• Journal of Science Education
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.78-95
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• 2014

Students' interest and motivation of a lesson can be deeply influenced by how their teacher starts his or her lesson. So the introduction part of math classes should be very carefully and thoughtfully designed. The goal of this study is to serve the foundation for developing the practical types of introduction part of math classes and to draw the implications for planning and teaching math classes. For these, 19 lesson plans titled by 'volume of cylinders' composed by elementary teachers and 2 lesson videos on the internet are analyzed. Finally, seven types of introduction parts of math class are probed and several implications are suggested.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.788-800
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to investigate the elementary school teachers' perception of science writing. In this study, 10 elementary school teachers who have taught in the 3rd or 4th grade science lesson in 2010 were selected. Researchers constructed interview guide in three parts including the teachers' understanding of science writing, the status of science writing teaching and the difficulties of science writing in their classes. For the investigation, semi-structured in-depth interviews with 10 elementary school teachers were conducted individually. The results showed that the elementary school teachers were unfamiliar with the word ‘science writing’ and considered science writing as a writing using science learning contents. Also, they think that teaching science writing in their science lessons was not needed and didn't assess and provide detailed feedback with the students' written works. Most teachers needed teaching materials and assessment tools for science writing. To develop elementary teachers' understanding of the value and use of writing for learning in science, they will need to participate in science writing programs for in-service teachers and various teaching materials and assessment tools should also be developed.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.396-404
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• 2010

This study aimed to investigate a perception of teachers engaged in special education for scientifically gifted regarding nature of science and identify attitudes toward teaching nature of science. The sample of this study consists of 122 science teachers who are teaching or taught students attending gifted classes of any primary school in Korea and any gifted education center of every District Office of Education. We made a partial amendment of a VOSE that was developed by Chen(2006) and then used. We tested their perception and attitudes in regard to nature of science. In terms of nature of science, we devide it into 7 sub-areas to analyse. For attitudes toward teaching nature of science, we investigate and analyse following 5 sub-areas; tentativeness of scientific knowledge, nature of observation, scientific methods, theories and laws and subjectivity and objectivity. The result showed that the generally teachers have a desirable recognitions about a nature of science. For attitudes toward teaching nature of science, the teachers showed that they have positive attitudes. However between degrees of teachers' recognition about a nature of science and attitudes toward teaching nature of science showed a low correlation. To increase their understanding of nature of science and develop attitudes toward teaching nature of science, there should be more training time for the teachers and training contents also should be changed. In addition, we hope that this study contribute to develop contents and direction of training for the teachers as a basic reference.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.311-325
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• 2021

Modern society demands a new science teacher image. Compared to other school ages, elementary school students are the time when the teacher's influence plays a large role and is the time when they first encounter science subjects. The role of science teachers is very important as the starting point for the initial image of science learning and attitudes toward science by elementary science teachers. Therefore, it is very important to correctly establish an image of an elementary science teacher. The purpose of this study is to analyze the images of science teachers that elementary school students prefer and avoid according to their class situation. To this end, 534 elementary school students were divided into five classes: class type, class material presentation method, subject instruction method, subject content explanation method, and class atmosphere, and the image of science teacher who prefers and avoids is described in an open format. Concepts presented by elementary school students were analyzed using Semantic network analysis. The conclusions of this study are as follows. First, the image of a science teacher preferred or avoided by elementary school students was determined according to how the science teacher did the class. Second, elementary school students prefer activity-oriented classes such as experimental classes, and there is a need for classes to be conducted in this manner. Lastly, small changes and efforts of teachers in teaching methods are needed so that changes to science classes preferred by elementary school students can be achieved.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.359-368
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to find out the factor that causes the difference on understanding the aim and perception of laboratory activities between teachers and students. For this study, in-depth interview was conducted for sixth grade students and teachers of 10 classes. The questionnaire of the interview can be divided into 3 sections: the aim of laboratory activities, whether teachers present the aim of laboratory activities, the method of laboratory class progress and the evaluation method. The factors that bring about the difference between the teachers and the students on perception of the aim are the absence of proper guidance on the aim of laboratory activities, the laboratory classes that the progress out of teachers' intention and evaluation method that is the performed without any relationship with the aim of the laboratory activities. Because the teacher-intended aim of laboratory activities is not properly presented, students can't percept the accurate aim. Even though teachers recognize the importance of the improvement of science process skill acquired through laboratory activities, this is not delivered practically in the class and students also can't percept the importance of science process skill.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.841-854
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to investigate the teaching methods of prediction, inference, and hypothesis. The major data source was gathered by in-depth interview of science teachers (about 50-80 minutes for each interview). The interviews were conducted using semi-structured interview protocol, which consisted of three major parts: (1) Teacher's definition of prediction, inferences, hypothesis, (2) Teaching methods of prediction, inferences, and hypothesis and (3)Reasons of teacher's inaccurate perceptions of prediction, inference, and hypothesis. All the interviews were audio-taped and transcribed. Topics in the questions were categorized. The results were as follows: Teachers recognized the importance of prediction, inferences, and hypothesis. But they didn't have an accurate conception and they have great difficulty in classifying and explaining the prediction, inferences, and hypothesis. To find out the teaching methods, researcher investigated the inquiry activities, teaching times, usage of terms, teachers' questions, and teaching difficulties. Reasons for having difficulty were lack of teaching competency, difficulties from the students, and problems in the present curriculum. Finally, we discovered that the reasons for teacher's inaccurate perceptions of prediction, inference, and hypothesis were two factors. One is internal factors, which include the lack of scientific inquiry process skills, burdens of science subject and lack of science education knowledge. The other is external factors, which include education system for evaluations and lack of teacher education. In conclusion, this study suggested establishing more elementary teacher education programs that include strengthened concepts of inquiry process skills and teaching methods.

