• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.217-226
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• 2020

The purpose of this research is to draw suggestions on the settling of the 2015 revised curriculum and the direction of science curriculum improvement by identifying the current status of science general elective courses for high school sophomores, and examining teachers' perception. To this end, with 12 city and provincial education offices' cooperation, we analyzed the status of science elective subjects that freshmen took in 2018 by school year, school type and region. In addition, in-depth interviews were conducted with nine science teachers of the focus group to discuss ways to improve curriculum operation and implementation of science general elective courses, and ways to raise the selection rate. The number of science general elective courses for high school students in 12 municipal and provincial education offices was confirmed to be 163,710 for Physics I, 216,754 for Chemistry I, 290,736 for Bioscience I, and 200,861 for Earth Science I. By school type, autonomous high schools have the highest completion rate, while specialized schools and vocational schools have very low rates. Units completed per semester for general elective courses were mostly three units (61.5%) and two units (28.7%). High school science teachers suggested reconstruction of three-unit elective courses that can be completed in one semester, content development focused on competences rather than knowledge, and the need for a teacher community to improve teachers' teaching competences. Based on the results of the research, ways to operate high school science elective curriculum in preparation for the high school credit system were suggested.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.427-439
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• 2019

In this study, we investigated how scientists and teachers engaged in mentoring program are conducting research ethics education and how they are creating an ethical educational environment. A questionnaire survey was given to 32 scientists and 44 teachers conducting mentoring programs for gifted high school students. In the content of research ethics education, most of the respondents opined that they should teach against falsification, plagiarism, and fabrication. Teachers were most likely to teach ethical decision-making in each step of the research process. Most of the scientists said that they should teach how to write research note. For the difficulties, the teachers pointed out the challenging system that focuses only on college entrance exams while the scientists answered that it was difficult to recognize research ethics as the problem of the students themselves. For the teachers, the most affective factor in creating an ethical research environment is the amount of time to teach research ethics while for the scientists, it is the ethics of the mentors. For creating an ethical research environment, the teachers responded with making an atmosphere wherein failure is tolerated, and the scientists responded with increasing the degrees of freedom in results. For the difficulties of creating an ethical research environment, the teachers were constrained by research time while the scientists were pressured about the results. These results provide implications for ways to teach research ethics and for ways to create an ethical research environment in the mentoring program for science-gifted students.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.1-15
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• 2023

As the social and economic value of living modified organisms (LMOs) increase, so do the potential risks they pose to humans and the environment. Therefore, all laboratories using LMOs must establish an LMO laboratory in accordance with the standards required by regulations. Recently, in high school, LMO-related experimental programs have been developed for their educational effects. Also, in this case, it is necessary to comply with the regulation for LMO laboratories. However, high schools are still unfamiliar with the LMO laboratory, and it is difficult for teachers to manage an LMO laboratory because its implementation applies the same standards to general research institutes. In this study, we used causal chain analysis to discover the difficulties each teacher faced while setting up an LMO laboratory by examining three cases. The difficulties experienced by teachers are as follows: the first problem is "reluctance to set up an LMO laboratory," because of "administrative tasks for laboratory registration" and "difficulty in persuading colleagues." The second problem is a difficulty for teachers to operate LMO laboratory in blind spots, due to "inflexible installation and closure," "medical waste disposal," and "LMO education that does not fit the school context." Through this study, although the difficulty of running an LMO laboratory is caused by a lack of necessity and insufficient consideration of the school context, the more fundamental cause was a lack of collaborative planning between the educational field and the operating institutions. The teachers who participate in this research suggest that "using shared LAB" and "preparing opportunities for knowledge sharing" can be considered as strategies for operating the school's LMO laboratory. We feel that this study will provide a useful reference for teachers or schools planning to build an LMO laboratory.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.32 no.10
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• pp.1567-1579
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• 2012

This study carried a survey to investigate teacher's cognition on preference and actuality about science laboratory and class environment targeting 262 science teachers. The results of this study are as follow: First, the actuality cognition of science teachers on science laboratory and class environment was lower than preference (p<.05). Second, there were no differences between preference and actuality regardless of gender (p<.05). However, the cognition on all of subordinates of preference appeared higher in females than males (p<.05). Third, at all levels of schools, preference is higher than actuality for science laboratory and teaching environment (p<.05). In case of preference, all of the subordinates indicated the difference between elementary and high school teachers (p<.05). On the other hand, in actuality there was a difference between elementary and middle school teachers in 'science laboratory facilities condition' domain only (p<.05). Fourth, the preference was higher than actuality in all school locations (p<.05). And in case of preference, there was no difference in all subordinates regardless of school sites. Whereas the cognition of small-medium city teachers was lower than metropolitan in actuality on the three domains of 'science laboratory facilities condition,' 'teaching condition and service support,' and 'staff policy and practice' (p<.05). As a result, this study informs that upgrading is necessary to achieve inquiry activity in science class in overall teaching environment including science classroom and laboratory.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.13-21
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• 2000

