 'the meaning of it all' were analyzed using an inductive analysis method. As a result of the study, the epistemological beliefs of pre-service teachers were divided into two situations: 'science in subject learning' and 'science in daily life', and the epistemological beliefs formed in the 'science handled by scientists' situation were analyzed after reading the book. Each situation was divided into sub-categories of 'Impression of Knowledge', 'Source of Knowledge', 'Justification of Knowledge', 'Variability of Knowledge', 'Structure of Knowledge', and 'Value of Knowledge Acquisition' to reveal differences in sophisticated beliefs and naive belief levels. As a result, it was derived that Feynman's science lecture influenced pre-service teachers in terms of establishing new perspectives and recontextualizing existing epistemological beliefs. This study is meaningful in that pre-service teachers' scientific epistemological beliefs may vary depending on the situation, and that the scope and depth of epistemological beliefs may be expanded to include scientists' beliefs in science through disciplinary reading.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.331-343
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• 2014

The types of misconceptions and their consistencies of the elementary school teachers about the characteristics of currents according to the connection methods of batteries in simple electric circuits were investigated. The misconceptions of the elementary school teachers about them could be divided into three types. Among the respondents of the 96 elementary school teachers for this study, the 2 elementary school teachers consistently understood the characteristics of currents on the basis of the misconception type of focusing only the number of batteries connected regardless of the connection methods of batteries, the 8 elementary school teachers did on the basis of the misconception type of confusing the series connection and the parallel connection of batteries, and the 4 elementary school teachers did on the basis of the misconception type of confusing the series and parallel connection of batteries with those of resistors. Also, they consistently applied these misconception types to not only the situations to use the learned concepts but the situations to use the differentiated concepts about the connection methods of batteries.

• School Mathematics
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.105-126
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• 2016

Math classes has been regarded as an independent area of a teacher and his/her students of a particular class. In Recent discussions about the professional development of teachers, for the improvement of practices, the point of view of that the community of teachers must work together is spreading. What are the considerations in organization and operation of learning communities for professional development of teachers? In this study, we analyzed the case of the learning community of math teachers in a Science Academy for the purpose of improving math classes to promote the participation of learners. Research results show that teachers share the principles and goals of mathematics teaching through the learning community. Also, through participation in learning communities, the members were practicing the lessons improved by reflection on the lessons of his/her and their colleagues. These results provide implication that it is important to provide opportunities for objectifying his/her classes through the learning community for a substantial improvement in math classes.

• Journal of the Korean Society of School Health
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.67-72
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• 2009

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the toothpaste squeezing methods and the amount of toothpaste that the daycare teachers apply for the children in order to prevent the overuse of fluoride-containing toothpaste among children, and to understand their educational experiences on oral health and their awareness of the right amount of toothpaste used. Methods: The subjects in this study were 87 teachers at 16 different daycare centers in the city of Sokcho, Gangwon Province. They were interviewed to find out whether they had ever received oral health education and whether they were cognizant of the right amount of toothpaste to be used. And a transverse technique and a pea-sized squeezing technique were selected to look for connections between their toothpaste squeezing methods and the amount of toothpaste used by them. Results: 89.7 percent of the daycare teachers investigated taught to preschoolers how to do toothbrushing after they took meals and had a snack. 36.8 percent of the daycare teachers had children squeeze toothpaste on their own. The amount of toothpaste applied by the daycare teachers at a time was 0.58ｇ. When they utilized two other squeezing methods, transverse technique and pea-sized squeezing technique, they used each 0.38 g (p<0.005) and 0.38 g (p=0.405) of toothpaste. Conclusion: To prevent children from being overly exposed to fluoride-containing toothpaste, daycare teachers should learn about the right amount of toothpaste to be used when oral health education is provided, and the transverse technique should be recommended to ensure the use of the proper amount of toothpaste.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.291-301
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• 2008

The purpose of this study was to investigate explanations of high school chemistry II textbooks and the diversity of chemistry major teachers' thinking types related to dilute solution properties for finding the sources of students' difficulties. Eight kinds of textbooks were analyzed, and the teachers' thoughts were searched by a questionnaire developed for inquiring teachers' preference of explanation types. We analyzed teachers' responses from individual interviews after the questionnaire to discern their deeper thoughts. From the results, it was found that the explanations of the textbooks were not clear enough to have scientific conceptions. The figures and explanations of the textbooks do not match either. It was also found that chemistry major teachers' thoughts were not solid when they suffered cognitive confliction by different situation with their thoughts.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.52 no.6
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• pp.696-702
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• 2008

• Journal of the Korean Society for information Management
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.149-172
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• 2009

The purpose of this study was to examine the demand of parents and teachers for a children's library and analyze the need in consideration of their age and children's library-using frequency. The subjects in this study were 1,500 parents and teachers in the region of Gwangju, on whom a survey was implemented to find out the necessity of a children's library, what should be considered in terms of design and program development and what forms of materials should be provided. As a result of checking their needs for the functions of a library, the parents and teachers investigated attached importance to culture, welfare and hands-on culture/art programs as what a library should focus on. Second, as for design, they gave top priority to comfortableness(sanitary facilities, ventilation, humidity and temperature) and safety(sofas, cushions and carpets for children). Third, as to program preference, both of the parents and teachers considered activity, performance and educational programs necessary among multiple kinds of ongoing programs. Specifically, performance programs ranked first among the parents and third among the teachers. Activity programs ranked first among the teachers and third among the parents. Fourth, concerning the importance of materials possessed by a library, they placed the most emphasis on the kind of materials that could foster creativity and instill the right personality.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.84-93
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• 2012

We have studied possibilities of Peer Instruction(PI) to train in-service science teachers in elementary and middle schools through both degree of conceptual changes and investigating responses to questionaries. 169 teachers were attended and the subject for training was about light propagation to teach scientific conception about a pin hole camera. 6 conceptests were developed. Degree of conceptual changes was analyzed from results obtained from 24 elementary and 32 middle school teachers among them. On the other hand, answers to questionaries were obtained from 135. Relatively high gain near to about 0.7 in conceptual changes was obtained even though their initial levels were quite low. Interesting point is that elementary teachers have higher initial level and larger gain than middle school teachers. Teachers have very much enjoyed and showed strong support to PI for helping conceptual change, and willing to use PI to their own class. Also they conceived dealing concept in teacher training is very important and evaluated PI very positively for teacher training.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.229-248
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to develop sequential concept tests (ConcepTest) for teachers' conceptual change on the straight propagation of light through in-service training of science teachers by peer instruction. We revised the ConcepTests for attaining the goal concept by implementing similar training courses for teachers three times and analyzing the results using both Hake gain and verbal protocol. The final form helped most teachers to reach the goal concept. While teachers are solving a given concept problem test, they had shown not only significant cognitive conflict to select one among candidate answers, but also used the concept obtained through the previous problem. The sequential ConcepTests developed in this study can be useful for training elementary and secondary teachers or pre-service teacher education.

• 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.