• 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.51 no.5
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• pp.447-458
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to explore high school teacher's and students' perceptions of learning difficulties of the ‘chemical bond' unit of the Chemistry II in the 7th national curriculum. The participants in this study were consisted of a teacher and his students(85) from the Chemistry II classrooms: they all answered to the questionnaire, and then some students and the teacher were interviewed individually. The results showed that there were big differences between the teacher's and his students' perceptions of 1) the most difficult unit for understanding; 2) concepts they learned; and 3) the most difficult concept for understanding in the classroom. Students thought that electro-negativity unit was the most difficult to understand while teacher thought molecular structure unit was the hardest unit to teach. And teacher taught all 32 subjects of chemical bond unit to students, but some students could not remember they learned all of them. Most difficult parts for students to understand were ‘Coulomb force' and ‘dipole moment', while the most difficult part for the teacher to teach was ‘the conceptual difference between atomic bond and intermolecular force'. The reasons caused the students' learning difficulties were analyzed and discussed based on the interview data, and then further study was presented.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.62 no.1
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• pp.95-115
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• 2023

Even the teachers who agree with the necessity of effective mathematical discussions find it difficult to orchestrate such discussions in the actual lessons. This study focused on analyzing the difficulties 15 elementary school teachers faced in applying "the five practices for orchestrating productive mathematics discussions" to their lessons. Specifically, this study analyzed the process of planning, implementing, and reflecting on the lessons to which three or four teachers as a teacher community applied the five practices. The results of this study showed that the teachers experienced difficulties in selecting and presenting tasks tailored to the student levels and class environment, monitoring all students' solutions, and identifying the core mathematical ideas in student solutions. In addition, this study revealed practical and specific difficulties that had not been described in the previous studies, such as writing a lesson plan for effective use, simultaneously performing multiple teacher roles, and visually sharing student presentations. This study is expected to provide practical tips for elementary school teachers who are eager to promote effective mathematical discussions and to provoke professional discourse for teacher educators through specific examples.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.11-18
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• 2021

The purpose of this study is to analyze the questions generated by elementary school pre-service teachers when reading the teacher's guide for the refraction of light, and to analyze the difficulties in understanding the concept and in making instructional plans. A total of 592 meaningful questions were generated by 283 elementary school pre-service teachers after reading the teacher's guide of 'light and lens' unit in the 6th grade of the 2015 revised curriculum. Of these, 306 questions are for understanding the concept of physics and 286 are pedagogical questions. As a result of the analysis, in terms of understanding the concept of physics, the elementary school pre-service teachers encounter difficulties in understanding the concept of the 'cause' of the phenomenon suggested in the textbook, such as the cause of refraction, the reason for scattering light, and the cause of the image change depending on the focal length of the convex lens. In terms of instructional planning, it was followed by questions about how to explain concepts, questions about not being able to explain concepts to elementary school students and having to teach only phenomena, specific explanation methods for specific concepts, and experimental methods. Although the teacher's guide contains various explanations and supplementary materials to help teachers understand the concept, it can be seen that there are many elementary pre-service teachers who cannot answer questions about some concepts even after reading the guide. For concepts with a high frequency of questions, it is necessary to prepare a tutorial that is more understandable. In the instructional plan, there were many questions about teaching methods and experimental methods, so it is necessary to provide more examples and specific experimental methods for explaining concepts in the teacher's guide.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.111-124
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• 2023

The aim of this study was to explore science teachers' perceptions of good science teaching. To this end, the Korean Teaching Observation Protocol (KTOP), which was developed for the purpose of observing and improving science teaching, was utilized. In the first survey, teachers were asked whether they thought each item in the KTOP was important for good science teaching, the extent to which they implemented these items, and the level of difficulty in implementing them. The second survey asked teachers what they believed to be the reasons and solutions for the KTOP items that they had responded as difficult to implement. The responses obtained from 63 teachers in the first survey and 35 teachers in the second survey were categorized based on the characteristics of the responses. The categorized contents were then summarized and discussed for their features. As a result, science teachers responded that all items in KTOP, except for one, are important for good science teaching. However, it was also shown that the level of execution was low in cases where implementation was difficult. For the 13 KTOP items that were considered important but difficult to implement and showed relatively low implementation level, many respondents (69%) attributed the reason to both students and teachers. However, the most common response (60%) was that the teacher should solve those difficulties. From this, it was found that understanding and supporting teachers, as well as enhancing their competencies, are more important for good science teaching than external factors. We hope that this research findings will help to better understand the specific difficulties that science teachers face in their classes and contribute to practical efforts that aim to address these challenges.

