• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.328-339
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• 2023

The purpose of this study was to investigate the astronomy-related concepts formed by elementary school pre-service teachers and analyze the distribution of misconceptions. The study was conducted on 43 pre-service teachers enrolled in the second year of an elementary teacher training college located in the central region of Korea. As a result of the study, first, pre-service elementary school teachers' misconceptions about astronomy concepts showed a diverse distribution. In particular, pre-service elementary school teachers still had misconceptions regarding seasonal changes, which were pointed out in many previous studies. Second, pre-service elementary school teachers had formed concepts at the level of simple memorization of astronomy concepts and were having difficulty applying the concepts they knew to various cases. Based on these research results, future astronomy-related education should be directed toward understanding astronomical phenomena through the application and application of various cases rather than simple memorization, and astronomy education in teacher training courses and teacher training should also reflect this content.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.40-53
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• 2019

This study was to analyze the inquiry characteristics of preservice teachers as they classify trilobites. For the study, 70 preservice teachers attending teacher training university participated. The classification tasks used in the study were 9 photos of trilobite fossils. The preservice teachers' inquiry activity was to classify the evolutionary processes of trilobites after observing trilobite fossils by group and then to construct a phylogenetic tree. The results of the study are as follows. First, preservice teachers observed the external features of the trilobites and constructed systematic classification results based on their observed contents. Second, preservice teachers classified trilobites using various classification criteria. Third, the phylogenetic tree of preservice teachers and the phylogenetic tree of scientists were very similar. The preservice teachers constructed a sphylogenetic tree based on the observation and inference of the change from a simple form to a complex form, which is a general evolution process of the trilobite fossil claimed by scientists. These results suggest that group-based inquiry activities with sufficient time are very effective and that the experience of inquiry activities is very important for preservice teachers.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.374-388
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• 2013

The purpose of this study was to investigate pre-service physics teachers' perceptions on the physics education major curriculum. We surveyed 15 junior, and 13 senior college students of physics education major in an university in southern part of Korea. Among them, 24 participants(86 %) took the physics 1 course in high school and 22 participants(79 %) chose the physics 1 in their Korea Scholastic Aptitude Test. The responses showed that the most necessary part in pre-service students' learning was the understanding of high school level physics(36 %), and the understanding of introductory level physics(29 %). In the wish list of courses to be open, high school level physics course was ranked first among seven options by 61 % of respondents. Also, there was some concurrence among respondents in opinion of the necessity for understanding introductory physics. Students felt difficulties in understanding it especially owing to the lack of problem solving skill and comprehension. They added that the sufficient explanation of core concepts should be the first action in the innovative plan. Most participants of pre-service physics teachers hoped to have the revised major curriculum which could help their understanding of high school level or introductory level of physics. However, there was a gap of opinions between the group of students with completion of the high school physics 1 & 2 course and those with non-completion of them. The approach of changing major curriculum with consideration of learners' needs was recommended because the number of students with completion of the high school physics course would probably be decreasing rapidly under these circumstances such as the application of new national curriculum, the reduction of the number of the elective courses in Korea Scholastic Aptitude Test and so on.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.501-520
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• 2022

