• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.404-414
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• 2009

The revised curriculum in 2007 includes open inquiry approach to increase students' interest in science and to build up creativity. So teachers and pre-service teachers should be equipped with the ability of open inquiry performance. In order to investigate pre-service teachers' readiness to perform open inquiry tasks, we analyzed reports written as homework by a group of 71 juniors in a national university of education. The investigation tool was composed of four domains: topic selection, the inquiry process, the conclusion, and reporting. Each domain had three or four sub-domains. By using the framework, four raters scored the students' inquiry reports. The findings reveal that the pre-service elementary school teachers have difficulty in the domain of 'topic selection' and the 'conclusion' compared with the other domains. Under the topic selection domain, they showed weaknesses in 'creativity' and 'scientific topic' and under the conclusion domain, they had difficulty in 'recognizing limits' and 'value of conclusion'. The finding suggests that pre-service teaching program should provide with opportunities to perform open inquiry continually.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.658-672
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• 2022

The unique teaching and learning difficulties of speed-related units in elementary school science are mainly due to the student's lack of mathematical thinking ability and procedural knowledge on speed measurement, and curriculums and textbooks must be constructed with these in mind. To identify the implications of composing a new science curriculum and relevant textbooks, this study reviewed the structure and contents of the speed-related units of three curriculums from the 2007 revised curriculum to the 2015 revised curriculum and the resulting textbooks and examined their relevance in light of the literature. Results showed that the current content carries the risk of making students calculate only the speed of an object through a mechanical algorithm by memorization rather than grasp the multifaceted relation between traveled distance, duration time, and speed. Findings also highlighted the need to reorganize the curriculum and textbooks to offer students the opportunity to learn the meaning of speed step-by-step by visualizing materials such as double number lines and dealing with simple numbers that are easy to calculate and understand intuitively. In addition, this paper discussed the urgency of improving inquiry performance such as process skills by observing and measuring an actual object's movement, displaying it as a graph, and interpreting it rather than conducting data interpretation through investigation. Lastly, although the current curriculum and textbooks emphasize the connection with daily life in their application aspects, they also deal with dynamics-related content somewhat differently from kinematics, which is the main learning content of the unit. Hence, it is necessary to reorganize the contents focusing on cases related to speed so that students can grasp the concept of speed and use it in their everyday lives. With regard to the new curriculum and textbooks, this study proposes that students be provided the opportunity to systematically and deeply study core topics rather than exclude content that is difficult to learn and challenging to teach so that students realize the value of science and enjoy learning it.

• School Mathematics
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.117-135
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• 2017

Even though patterns and correspondence serve a fundamental basis of function for elementary students, there has been lack of research in this field. This study explored prior studies to extract the key instructional elements on how to teach patterns and correspondence. This study then analyzed the unit of 'patterns and correspondence' in the mathematics textbooks in terms of four key instructional elements (i.e., relation to real-life contexts, diversity of pattern tasks, exploration for a correspondence relationship, and teaching variables). The results of this study showed that topics dealing with patterns and correspondence were represented with relation to real-life contexts but diversity of pattern tasks and exploration for a correspondence relationship were needed to be further considered in the textbooks. Another noticeable result was that teaching variables was not explicitly addressed in the textbooks. Based on these results, this study provides textbook writers with implications on what to further consider in dealing with patterns and correspondence.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.239-249
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• 2013

The elementary school age is a critical period in the formation of environmental attitudes, environmental knowledge, and sensitivity. In this study, we examined how they affect environmental education programs that utilize traditional culture in the 6th grade of elementary school students' environmental attitudes. Attitudes questionnaire and activity sheets were analyzed to figure out the change in attitude of the students, we analyzed the activity sheets. As a result, the environmental education program that utilize traditional culture had a positive impact on the improvement of elementary school students' environmental attitudes. Analysis of students' Internet bulletin board posts, the amount of writing was increased. In addition, the sensitivity to the environment of the students were changed. Students, was considered not related to their environmental problems. However, after programming experience, they found that environmental problems are directly related to them.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.207-218
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• 2010

The revised curriculum in 2007 adds an open inquiry approach to increase students' creativity and interest in science. Because it is the first time for elementary students to perform the open inquiry due to the national curriculum, it is essential that teachers give students' successful experiences in order to build a positive impression about inquiry activity. The purpose of this research is to develop and apply the open inquiry program. The research findings are as follows: First, we analyzed the students' traits of open inquiry ability during the program. The third and fourth grade students showed weakness in operating and inquiring abilities. They also feared failure and were unable to concentrate in classes which were based on explanation or discussion. When students had unexpected results, however, their inquiring abilities and creativeness increased considerably. Additionally there were some students who were stressed during the science-inquiry activity, due to no interest in science and an inability to think scientifically. Second, we developed an open inquiry program for elementary students. The program was modified, reflected upon the students' traits during open inquiry in class. Through repeated feedback like this, we completed the program. Third, for those who studied in the lessons there was a meaningful change in students' science inquiry abilities and abilities to perform 'formulating a hypothesis' and 'the control of variables'. These students' level of self-inquiry performance improved steadily. Moreover, they obtained a strong attachment to their inquiry and understood the method of quantitative experiments.

