• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.170-178
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• 2008

In this research, we observed the co-works among novice and expert science teachers who were involved in a science teacher association and explored their interactions. The science teacher association is K-12 science teachers' gathering near Seoul. This study is a case study with the participant observation and the private interview of 8 novice teachers and 3 expert teachers. Based on the collected data, interaction between novice and expert teachers was categorized as seven types; question and answer, demonstration, presentation, co-working, providing materials, listening, and showing interest. Several factors supporting such an active interaction were derived from this study; 1) Teachers perceived well about the importance and the merits of co-working with other science teachers. 2) The open and cooperative environment of the science teacher association supported teachers' interaction. 3) There were tasks that teachers needed to co-work such as the science fair and the science camp. 4) There were opportunities of interactions for publishing books and developing modules. 5) Lots of expert teachers were willing to help and co-work with novice teachers. We found that novice teachers could continue to grow in terms of the professional development under interactive, continuing and cooperative environment with expert teachers.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.401-414
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• 2014

Overexcitability (OE) and social self-concept are the integral affective characteristics of science-gifted students. Overexcitability refers to sensitivity as an internal disposition to give a more often, longer and more intensive reaction to a wide variety of stimuli, and social self-concept refers to the way of behaving in society, especially at school in the case of students. The purpose of this study was to examine the overexcitability and social self-concept of science-gifted and non-gifted elementary school students. The subjects in this study were 135 gifted elementary students belonged to gifted education centers or gifted classes and 91 ordinary elementary students. An overexcitability test and a social self-concept test were conducted to the subjects, and the collected data were analyzed by SPSS. The findings of the study were as follows: First, the score of the science-gifted was significantly higher than that of the ordinary students in all sub-domain of OE (psychomotor OE, sensual OE, emotional OE, intellectual OE, emotional OE) and social self-concept. Second, the science-gifted students who attended gifted education centers and community gifted classes scored significantly higher than the ordinary students in overexcitability. Based on conclusions, implications for teaching the science-gifted were discussed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.359-370
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to explore the changes caused by using smart technology in school science inquiry. For this, we investigated 12 elementary school teachers' perceptions by using an open-ended questionnaire, group discussions, classroom discussions, and participant interviews. The results of this study indicate that the introduction of technology into classroom inquiry can open up the various possibilities and can cause additional burdens as well. First, teachers explained that smart technology can expand the opportunities to observe natural phenomena such as constellations and changing phases of the moon. However, some teachers insisted that, sometimes, learning how to use new devices disrupts students' concentration on the inquiry process itself. Second, teachers introduced the way of digital measurement using smart phone sensors in inquiry activities. They said that digital measurement is useful in terms of the reduction of errors and of the simplicity to measure. However, other teachers insisted that using new devices in classroom inquiry can entail additional variables and confuse the students' focus of inquiry. Communication about inquiry process can also be improved by using digital media. However, some teachers emphasized that they always talked about both the purpose of using SNS and online etiquettes with their students before using SNS. Based on these results, we discussed the necessity of additional analysis on the various ways of using digital devices depending on teachers' perceptions, the types of digital competency required in science inquiry using smart technology, and the features of norms shaped in inquiry activities using smart technology.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.783-790
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• 2016

The 'Integrated Inquiry' unit is a new addition in the 5th~6th grade science textbooks, and was developed for the 2009 revised national curriculum. The unit deals with six integrated inquiry process skills: problem cognition, formulating hypotheses, controlling variables, transforming and interpreting data, drawing results, and generalization. The purpose of this study is to investigate the perceptions and the teaching practices of elementary school teachers on this unit in their school curriculum and where improvements can be made. Data was collected from questionnaires filled out by 92 elementary school teachers. The results are as follows: First, teachers do have a positive perception on the importance of teaching integrated process skills. Second, with that being true, this unit ended up receiving both positive and negative reviews by teachers. This research found that there were good and bad responses on the educational aspects of this unit in three particular areas: dealing with the development of integrated inquiry process skills, facilitating science learning in other units, and implementing open inquiry. Third, teachers have difficulties particularly in problem cognition, formulating hypotheses, controlling variables, transforming and interpreting data, generalization, and drawing results. There is a lack of student understanding as well as a lack of professionalism for teachers on this unit, and many issues related to the composition of the textbook. This study may have important implications for making improvements in this unit and teaching integrated process skills.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.33 no.7
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• pp.645-657
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• 2012

The purpose of this study was to investigate pre-service elementary teachers' conceptions about the relative sizes of celestial bodies including the universe, galaxy, star, planet, satellite, asteroid, and comet, which were presented in elementary school science textbook. This study also examined the causes of their misconceptions as shown in the study. Sixty three pre-service elementary teachers participated in this study. The survey was developed for this study that asked to make an order of relative sizes of the given celestial bodies and to write scientific facts about each of the celestial bodies. The survey items were analyzed by simple descriptive statistics, and the written responses were analyzed using qualitative and inductive methods. The results showed that only five (7.9%) of the participants correctly answered about the relative size of the given celestial bodies. There were three common misconceptions identified in relation to the relative sizes of the celestial bodies; more than 20% of the participants had: (1) a planet is bigger than a star (46.0% of the participants), (2) an asteroid is bigger than satellite (58.7%), 3) a comet is bigger than a star (22.2%).