Considering the importance of spatial thinking in the process of learning astronomy, it is necessary to educate pre-service teachers on teaching methods that consider spatial thinking from the teacher training program stage. Accordingly, after providing education on spatial thinking to pre-service science teachers, problems and improvement plans perceived by them were explored for the images and inquiry activities of astronomy textbook units. In this study, spatial thinking in the astronomical domain was defined as the amalgam of the concepts of space, representation tools, and reasoning processes. The juniors attending the University of Education in the metropolitan area were educated on spatial thinking for two weeks in October 2021. They were then asked to voluntarily select one of the astronomy units to analyze problems in the textbooks and present modification plans to address those problems. Finally, 33 cases presented by 22 pre-service science teachers were analyzed, and the results of the study were as follows. Pre-service teachers recognized the problems in textbooks in terms of the concepts of space and reasoning processes, and proposed improvement plans to supplement them. However, in some cases, even if pre-service teachers properly recognized a problem, the improvement plan was not appropriate, or they were not able to analyze the images or inquiry activities in terms of spatial thinking. This study is significant in that it shows that pre-service teachers have the potential to properly reorganize and revise textbooks by participating in teacher training programs on spatial thinking. Furthermore, based on the results of this study, the direction of the teacher training program concerning spatial thinking was discussed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.187-195
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to diagnose the operation status of high school integrated science newly introduced in the 2015 revised national curriculum and first applied in 2018, to examine teachers' perception on the new educational policy, and then based on this, extract implications for settling down the policy. A survey was administered to science teachers who participated in the in-service teacher training on integrated science, and the responses of 384 high school science teachers were analyzed. According to the results of the survey, integrated science was allotted six units to each school, and two or more teachers divided achievement standards and were responsible for them in many cases. Science teachers pointed to the increase of student-oriented activities as the biggest change due to the application of integrated science and also showed a positive attitude towards increasing the proportion of performance-based assessment, diversifying evaluation methods, increasing teacher consultations, and enhancing the holistic understanding of natural phenomenon, etc. In particular, teachers with 15 years or more of teaching experience were significantly positive about the increase of student-oriented activities, diverse assessment methods, and opportunities of teacher consultations. For teachers with a sub-major in science, teaching about non-majored contents was the most difficult and it was also difficult to determine the appropriate level of contents to teach. Teachers who majored common science, however, rarely complained about teaching non-majored content. In the case of two teachers in charge of integrated science, there was a statistically significant demand for subject matter knowledge as training content, and for mixed education incorporating theory and practice and customized training as a training method. In the case of one teacher responsible for the subject, there was a relatively lower demand. From these results, some implications for the successful implementation of integrated science were discussed.

• The Journal of Sustainable Design and Educational Environment Research
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.37-50
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• 2017

The Ministry of Education selected and implemented 'science core school' since 2009 as a policy to strengthen science education to produce talented science students. This study judged that it is necessary to examine the current management practice and diagnose problems to propose improvement measures for more successful management of science core school in the future. To this end, we interviewed and observed teachers and students at a high school specialized in science based in Gyeonggi province which was selected as a science core school, as qualitative study methods such as interview and observation to survey and analyze the current management practice of the school. The management outcome was that the school contributed to fostering talented students in natural sciences and engineering because more varied activities were implemented at the school to develop scientific knowledge of students including experiment, excursion, and circle activity. Identified problems were increased amount of private education due to intense competition over school achievement, negligence of extracurricular activities, burdensome workload for teachers of specific subjects, and lack of expertise of math and science teachers. In conclusion, the following improvement measures are suggested for sustainable management of science core schools: greater liberty should be granted to science core schools; more training opportunities should be given to teachers; college admission program should be improved for science core school students; and it is necessary to introduce courses taught by external teachers, and provide systematic support such as increasing administration staff.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.59 no.5
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• pp.434-444
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• 2015

Inquiry-based experiments provide opportunities to understand scientific knowledge and acquire nature of science. In this study, the difficulties which pre-service teachers experienced in inquiry-based experiment class were investigated and analyzed. Twenty-two pre-service teachers attended course designed as ‘ill-structured inquiry’ for 13 weeks, and researchers investigated their difficulties by questionnaires and interview. They showed difficulties mostly in designing experiment and interpretation and also in understanding inquiry purpose, lack of prior knowledge, confidence in inquiry performance, and understanding of experimental instruments and facilities. As a result, it is necessary to provide opportunities to engage in inquiries and environments to properly instruct pre-service teachers the inquiry ability in college of education.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.66 no.1
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• pp.42-49
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• 2022