• Journal of Elementary Mathematics Education in Korea
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.263-289
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• 2017

New mathematics textbooks for elementary school students are under development according to the 2015 national revised curriculum. Not only contents but also framework of textbooks may be interesting to the mathematics educators and researchers. Considering the high dependency on textbooks in elementary classrooms, the influence of the framework of textbooks in mathematics learning cannot be overlooked. The unit and lesson frameworks of the textbook are important because they are directly related to the quality of mathematic lessons, especially when teachers make a lesson plan based on the unit and lesson frameworks of the textbook. This study is to analyse the unit and lesson frameworks of elementary school mathematics textbooks and to find out elementary school teachers' preference about its analysed key points. For longitudinal analysis, we selected 3rd-grade mathematics textbooks of 5th, 6th, 7th, the 2007, and the 2009 national revised curriculums. For horizontal analysis, we selected 3rd-grade mathematics textbooks of Korea, Japan, United States and Finland. We compared unit and lesson frameworks of various textbooks, and abstracted key elements of the textbook frameworks, and constructed survey questions. Looking at results from survey questions based on analysed key points, we were able to grasp the teachers' preference for unit and lesson frameworks for mathematics textbook. Based on the results of this study, some implications for the development of framework for new mathematics textbooks are suggested.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.233-253
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• 2018

Since open inquiry of science was formally introduced at the 2007 Revised Science Curriculum Course, the purpose and effect of it has been positively evaluated, and it is underlined continuously until the revised science education course in 2015. However, through many previous studies, there is still a lack of awareness of open inquiry of both students and teachers in the field, and it was revealed they are continually appealing confusion and difficulties. Therefore, in this research, we analyzed the causes that make it difficult to execute open inquiry, and developed differentiated open inquiry guide materials that can contribute to the realization of teachers and students. They were developed by the brain-based evolutionary approach to provide students with authentic science. The brain-based evolutionary approach is reflecting the evolutionary attributes and the brain functions associated activities of scientists. It was revealed that, in the same way as the pilot test results, the usefulness of the differentiated guide materials were very high, and there was a statistically significant difference in the science attitude. It was found that the application of the brain-based evolutionary approach had positively influenced the stage of determining the inquiry themes, and self-confidence that could be able to do as a scientist. Analysis of top and sub group types on the basis of inquiry ability showed that both groups are improved at science attitude by the differentiated guide materials. There was a positive effect on change in the self-perception of scientific creativity. We were able to see a positive change in the post survey for open inquiry-efficacy. The developed differentiated open inquiry guide materials contributed to the improvement of open inquiry-efficacy for both the teacher and student.

• School Mathematics
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.175-191
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• 2016

In the elementary school mathematics textbook that has been revised in 2013, the instructional sequence for teaching addition and subtraction, which had remained unchanged for three decades since 1982, was finally changed in 2013. Particularly, the addition and subtraction of two-digit numbers without regrouping, such as 72+25=97 or 85-24=61, are taught earlier than the composing and decomposing of the number 10 using other numbers. This study examines the appropriacy and validity of these changes. However, the reason for these changes in the national curriculum or teacher's guide could not be determined. Further, several references emphasize the addition of two single-digit numbers, such as 7+8=15, and the subtraction of a single-digit number from a number between 11 and 19, such as 16-9=7, as basic facts. In other countries' textbooks, the teaching of addition and subtraction up to the number 20 is prioritized before teaching the addition and subtraction of two-digit numbers without regrouping. The results of this study indicate that these changes in the instructional sequence in the textbook that was revised in 2013 need to be reconsidered.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.163-174
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to device the teaching-learning method and the evaluating method on 'free inquiry' which is newly introduced in 2007 revised curriculum. The teaching-learning models which apply 'free inquiry' are 'group investigation', 'PBL', 'project investigation' and 'IIM'. And the unit which apply 'free inquiry' on the fourth grade and the second semester in the elementary science. The results of this study are as follows: First, The person leading the lesson is not a teacher but learners. The focus of teaching-learning is not a unit but topic, problem or project on the science textbook. A teacher's role is not the deliverer of knowledge but the guide of learning. Second, the outcome of applying group investigation, PBL project investigation and IIM to 'free inquiry' is improvements of the problem-solving ability and the self-directed learning ability as well as building scientific attitude and social skills as educational effect in commonly. Third, to apply 'free inquiry' efficiently, teachers should understand each subject very well, teach a class with a thorough and concrete plan, and try to evaluate objectively.

• School Mathematics
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.245-266
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• 2011

In this study, we surveyed on the 3rd and 4th grade teachers' perception and teaching practices towards open-ended question in the elementary mathematics textbook in the revised 7th curriculum. According to the result, teachers understood the purpose of open-ended question in general, but they recognized some problems in terms of open-ended question itself, difficulties found when they dealt with open-ended question in their classes, teacher's guide and teacher training. This research suggests ways of improvement of open-ended question on the basis of the survey results.