• 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 Association For Science Education
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.703-716
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• 2012

Frequently, pre-service elementary teachers are asked to write reflective journals on their teaching during teacher education program. However, writing reflective journals can not guarantee pre-service teachers to learn from their experience. In this study, 44 reflective journals of pre-service elementary teachers on their science teaching were analyzed in terms of 'productive reflection', a concept suggested by Davis (2006). Productive reflection may help teachers' effective learning by considering interrelationships among aspects of teaching including learners and learning, subject matter knowledge, assessment, and instruction. The result showed what aspects of teaching were included, emphasized, and integrated in the pre-service elementary teachers' reflective journals. Implications for teacher education would be discussed.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.338-355
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• 2022

This study explored the effects of pre-service elementary teachers' inquiries into science class dilemmas. By closely examining the characteristics of the pre-service teachers' inquiry processes and changes in their educational decisions, the effectiveness of using dilemmas as part of teacher education was determined. Twenty fourth-year university pre-service teachers participated and conducted inquiries into science class dilemmas over seven weeks. Based on pre- and post-questionnaires, KWHL tables, inquiry reports, discussions, and group class presentations, the major factors that influence the pre-service teacher's decision-making changes were extracted. The pre-service teachers found the science inquiry process meaningful when exploring the science topics covered in the dilemmas, and claimed that elementary school students would be able to engage in meaningful science explorations if they learned science through inquiry. Furthermore, the pre-service teachers explored the thinking processes and background knowledge of the students in different ways. Documents such as teacher's guides and the curriculum were examined and the students' thought processes were identified through interviews with the teachers and students, which were found to reflect their educational decision-making. Moreover, it was recognized by the pre-service teachers that depending on the situation, alternative teaching methods were possible. The focus on the unstructured dilemma problems provided the pre-service teachers with problem-solving situations that triggered scientific inquiry and exploration of student thinking and revealed the complexity of science teaching and learning. Based on these results, the teacher education implications for using dilemma cases are discussed.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.46 no.3
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• pp.237-254
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to examine the changes in the science teaching professionalism self-perception of pre-service elementary teacher as shown in science education lesson course. The subjects of this study were 25 pre-service elementary teachers enrolled in the second year at G National university of education. And the scale of this study were derived and applied by modifying and supplementing the scale of previous studies. The results of this study are as follows: it was found that science teaching professionalism and self-perception of pre-service elementary teachers are improving. In short, it was found that there are significant changes in all sub-domains such as professionalism development efforts, educational contents, instructional method, educational environment and atmosphere, assessment and science teaching preference. As a result of examining the related contents in detail along with the combustion-related science lesson plan, Padlet, and post-test descriptive question responses, there were some good categories and some categories that needed to be supplemented. Based on these results, a plan for enhancing the science teaching professionalism of pre-service elementary teacher needs to be considered.