• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.773-790
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• 2015

Conducted as an ethnographic examination of science teaching and learning in an Innovative Middle School in Korea, this study employs sociocultural theory to examine how structures afford and limit student participation in an innovative school designed to promote student-centered learning. Data includes teacher and student interviews, student responses to a questionnaire, classroom observations, and analysis of video recordings of ten lessons in two in two 8th grade science classes. Using structure|agency dialectic theory, we identify and describe some structures that afford and limit teacher and student agency at the micro (science classrooms), meso (school), and macro (Korean society) levels to raise some questions about current reform measures, such as innovation schools, that seek to position classroom teachers as agents for change in science education reform in Korea. Findings suggest that while teachers and school administrators play an essential role in structuring learning opportunities at the meso and micro levels, they have limited agency to address structural constraints originating at the macro-level, which can negatively impact teaching and learning in the science classroom. We offer implications for policy and practice and argue the need for more qualitative research, informed by sociocultural theory, to inform science education reform efforts in Korea.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.58 no.3
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• pp.459-481
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• 2019

This study aims to investigate students' statistical thinking through statistical processes in different instructional settings: Teacher-centered instruction vs. student-centered learning. We first developed instructional materials that allowed students to experience all the processes of statistics, including data collection, data analysis, data representation, and interpretation of the results. Using the instructional materials for four classes, we collected and analyzed the data from 57 seventh graders' discourse and artifacts from two different instructional settings using the analytic framework generated on the basis of literature review. The results showed that students felt difficulty particularly in the process of data collection and graph representations. In addition, even though data description has been heavily emphasized for data analysis in statistics education, it is surprisingly discovered that students had a hard time to understand the relationship between data and representations. Also, there were relationships between students' statistical thinking and instructional settings. Even though both groups of students showed difficulty in data collection and graph representations of the data, there were significant differences between the groups in terms of their performance. Whereas students from student-centered learning class outperformed in making decisions considering verification and justification, students from teacher-centered lecture class did better in problems requiring accuracy than the counterpart. The results from the study provide meaningful implications on developing curriculum and instructional methods for statistics education.

• Journal of Engineering Education Research
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.53-62
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• 2017

This paper explored how university students viewed flipped learning from their own perspectives. Using qualitative research methods, 5 students from a Computer Graphics course at a mid-scale university in Seoul were interviewed for this purpose. Researchers collected data about their learning experiences, emotions, and reflections about flipped learning in general and its components such as online materials, in-class activities, and instructor guidance. Research findings indicated that students were not so much conscious about the unfamiliarity of the class, the increased work load, nor the online lectures. They rather prioritized 'what they could actually learn' from the course, and thus defined flipped learning as a method which enabled students to constantly check and fill in the gaps in their learning through team-based activities and prompt feedback from the professor. A combination of students' positive attitude and active participation in team-based activities, the overall atmosphere of the department which supported interactivity and collaboration, the professor's emphasis on learning-by-doing and student-centered learning appeared to form their notions of flipped learning. The use of technology did not appear to heavily impact students' conceptions of flipped learning. Researchers suggest that pedagogical beliefs of the professor, culture surrounding the learner, and the good match between the course content and instructional strategies are central for designing a successful flipped learning class.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.477-491
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• 2009

The purpose of this study is to analyze activities of mentally retarded students studying science within inclusive classes from the aspect of activity sharing to investigate ways of improving their involvement in the tasks. For this study, three mentally retarded students and their peer group in inclusive classes were observed and videotaped for 12 science class sessions about forces and waves. There were many cases in which task involvement of mentally retarded students changed according to three degrees of their activity sharing: well-synchronized, delayed and estranged. When degrees of activity sharing were estranged or delayed, task involvement of the mentally retarded students faded from activeness to passiveness. When the degree of activity sharing was well-synchronized, the mentally retarded students showed interest in learning and were able to participate in science class more actively. Different patterns of activity sharing of mentally retarded students between teacher-centered activities and student-centered activities were observed. In most cases of teacher-centered activities, the monotonous pace could deprive the mentally retarded students of their chance to catch up. As a result, their delayed degrees of activity sharing were faded into estranged degrees. In many cases of student-centered activities, various pacing according to the groups or students could provide mentally retarded students with a chance to catch up, so they could be well-synchronized. In one case of teacher-centered activity, the mentally retarded students were well-synchronized with the teacher's repeated explanations and well-matched illustrations on the blackboard and textbooks. In some cases of student-centered activities, students were well-synchronized with positive relations with and appropriate intervention by other students. In conclusion, various approaches to encourage activity sharing of mentally retarded students with normal ones should be pursued to improve task involvement and academic achievement of mentally retarded students.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.35-44
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• 1978

