• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.507-518
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• 2008

The purpose of this study was to find out the difficulties of teaching the chapter on 'ight', experience of learning, teaching methods, and thinking types of 10 science teachers of the master's course in chemistry education. Discussion course for abduction thinking was carried out during 12 hours after the interview. Data were collected from individual interviews of 4 teachers among the 10 subjects and from the reports of the science teachers after the discussion course. From the data, it was found that most of the science teachers had suffered difficulty in teaching the chapter on light before the discussion course. Most of them had tried to teach drawing the path of light, but there was little teaching effect. Their teaching methods were similar to the method of what they had learned. During the course, the teachers recognized they could not see the path of light directly, and it needed inferring from image. From the abduction thinking, the teachers recognized the meaning of image and gained concrete methods in teaching students.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.339-349
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• 2001

The aim of this study is to explore effective teaching strategies through an investigation of the problem-solving abilities and reasons for the unsuccessful problem solving of pre-service teachers. The participants of the study were 60 pre-service teachers who were expected to teach earth science in elementary school (40) and secondary school (20). The participants had taken a course in astronomy before they took part in the present study. The instruments for the study were a paper-and-pencil test and interviews. The results demonstrated that the pre-service teachers' abilities to solve problems were low. The pre-service teachers of the elementary school were inferior to those of the secondary school in their problem solving abilities. The causes for the unsuccessful problem solving were identified as follows: (1) lack of prerequisite knowledge to understand the motions of the moon and the planets, (2) failure to represent problems based on solution principles, (3) failure to apply the knowledge acquired in one setting to another, different setting, (4) frames of reference the frameworks for everyday life situation and for earth science problem situation, and (5) rote-memorization of facts rather than understanding the cause-and-effect relationships. The above causes for unsuccessful problem solving seemed to be related to the characteristics of novice problem solvers in general and of the tasks about the motions of the moon and the planets. Suggestions are made to enhance pre-service teachers' problem solving abilities based on the result of the study.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.194-207
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• 2020

The purpose of this study is to identify the types and characteristics of elementary school pre-service teachers revealed in the process of resolving the change of lunar phases, which emphasizes the context of actual observation, and to provide suggestions for areas to be considered in the elementary school teacher training program. To this end, we analyzed the 30 pre-service teachers' explaining the observable lunar phases, and the main research results are as follows. First, the phase change of the moon was often explained by introducing the timetable for each phase of the moon rather than based on observation of the phenomenon and scientific reasoning. Second, an alternative concept of the type that the moon is invisible when the sun rises or that the moon can always be observed has been identified. Third, there was a case of explaining that the time and orientation for observing the moon can be observed regardless of the position of the sun or when observing the sun. Also, the date of observing the moon was assumed to be approached by assuming the lunar calendar. Based on the above results, pedagogical implications were discussed.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.113-128
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to confirm achievement of goals in science curriculum. The questionnaires related to 'solution' chapter of 5th grade were developed. The subjects were 69 sixth grade elementary school students and four elementary school teachers. 5 students were selected for deep interviews. Each interview was progressed separately, and all the contents of the interviews were recorded. As results, it is revealed that most of the students could not understand basic concepts of 'solution' chapter. The teachers and the students recognized that explanations in the textbook were insufficient. Many inquiry activities were introduced in textbooks, but the students could not acquire inquiry abilities, especially data interpretation and generalization abilities. Inadequate pictures in the textbook also disturbed the students' learning of inquiry ability. Using materials of real life in textbook could not attract the elementary school students' interests effectively.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.22-35
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• 2013

In this study, we analyzed the problems of grade 3~4 science textbooks developed for the 2007 revised national curriculum raised by elementary school teachers. 53 elementary school teachers were selected and asked to complete the open questionnaire to find out the problems they experienced or perceived when they taught the corresponding unit of the science textbooks. The responses were coded and categorized through researchers' cross analysis. The result revealed various problems in using the science textbooks in real classroom context. The problems were divided into three dimensions as inquiry activity aspect, science knowledge aspect, and science learning assessment aspect. Each dimension consisted of several categories. We explained the frequency and representative examples of the problems in each category. These can provide some guidelines and implications for new science textbook developers and science education policy makers.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.535-544
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to analyze the elementary teachers' professional performance about science teaching practice according to their personal variables. For this study, professional performance test was modified based on Woo's 'framework for progression and learning in the professional development of elementary teachers' science teaching practice', which included 6 elements such as 'lesson plans', 'creating the learning environment', 'inquiry', 'conceptual understanding', 'practical application', and 'assessment'. And then it conducted to 79 elementary teachers. The collected data were analyzed by the statistical package SPSS. The results of this study were as follows: There was statistically significant difference in the sub-domains of professional performance according to teachers' career, experience of training program, deciding method of exclusive subject. But there was almost no significant difference in other personal variables, such as gender, major, etc. Findings suggest that there are needs of further study about interaction effects of personal variables affecting teachers' professional performance of science teaching practice in detail.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.30-43
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• 2014

