• Korean Journal of Comparative Education
• /
• v.20 no.2
• /
• pp.95-128
• /
• 2010

This article presents a one and half-year process of Lesson Study conducted at a K-8 school in an urban district in the eastern U.S. Lesson Study, a Japanese form of professional development that centers on collaborative study of live classroom lessons, has spread rapidly in the U.S. since 1999 and has been argued as a promising alternative model for teacher-led school reform through professional development. The Lesson Study group described here was composed of five teachers, one administrator, and one instructional improvement coordinator belonging to the participant school and two instructional super-intendants from the school district. Data was collected from October 2007 to February 2009 and a qualitative case study method was employed for this study. Drawing a case of Lesson Study, this article intended to show how Lesson Study group members participated in planning, teaching, observing, discussing, and improving lessons collaboratively for student learning by enhancing teacher professional competence so that find directions for future implementation in Korea. This article investigates (1) process of Lesson Study, (2) issues Lesson Study group members mainly dealt with, and (3) changes have taken place in Lesson Study as it is conducted over time. (4) Finally, this article concludes with challenges to adopting Lesson Study successfully in Korea.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
• /
• v.59 no.2
• /
• pp.164-178
• /
• 2015

The purpose of this study was to design a teaching and learning method conductive to the development of creative thinking skills and investigate its effects. It has been developed integrated mind map with feature of visualizing the divergent thinking to the aspects of Science (S), Technology (T) & Engineering (E), Arts (A), Mathematics (M). Integrated mind map can be divided into four types of STEAM type, STEA type, STEM type, STE type depending on the category of key words in the first branch. And Integrated mind map can be divided into three levels of guided, intermediate, open depending on the teacher's guide degree. And also integrated mind map activities were carried out in the form of group, class share as well as individual. This study was implemented during a semester and students in experiment group experienced individual-integrated mind map activity 10 times, group-integrated mind map activity 10 times, class share-integrated mind map activity 3 times. The results indicated that the experimental group presented statistically meaningful improvement in creative thinking skills (p<.05). And there was a statistically meaningful improvement in fluency, flexibility, originality as a sub-category of creative thinking skills(p <.05). Also creative thinking skills are not affected by the level of cognitive, academic performance, gender (p<.05). In conclusion, it was found that 'integrated mind map activity' improved student's creative thinking skills. There was no interaction effect about creative thinking skills between the teaching strategy and cognitive level, achivement, gender of those students.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.38 no.6
• /
• pp.765-780
• /
• 2018

The purpose of this study is to synthesize the theoretical perspectives, research methods, and research results of teachers' professional vision by reviewing and analyzing previous research papers and to suggest implications for science teacher education and research. Three databases were used to search peer reviewed journal articles published between 1997-2017, which include 'teachers' and 'professional vision' explicitly in abstracts and empirical studies only. 21 articles in total were analyzed and review results are as follows. First, researchers regarded professional vision as a new concept of teacher professionalism. Previous research viewed professional vision as integrated structure of teachers' knowledge or ability activated at specific moment. Second, the analytical framework of professional vision included two aspects; 'selective attention' and 'reasoning'. Several aspects of lessons or the desirable teaching and learning factors are suggested as the subcategories of selective attention. Hierarchical levels or independent reasoning ability factors are suggested as the subcategories of reasoning process. Third, research on teachers' professional vision focused more on middle school teachers than elementary teachers and on various subject areas. Most studies used video clips and more cases of using videos of non-participants were found. In case of measurement of professional vision, most quantitative scoring methods were whether the responses of experts and teachers on video clips were consistent. Last, most studies examined or assessed teachers' professional vision. It is reported that in-service teachers' professional vision was evaluated higher than novice teachers' and using video clips were effective to examine and improve teachers' professional vision.