In this study, concept centered approach and process centered approach in developing integrated science curriculum were compared and compromised between two approaches. It seems that two approaches are in antagonistic relations. The superficial conflictions getween two approaches are not because they are antagonistic in their nature, but because their interesting points are different. The concept centered approahc is interest in fundamental scientific concepts and the process centered approach is interested in scientific enquiry. If science is the composition of enquiry processes and concepts produced by enquiry processes, scientific enquiry process and scientific concept must not be inconsistant. Although concepts are not unchangeable, new concepts and advanced concepts are based on the old concepts. Enquiry activity which is not based on concepts also cannot be significant enquiry. Although fundamental concepts in science is very important, in order to apply concepts to varios phenomena, and to understand concepts more deeply the student should understand concept through the process by which the concepts are derived. As we have discussed above, only the concept centered approach or the process centered approach itself is not complete. Comparing these two uncomplete approaches to integrated science curriculum, we can find out that two approaches are in complementary relations. Because integrated science is based on the idea that natural phenomena should not be understood in fragments, but should be understood as mutually related system' the integrated science curriculum includes both the fundamental scientific concepts and scientific enquiry processes.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.507-518
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• 2009

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of verbal analogy activities on science achievement and science attitude of elementary students. Students consolidated lessons by making short sentences with core words that a teacher gave for scaffolding instruction. Many researches about analogies have been conducted in science education. However, most of them considered analogy as learning tools, whereas this research considers analogy as a cognitive process. To see the effects of verbal analogy activities, two groups were selected from 6th grade elementary school students; one was an experimental group working with the student-generated verbal analogy and the other was a control group with teacher-centered and textbook-centered activities. Science achievement, scientific attitudes, attitudes toward science and retention were tested after the treated lessons.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.61-75
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• 1999

This study has its purpose to develop an optimal teaching model in math class leading to an effective device of open education in mathematics being transformed from the current teacher-centered teaching to the individually specified student-centered one on the basis of the definitions and methods of open education learned from sundry literature references. Accordingly, this paper established several patterns of effective open math class for teaching specific math's contents, followed by developing applicable teaching-learning models for class situation rested on each math lesson's features. Unit learning models for open education in mathematics, which were made step by step according to each unit's contents were also presented to be applied to real class situations.

• Communications of Mathematical Education
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.327-347
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• 2009

The purpose of the present study is to investigate the effects of mathematical communication-centered teaching using peer feedbacks on students' mathematics achievement and mathematical dispositions toward mathematics, and then this study examined the characteristics of feedbacks used by students. To do this study, two sixth grade classes selected from an elementary school in Seoul participated in the current study; one class for a treatment group applying mathematical communication-centered teaching using peer feedback, and the other for a comparison group applying traditional teaching using teacher-centered communication. The results of this study showed the fact that a treatment group of mathematical communication-centered teaching applying peer feedback scored statistically higher than a comparison group applying teacher-centered communication with respect to both students' mathematical achievement and disposition. Especially, this communication-centered teaching program focused on peer feedback was more effective to middle or lower level students than higher level students. In addition, mathematical communication-centered teaching applying peer feedbacks helps students reflect their own thinking process about problem solving, and students experienced the improvement of their confidence about mathematics from opportunities to provide peers with feedbacks. Finally, the present study suggests the important role of communication in mathematics learning, particularly student-to-student feedbacks rather than teacher-to-students feedbacks. That is to say, students need to have many opportunities to represent their own mathematical thinking processes using mathematical language.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Educational Facilities
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.11-16
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• 2020

Today, the paradigm of education is changing from teacher-centered, facility-centered, supplier-centered to student-centered, people-centered, and user-centered. In 2019, the Ministry of Education promoted the school space innovation project to provide a school space as a balanced life space, such as learning, play, and rest, through educational activities led by students, who are the leaders of the future society. Based on this, Incheon Metropolitan City Office of Education prepared a manual for practice while carrying out a project to build a future classroom. In those projects 'user participatory design' is applied as a new design approach and facilitators play an important role as experts in the process of user participatory design. However, it is different from the guidelines by the Ministry of Education in terms of facilitator role; facilitator in Incheon's future classroom projects can be in charge of designer part. This was possible because the design scope was limited to the classroom space and the construction permit work was not applied, and the Incheon Metropolitan City Office of Education seems to be able to successfully implement the plan derived through 'user participatory design' under the responsibility of the facilitator. However, this may be considered to be inconsistent with the basic purpose of the school space innovation project. In the case of the school unit project, it is considered that more systematic supplementation is necessary.

• Journal of The Korean Association of Information Education
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.323-332
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• 2015

The purpose of this study is to verify the effectiveness of teaching and learning strategies of learner-centered learning for the computational thinking that is the educational purpose of SW education. For improving computational thinking, funny and easy educational contents and appropriate teaching and learning strategies are needed. In this study, I applied and verified the learner-centered strategies for non-computer major learners in computational thinking education: collaboration, sharing, self-directed learning. As the result, the teaching and learning of learner-centered learning affects the pleasure and the interest of learners; they affect computational thinking efficacy; it affects intention to use. It is able to apply this learner-centered learning strategies to computational thinking education as an effective educational strategies.