• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.30 no.7
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• pp.909-927
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• 2009

Inquiry became an essential methodology in science education. Recently, argumentation becomes more important in inquiry, but inquiry-based teaching in school science would not provide enough opportunities for students to have voluntary and active interactions during inquiry activities. Informal science learning can be an alternative for authentic inquiry. Accordingly, this study aims to find interaction patterns in dialogic inquiry of junior high school students in small groups in the natural history gallery. Inquiry elements and interaction patterns are analyzed with 42 dialogues of 13 small groups. As a result, seven interaction patterns are identified. First, five major interaction patterns were drawn as follows; Sharing questions, asking questions and simple response, asking questions and simple explanation, asking questions-simple explanation-(collecting data)-data based explanation, and asking questions-collecting data-data based explanation. Second, pattern 2, 'asking questions and simple response', is subdivided into three categories; passive and/or evasive response, inaccurate response, and repeated patterns of asking questions-simple response. The results of the study provide different patterns of dialogic interactions in a small group inquiry in informal contexts from formal contexts, and provide foundations to understand middle school students' interactive dialogues of inquiry occurred in the natural history gallery.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.416-429
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• 2018

In social constructivist teaching, knowledge construction is achieved through learners' collective social interaction. Vygotsky argued that this process is mediated with language use, and the development of higher order thinking is realized through the transition from inter-personal psychological functions to intra-personal psychological functions. In so doing scientific concepts are internalized to learners. This study examined the third grade elementary students' inter/intra-personal psychological functions and their internalization processes during social constructivist teaching plan about strata and fossils. The lessons were designed along with Wells' dialogic inquiry and Leach and Scott's social constructivist teaching-learning sequences. Results showed that a teacher's utterances of talking with questioning to switch attention, creating cognitive disequilibrium, and expanding the width of students' opinions could make effective inter-personal psychological function. In addition, a learner's inner speech expressed into social discourse through talking about personal experiences, comparing epistemic idea with visual representation, or applying to different situation showed his/her intra-personal psychological function. Some cases of learners' internalization through language use could be at the stage of knowledge building and understanding of the spiral of knowing, but not all. Thus it is argued that a teacher's deeper insight into Vygotskian social constructivist teaching can make elementary science classroom teaching more effective in their inter/intra-psychological functions.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.509-521
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• 2015

Argumentation is a social and collaborative dialogic process. A large number of researchers have focused on analyzing the structure of students' argumentation occurring in the scientific inquiry context, using the Toulmin's model of argument. Since SSI dialogic argumentation often presents distinctive features (e.g. interdisciplinary, controversial, value-laden, etc.), Toulmin's model would not fit into the context. Therefore, we attempted to develop an analytical framework for SSI dialogic argumentation by addressing the concepts of 'discourse clusters' and 'discourse schemes.' Discourse clusters indicated a series of utterances created for a similar dialogical purpose in the SSI contexts. Discourse schemes denoted meaningful discourse units that well represented the features of SSI reasoning. In this study, we presented six types of discourse clusters and 19 discourse schemes. We applied the framework to the data of students' group discourse on SSIs (e.g. euthanasia, nuclear energy, etc.) in order to verify its validity and applicability. The results indicate that the framework well explained the overall flow, dynamics, and features of students' discourse on SSI.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.521-530
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• 2010

This study aimed to explore how to characterize the earth science inquiry in schools in terms of science teaching interaction and constructivist teaching practice. The constructivist teaching practices were analyzed with Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol (RTOP) in three aspects including (1) student oriented class implementation, (2) subject knowledge and representation, and (3) classroom communication. Fourteen earth science classes were observed and scored with RTOP. The class was evaluated to be transitional stage in terms of constructivist teaching, e.g., moving toward student-centered teaching practice. Especially, Korean teachers tend to lean their classes more on propositional knowledge than procedural knowledge. To interpret science teaching interactions, an earth science teacher with a RTOP top rank was selected. Her class was then videotaped for detailed analysis. I adopted the analytical framework of communicative approaches and discourse patterns among the five aspects of interactions presented by Mortimer and Scott (2003). It was found that this earth science teacher used more authoritative patterns than the dialogic. In addition, she used IRE discourse pattern more frequently. Interestingly, teachers interacted with their students more frequently in the form of repeated (or IRE chain pattern), that is IRFRF (teacher initiation-student response-teacher feedback-student response-teacher feedback) in the context of dialogic communicative approaches, while simple IRE occurred in an authoritative approach. In earth science classrooms, typical interaction may well be constructed in the form of IRFRF chains to allow students free conjectures and abduction.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.32 no.9
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• pp.1405-1416
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• 2012