Many elementary school teachers' lack of scientific knowledge reveal as several problems in teaching science. Thus, elementary school teachers need to improve their scientific knowledge, but there is the limit to improve the teachers' scientific knowledge through activities based on lecture that conducted in process of training and retraining them. Therefore, Improvement for training science teacher to improve scientific knowledge of elementary school teachers would be searched in this study. Depth interview was conducted toward three elementary school teachers, who had conducted action research, to improve content knowledge of material domain within teaching process and elementary school science. Based on result of the interview, difficulty and development that the three teachers were commonly experienced in process of conducting scientific inquiry in action research were analyzed. One of the difficulties of the inquiry were to figure out how the three teachers, who participated in the interview, understand specific concept, what they do not understand, and what they should study more to understand the concept. And there was a circumstance that the teachers did not know how to apply procedural knowledge, which learned explicitly in the process of setting plan for conducting research, into real context. Since there was difference between knowledge that they understand disjunctively and context that observed in real circumstance, they faced difficulty. However, the teachers conducted analysis of topic, planning research, conducting research, discussion of the result by themselves with those difficulties Thus, the teachers mentioned that not only content knowledge had been improved, but understanding of procedural knowledge, which is not intended to improve, had been also improved. Besides, they also mentioned that comprehensive understanding content knowledge, which they already understood, was also helpful. And the teachers suggest that if there were chance to discuss and examine the scientific practices by consisting of group with colleagues rather than conducting it individually it would more efficient studying. Considering their suggestion, direction of training elementary school teachers for improving their scientific knowledge should be improved in a way to understand science concepts based on direct research about context that is generated in circumstance of studying group of the teachers. Consequently, it would contribute to improvement of teaching science by combining teachers' practice and understanding.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.302-314
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• 2019

This study is a hermeneutic phenomenological study on the experiences of 10 beginning science teachers who have been building positive or negative identity as teachers for the first 3 months. This study was conducted by four steps of the phenomenological qualitative research process suggested by Yeu (2015) based on the study of hermeneutic phenomenology suggested by van Manen (1990). The main data of this study is the transcription data of the telephone interviews collected in consideration of the working area of the research subjects. The main theme is found by categorizing and conceptualizing the meaning of the phenomenon revealed in the data and the process of confirming the legitimacy of the main theme. The results of this study show that the experiences of beginning science teachers that could affect their positive identity as teachers have common moments when they realize that 'I am a necessary person for someone'. On the other hand, the teachers create negative teacher identity when they doubt their teaching competency, particularly when they are not confident about their attitudes toward students or when they are unable to engage students actively in lessons. The results of this study provide important implications for pre-service science teacher preparation program in Korea.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.399-411
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• 2016

The purpose of this study is to investigate implications for future STEAM education by analyzing the surveys by the in-service teachers who participated in the Advanced STEAM Teacher Training Program(ASTTP) for raising interests and understanding of science and technology and nurturing STEAM literacy and problem-solving ability of students. ASTTP was developed for promoting 'teacher competence for STEAM.' ASTTP is a 60-hour program(4 credits), which includes offline intensive course of 38 hours, online training course of 12 hours, a course of implementation at schools for 5 hours, and a workshop for 5 hours (based on the 2014 program). For the offline intensive course, teachers take various professional development classes and activities, such as open-laboratory tours, advanced experiments, mentoring programs, and team projects as well as lectures on diverse disciplines. For the online course, teachers take online classes freely while they are encouraged to work with other teachers in groups. After taking both online and offline courses, the teachers are required to implement their STEAM lesson plans in their classrooms. Finally at the workshop, some selected teachers share how successfully they have implemented STEAM education. About 700 teachers have successfully taken the program from 2012 to 2014. Based on the surveys by the teachers, the program has been modified and improved. Our analysis shows increased professional development in STEAM education for the participating teachers. This study can provide some implication and helpful insights for people who need to develop and manage teacher training programs for STEAM education and other education programs in general.