'Basic Inquiry' unit was newly included in the grade 3~4 science textbook developed for 2009 revised national curriculum. The unit deals with six basic inquiry skills such as 'observation', 'measurement', 'classification', 'prediction', 'inference', and 'communication'. This study investigated elementary school teachers' perceptions on the effects of 'Basic Inquiry' unit by questionnaires (N=104 for pre-survey, N=90 for post-survey). The results showed that how the teachers have taught basic inquiry skills before this new textbook and how they perceived the educational effects of the unit after experimental teaching period in three aspects; development of basic inquiry skills, facilitating science learning in other units, and implementation of open inquiry. The reasons of positive perceptions as well as negative perceptions were analyzed and discussed with the suggestions for further study.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.54-65
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• 2018

The purpose of this study was to investigate the characteristics of lesson planning of pre-service elementary teachers to develop scientific communication skills for elementary school students. For this purpose, lesson plans and lesson planning journals written by the 53 pre-service teachers were collected and analyzed. The results of the research were as follows. The pre-service elementary teachers used an implicit and contextual approach to develop scientific communication skills. Teaching and learning activities for enhancing scientific communication were mainly conducted in words or in writing. There were many activities expressing elementary school students' thoughts and presenting the results of experiments in the lesson plan. There were many cases in which the pre-service teachers' lesson plans did not include the evaluation of scientific communication skills. In their lesson plans, there are a lot of mutual activities between teachers and students, team and whole students, and inter-students within teams together, and students' individual activities from requests of teachers. We found that the pre-service teachers had various difficulties when they planned the science lesson to develop scientific communication skills. The pre-service teachers were less likely to refer to specialized materials related to science education when planning their classes.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.87-101
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• 2019

The purpose of this study was to investigate elementary school teachers' perception and the status of education program on science museum field trips by using a questionnaire (188 teachers) and interview (6 teachers). The results of the research are as follows. First, factors influencing elementary school teachers who choose the science museum as a place for field trips were 'student's interest', 'teacher's own experience related to the science museum', 'science curriculum', 'suggestions from a fellow teacher', 'space available for field work' and so on. Second, 82% of the respondents conducted pre-education program, but they mainly conducted safety education. Third, the teacher conducted post-education program less than pre-education program. In the post-education program, the most activities were to express and share knowledge and experience gained from the science museum. Fourth, 52.2% of the teachers provided tasks or activity sheets during science museum field trips. Fifth, the teachers mainly served as safety guide. In addition, the teachers thought that safety guide was the most important role of teacher in science museum field trips. Sixth, the teachers thought that the method of viewing the science museum's collection, which emphasizes the role of docent rather than the teacher, was more educational.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.244-262
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to explore how the practical knowledge used by an elementary school science teacher during learner-centered science instruction can promote elementary students' construction of positive emotion. Using an auto-ethnographic approach over a period of three months, the researchers collected students' interest diaries, post interviews with students, video recordings in science classes, and students' personal diaries and analyzed them by means of the constant comparative method. In this way, the researchers categorized the structure of the practical knowledge held by the teacher and explained how it was applied in learner-centered science instruction to promote students' construction of positive emotion. Three images of an elementary science teacher's practical knowledge emerged and can be categorized under the following headings: 1) 'From science classroom to science $caf{\acute{e}}$', 2) 'Pleasant experiment class for all students and the teacher', and 3) 'A science class for students who were marginalized'. These images were backed up by principles and rules, and the teacher came to embody these images as he implemented these rules. This study also discusses how the impact of a science teacher's practical knowledge on students' construction of positive emotions can be interpreted as promoting positive outcomes rather than negative sanctions, meeting students' expectation from lab activities, and meeting the specific needs of marginalized students in a science class.