In spite of the benefits of field studies, field surveys have not well performed in secondary school. Although many field sites have been developed lately, most field guidebooks describe the geological formations at the outcrops professionally so they can not be used by secondary school students. It is necessary to develop the field study program with which earth science teachers can do field activities easily rather than the one of a highly technical nature. The purpose of this study is to develope a secondary school geology course and to help earth science teachers practice it by providing the efficient teaching methods for the field study

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.269-281
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• 2008

In Korea, the criteria for the requirements of a secondary school science teacher's certificate are based entirely on the subjects and/or areas as prescribed in laws for the teacher's licensure examination. However, the criteria do not account for the specific competencies or qualities that a good science teacher should possess. The objective of the research was to explore and suggest the three lists of the image of an ideal science teacher, science teacher's role and science teacher's competency that might be used to establish the criteria for science teachers' certificate and the curricular content for science teacher education in Korea. In order to achieve this objective, the study used such research methods as literature analysis, status survey in combination with on-line workshop, in-depth interview, and professional consultation. The participants in the research comprised of a group of 258 students (186 middle school students and 72 high school students) and 13 in-service science teachers (8 middle school science teachers, 5 high school science teachers) for questionnaire survey and on-line workshop, and 4 science teachers for in-depth interview. The list of the image of ideal science teacher, science teacher's role, science teacher's competency contains 44, 32, and 75 statements, respectively. Based on the results of the research, this paper suggested that the criteria for the Korean secondary school science teacher's certificate requirements be selected and organized in consideration of the teachers' competencies rather than the courses and/or subject areas. It is also implied in the paper that further research over a period of time is necessary for using the competencies for curricular contents and/or science teacher's certificate standards.

• Proceedings of the Zoological Society Korea Conference
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• 1998.10b
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• pp.375.2-375
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• 1998

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.187-198
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• 2014

I developed a curriculum reflecting the perspectives of students, science teachers, and professionals in order to carry out standardized, fundamental nuclear power and radiation education in schools. Among elementary, middle, and high schools, 78.4%, 78.6%, and 93.1% respectively exhibited (with high frequency) a need for nuclear power and radiation education. The proposed elementary and middle/high school course titles are "Radiation and Life" and "Nuclear Power and Radiation" respectively. The courses are offered at every grade level and span one semester each year. The duration of each weekly class varies; at the elementary, middle, and high school levels classes meet for 40, 45, and 50 minutes respectively. Thin textbooks containing an abundance of cartoons and photos were requested. The starting points for education were fixed at the sixth grade, second year of middle school, and the first year of high school. It was stipulated that the education be separate from the regular curriculum, and encompass a creative and experimental field study based on the principal and science teachers' needs. Similar trends were observable according to grade levels regarding class hours, textbook format, form of education, and educational necessity. A simulation of the devised curriculum revealed an overall goodness of fit totaling $3.88{\pm}0.60$, $3.89{\pm}0.60$, and $3.66{\pm}0.63$ out of five for elementary, middle school, and high school students respectively, which are scores equivalent to 70 and above (out of 100). The significance of this study is that it is the first to propose a curriculum designed to cultivate value judgment based on understanding nuclear power and radiation. However, the realization of nuclear power and radiation education requires that follow-up measures be taken regarding textbook development, amendments to related laws, and the providing of teaching plans.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.52 no.2
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• pp.169-178
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• 2008

This study investigated the relationship between science high school teachers' beliefs of gifted education and classroom practices. The data of this case study were collected from three science teachers who worked in a science high school through qualitative research methods such as interviews and classroom observations. The other various data related to science high school management and the teachers' teaching were collected and analyzed using the constant comparative method. The results of the study are as follows: the teacher of long period in-service experience in science high school had teacher-centered belief, and his classroom practices were matched with his beliefs. The teacher of short period in-service experience in science high school had student-centered belief, and her classroom practices were matched with her beliefs, also. The teacher of medium period in-service experience in science high school had student-centered belief, but her teacher-centered classroom practices were mismatched with her beliefs. From the results, it could conclude that school culture affects on teachers' classroom practices stronger than beliefs. The longer career period of science high school changed easier teachers' beliefs into knowledge education for university entrance examination removed from gifted education. To solve these problems, we suggest the needs of teacher education programs for science high school teachers.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.200-213
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• 2000

This study is to examine how common science, which was selected as a required subject in high schools with the reorganization of the 6th national science curriculum by the Ministry of Education, is taught in high schools these days. The results show that only one teacher is teaching common science in 3.2% of schools or the teachers divide and teach units according to their majors. In this situation, there are many problems because there are too many integrated contents in each unit and they are too short to solve the study subject during the unit time of 50 minutes. Another problem is that there is no special laboratory for common science. For the knowledge part of common science, lecture-learning is used as a method of teaching and for the inquiry part, inquiry-learning is used. Evaluation is conducted using subjective or objective paper-tests for the knowledge part, and reports are used for evaluation in the inquiry part. Therefore, this study shows that students' response to common science is below the general level and this subject missed the original intent introduced to raise students' interests about science.