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.31 no.8
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• pp.1214-1228
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• 2011

As a case study on beginning teachers' teaching professionalism in science-gifted education, we analyzed their teaching professionalism based on pedagogical content knowledge. To do this, we selected 3 elementary and 3 secondary beginning teachers from science-gifted education institutes in the metropolitan area. After their science instructions for science-gifted students were observed, in-depth interviews were conducted. Analyses were conducted with taped videos, researcher's field notes, and transcripts for in-depth interviews. This study revealed that most of the teachers had relatively desirable belief about science-gifted education. However, they tended to have a little deficient practical knowledge about science-gifted students, the curriculum for science-gifted education, science contents, the instructional strategies for science-gifted education, and the assessment in science-gifted education. These results imply that many teachers are likely to have a little deficiency in teaching professionalism for science-gifted students in various aspects, and need to find the ways of improving their teaching professionalism.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.98-110
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• 2005

This study aims to explore the usefulness and the way of practical use of dilemma episodes in science teacher education by the responses of teachers on the given dilemma episodes and connected discussions. The research based on the idea of constructivist teacher education, the assumption that dilemmas can provide teachers with an open investigation context, an understanding of nature of science education. The dilemmas episodes in Wallace and Louden(2002) were introduced and discussed in order during graduate course to 11 elementary teachers. Perception on the reality and importance of given dilemmas differed by topics, but many of them were very similar to their experiences, brought active discussion on the issues. Some could not arouse sympathy because of cultural differences. The teachers recognized the dilemma episodes provided thoughtful reflection on their own teaching, opportunity of sharing experience and knowledge with peers, overall view for science education. Most of them gave positive opinion on the use of dilemma episodes in teacher education. Upon these teachers' responses and exploratory research experiences, some practical suggestion were made for science teacher educators.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.277-289
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• 2014

The purpose of this study was to analyze the questions of earth science knowledge presented in elementary science textbooks. In group activities, The questions were created by preservice elementary teachers assuming that they were teaching the earth science knowledge in science education classes at university of education. Types, frequencies, and sources of the cognitive background knowledge of the questions were analyzed. The results demonstrated the followings. First, types, concentrations, and sources of the cognitive background knowledge of the questions were different depending on the domains of earth science. Specifically, in astronomy domain, the frequencies and concentrations of the questions showed different trends compared with other domains in its individual lessons. It suggests that instructional strategies that reflected the difference found in each lessons be appropriately designed and used. Second, it was found that 'schools' was the most dominant sources of the cognitive background. 'Friends' were also found to be very important sources, thus promoting students' interaction with their peers would become an important strategy in science teaching. It was also found that mass media such as 'internet' and 'TV' were roughly rated the same as 'schools' which illustrated that mass media could be utilized in science instruction. Third, since types, concentrations, and frequencies of the questions were diverse in the lessons of units, it is suggested that diverse instruction strategies also be taken into account as an educational approach in teaching the subjects in teacher education.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.36 no.6
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• pp.911-923
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• 2016

The purpose of this study is to figure out the quality of understanding and implementation for teachers implementing the 2009 revised elementary science curriculum achievement standards. To achieve this purpose, in-depth interviews were conducted with 12 participants, and the qualitative contents method was used to analyze interview contents. According to the interview contents, the results of this study can be described as a phenomenon that teachers implementing achievement standards regarded achievement standards as usual, while focusing on evaluation in school. To make clear of this phenomenon, we classified it into two main dimensions. One is the understanding of teachers by implementing the 2009 Revised National Curriculum achievement standards for elementary school science curriculum, the other is its application. Teachers regarded achievement standards as a criterion, but did not have much attention to it during class time. Furthermore, teachers point out the problems caused by lacking available support materials and the material about core achievement standards. When teachers implemented achievement standards, they prefer to give class to students based on textbooks rather than achievement standards, and they usually use it as evaluation criterion. Based on the results of this study, there were three suggestions and they are as follows: First, it is necessary to improve teachers' professionalism on curriculum and it is a must for teachers to have more concerns about achievement standards; Second, to develop accessible support materials for teachers; Third, to improve curriculum implementation systems.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.40 no.5
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• pp.543-563
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• 2020

This study explores how the teaching practices of two teachers changed during scientific modeling classes. It also aims to understand these changes in terms of the teachers' modeling pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) development. The study participants were two elementary school teachers and their fifth-grade students. The teachers taught eight lessons of scientific modeling classes about the human body. The data analysis was conducted for lessons 1-2 and 7-8, which best showed the change in teaching practice. The two teachers' teaching practices were analyzed in terms of feedback frequency, feedback content, and the time allocated for each stage of model generation, evaluation, and modification. Teacher A led the evaluation and modification stages in a teacher-driven way throughout the classes. In terms of feedback, teacher A mainly used answer evaluation feedback in lesson 1-2; however, in lesson 7-8, the feedback content changed to thought-provoking feedback. Meanwhile, teacher B mostly led a teacher-driven model evaluation and modification in lesson 1-2; however, in lesson 7-8, she let her students lead the model evaluation and modification stages and helped them develop models through various feedbacks. The analysis shows that these teaching changes were related to the development of modeling PCK components. Furthermore, the two teachers' modeling PCK differed in teaching orientation, in understanding the modeling stages, and in recognizing the value of modeling, suggesting the importance of these in modeling teaching practice. This study can help improve the understanding of modeling classes by revealing the relationship between teaching practices and modeling PCK.