This study aims to analyze how pre-service science teachers' reflective thinking is presented during the microteaching process. The subjects of this study were 13 students who attended a lecture course on science teaching methods offered by the Department of Science Education of the College of Education at a national university. The simulated lessons that were performed during the microteaching process went through peer assessment and self-assessment. Then, the next set of lessons was conducted based on the assessment results. After the first set of simulated lessons, the pre-service teachers' reflection at the routine and technical levels was most remarkable in the focus dimension. In the inquiry and change dimensions, technical reflection stood out. Dialogic or transformative reflection was rarely presented. In addition, most of the pre-service teachers displayed mingling patterns of reflection levels in all of the three dimensions. The results of this study, in particular, prove that microteaching has a high level of applicability in terms of reflective thinking and instructional technology. Accordingly, there is a need for subsequent studies to create a new model that can encourage pre-service teachers' reflective thinking by structuralizing peer and self-assessment during the process of microteaching.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.221-229
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• 2016

This study aimed to investigate the effects of portfolio application on pre-service science teachers' reflective thinking. For the purpose, we used narrative inquiry on pre-service science teachers' portfolios. We also analyzed the dimensions and levels of pre-service science teachers' reflective thinking. Analysis results showed that the pre-service science teachers' reflective thinking was mostly centered on focus at the beginning of semester. In addition, they exhibited routine and technical levels of reflective thinking. Analysis of pre-service science teachers' reflective thinking showed it as gradually extending to the dimension of inquiry and dimension of change by the end of semester. Here, the level of reflective thinking was higher at the dialogic level and transformative level. Pre-service science teachers showed that they had difficulties in making portfolios. However, they answered positively about application of portfolios. The results of this study suggest that there is a need to actively introduce portfolio assessment in teacher education courses in order to increase the reflective thinking of pre-service science teachers.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.41 no.6
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• pp.519-531
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• 2021

This study investigates the science teacher identity of pre-service science teachers (PSTs) in the context of a teaching practice course. Twenty-two PSTs who took the 'Biological Science Lab. for Inquiry Learning' course at the College of Education participated in this study. Artifacts created during the course were collected, and the teaching practices and reflections were recorded and transcribed. In addition, semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine PSTs, recorded, and transcribed. We found the science teacher identity was not well revealed at the beginning of the course. Authoritative discourse appeared in the early oral reflections of PSTs, indicating that the PSTs perceived oral reflection activities as 'evaluation activities for teaching practice'. This perception shows that pre-service teachers participate in teaching practice courses as students attending a university, performing tasks and receiving evaluations from instructors. After the middle of the course, discourses showing the science teacher identity of the PSTs were observed. In the oral reflection after the middle part, dialogic discourses often arose, showing that the PSTs perceive the oral reflection activities as a 'learning activity for professional development'. In addition, in the second half, discourse appeared to connect and interpret one's experience with the teacher's activity, indicating that the PSTs perceive themselves as teachers at this stage. In addition, the perception of experimental classes was expanded through the course. During the course, the practice of equalizing the authority of the participants, providing a role model for reflection, and experiencing various positions from multiple viewpoints in the class had a positive effect on the formation and continuation of the teacher identity. This study provides implications on the teacher education process for teacher identity formation in PSTs.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.135-145
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• 2018

In this study, we investigated the argumentations of group and classroom discussions in socioscientific issues (SSI) discussion classes. Twenty-seven high school students participated in the SSI discussion classes on nuclear power generation. We observed and recorded the classes and also conducted semi-structured interviews. For the analyses, we revised a previous framework that was developed to analyze dialogic argumentations in the context of SSI. The analyses of the results indicated that there were more discourse schemes in the classroom discussions than the group discussions which are related to awareness and openness to multiple perspectives, evidence based reasoning, and on-going inquiry and skepticism. And there were few discourse schemes related to moral and ethical sensitivity in the group and classroom discussions. Various grounds, data, and information were presented in the classroom discussions. Students concentrated on carrying their claims and were not able to sympathize with and accept other opinions. Therefore, there were few discourse schemes to reach consensus. In addition, they perceived classroom discussions as competitive and actively rebutted other claims or grounds. The levels of argumentation were also high in the classroom discussions. The group discussions were held in relaxed atmosphere, and they asked the opponents more for clarification or additional information and evidences. However, classroom discussions were held in serious atmosphere, and they actively queried the validity of the claims or grounds. Based on the results, some suggestions to implement SSI discussion classes were discussed.