• School Mathematics
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.613-632
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• 2015

In this study, we hope to reveal teacher knowledge necessary to address student errors and difficulties about ratio and rate. The instruments and interview were administered to 3 in-service primary teachers with various education background and teaching experiments. The results of this study are as follows. Specialized content knowledge(SCK) consists of profound knowledge about ratio and rate beyond multiplicative comparison of two quantities and professional knowledge about the definitions of textbook. Knowledge of content and students(KCS) is the ability to recognize students' understanding the concept and the representation about ratio and rate. Knowledge of content and teaching(KCT) is made up of knowledge about various context and visual models for understanding ratio and rate.

• School Mathematics
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.151-176
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• 2010

This research aims to conduct the teaching experiment based on the constructivism to elementary preservice teachers and report on how they construct and develop the mathematical knowledge on ratio concept. Furthermore, this research aims to examine the significances and difficulties of "constructivist teaching experiment" which are conceived by elementary preservice teachers. As the results of this research, I identified the possibilities and limits of mathematical knowledge construction by elementary preservice teachers in the "constructivist teaching experiment". And the elementary preservice teachers pointed out the significances of "constructivist teaching experiment" such as the experience of prior thinking on the concept to be learned, the deep understanding on the concept, the active participation to the lesson, and the experience of learning process of elementary students. Also they pointed out the difficulties of "constructivist teaching experiment" such as the consumption of much time to carry out the constructivist teaching, the absence of direct feedbacks by teacher, and the adaption on the constructivist lesson.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.317-326
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• 2022

In this study, three health teachers assigned to J-do were analyzed through the FGI research method to find out the difficulties, resolution process, and implications of new health teachers in adapting to teaching during COVID-19. As a result of the study, first, there were difficulties in relationships with parents, especially in the course of numerous calls and daily school status reports in the course of handling infectious diseases. After getting used to the COVID-19 work to some extent, beginning health teachers were burdened with having to think about health room work alone, difficulties in health classes for various students, and the burden of showing expertise as the only medical personnel in emergency situations. Second, new health teachers continued to share and communicate related information through online health teacher groups and YouTube to solve the difficulties of teaching. Third, this teaching adaptation process suggests that specific training to provide practical help to new health teachers is needed at the education office level, and it is necessary to support infrastructure such as class contents related to health classes.

• Korean Journal of Childcare and Education
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.5-29
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• 2014

The purpose of this study was to find out various problem behaviors of children who were not diagnosed with any disability, but instead, engaged in problem behaviors. This study also intended to review the difficulties of children with problem behaviors, their teachers' difficulties and needs, to suggest support for child care and education teachers. This study conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews with eight child care and education teachers. The interviews were transcribed into text and analyzed by contents. The results of this study are as follows. Problem behaviors of children described by teachers were classified into external and internal types. In addition, children with problem behaviors had experienced difficulties in maintaining relationships with their teachers, peers and parents. Many teachers were not successful to provide appropriate support for preschoolers who demonstrated problem behaviors in classrooms or some teachers provided individualized support. Teachers adapted the behavioral and the psychological approaches to problem behaviors of preschoolers. However, teachers reported difficulties with children with problem behavior and brought up the following issues on teaching children with problem behaviors; managing troubled matters happening in the class, difficulty in controlling teacher's emotions on problem behaviors, the lack of time, the integrated child care time without teacher in charge of child, the interruption in activity progress, the lack of a special way to deal with problem behaviors, and difficulty in cooperation with families through parents-teacher counseling sessions. Teachers counseled with parents who had a child with problem behaviors and revealed that parents reacted to problem behaviors in various ways such as embarrassment, acceptance, ignorance, or avoidance. Most teachers received assistance and support for teaching children with problem behaviors, from families, local communities and in-service training. Lastly, teachers with preschoolers with problem behaviors needed the support of experts on managing behavior problems, assistant teaching personnel, education for parents and teachers, respects for teachers, psychological counseling or play therapy from professional service agencies, diagnosis service at child care and education centers which children attended, and support networking with agencies. Teachers also required the family support of medical diagnosis and psychological counseling and financial support from the government.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.116-130
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• 2016

The purpose of this study was to investigate the difficulties of science classes experienced by newly appointed elementary school teachers in terms of science content knowledge and teaching method, and to suggest some implications for their effective adaptation. We recorded science lessons conducted by 3 beginning elementary school teachers with less than 5 years experience and also analyzed their classes and interview materials. The results were as follows. First, difficulties that they experienced in science content knowledge was the possession of scientific errors or misconceptions, the lack of awareness and confidence in scientific concepts and principles, and the possession of negative concept about learning materials. Second, difficulties that they experienced in teaching method was the absence of reorganization of the textbook contents, using closed questions, one-sided instructions and explanations by teacher, the application of incomplete analogy, and the lack of understanding about experiment activities. The implication from this study is that beginning teachers need to be provided with curriculum oriented in experiment at teachers college and to participate in various types of educational opportunities.