• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.43-64
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to analyze the progress of children's abstraction and to investigate how elementary students understand through mathematical modeling approach in the sixth grader's learning of surface area. Each small group showed their own level on abstraction in mathematical modeling progress. The participants showed improvements in understanding regarding to surface area context.

• Communications of Mathematical Education
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.365-384
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• 2010

This paper is an analysis study where we surveyed how well pre-service teachers understand the mathematical concepts taught in elementary school. We analyzed the results focusing on the following: First, what are the pre-service teachers' understandings of the equal sign and variables? Secondly, how exact are their understandings of other elementary school mathematical concepts? The survey was done on the students in Teachers College of Jeju National University. We hope that the results of this study will help the improvement of mathematical education for elementary pre-service teachers.

• Education of Primary School Mathematics
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.39-55
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• 2024

Recently, the 2022 revised mathematics curriculum has established achievement standards for equal sign and equality, and efforts have been made to examine teaching methods and student understanding of relational understanding of equal sign. In this context, this study conducted a lesson that emphasized relational understanding in an introduction to equal sign, and compared and analyzed the understanding of equal sign between the experimental group, which participated in the lesson emphasizing relational understanding and the control group, which participated in the standard lesson. For this purpose, two classes of students participated in this study, and the results were analyzed by administering pre- and post-tests on the understanding of equal sign. The results showed that students in the experimental group had significantly higher average scores than students in the control group in all areas of equation-structure, equal sign-definition, and equation-solving. In addition, when comparing the means of students by item, we found that there was a significant difference between the means of the control group and the experimental group in the items dealing with equal sign in the structure of 'a=b' and 'a+b=c+d', and that most of the students in the experimental group correctly answered 'sameness' as the meaning of equal sign, but there were still many responses that interpreted the equal sign as 'answer'. Based on these results, we discussed the implications for instruction that emphasizes relational understanding in equal sign introduction lessons.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.67 no.4
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• pp.253-270
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• 2023

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of student-led assessment on achievement emotions and science concept understanding in middle school science classes. For this purpose, 4 of the 7 classes in the third grade of mid- dle school in small and medium-sized cities were selected as the experimental group and conducted student-led assessment, while the comparative group (3 classes) conducted teacher-led assessment. The student-led assessment consisted of 4 stages in which learners took initiative to set learning goals and develop assessment criteria, conduct self assessment and peer assess- ment, and carry out seven assessment activities. Student-led assessment was effective in improving positive achievement emotions and relieving negative achievement emotions and increasing students' science concept understanding in middle school students. Students perform student-led assessment, grasp their reach, and repeatedly go through reflective thinking to compensate for deficiencies in the learning process. Therefore, student-led assessment can be used as a tool to increase science concept understanding by continuously checking the level of science concept understanding.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.565-578
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• 2008

The purpose of this study is to search for the factors that influence students' understanding of the nature of science through the experience of the cognitive processes of authentic open inquiries. The freshmen of a science high school practiced authentic open inquiries reflecting epistemological characteristics of authentic science. The case study was conducted with four focus students who were successful or unsuccessful at learning the nature of science during the authentic open inquiry activity. Questions that the focus students asked during the inquiries as well as students' answers to pre- and post-VNOS (C type) were analysed, and then elaborated in the semi-structured interview. The findings suggest that open inquiry activities provide the inquiry contexts that help science high school students to understand the nature of science, and that the characteristics of students' cognition influence the understanding of the nature of science. For instance, designing experiments with their own research questions had an influence on the students' understanding about the scientific methods and the diversity of research types, and drawing conclusions from their own data made students experience scientific reasoning. In addition, the experience of collecting anomalous data helped students to understand the role of inferences in generating scientific knowledge and the creative nature of scientific knowledge. In this inquiry context, the reflective thinking that came from proactive discussion among students, made students think about the validity of the designing experiments and interpreting data, and helped them to understand the uncertain nature of reasoning and the diverse nature of scientific methods. Moreover, divergent thinking linked to analogical thinking helped students to understand the creative nature of science.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.85-94
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• 2015

Constructivism gave many implications to science education but at the same time it has brought confusion about its implication to the field of science education. Hermeneutics has possibilities of being able to reduce confusion as well as opening a new horizon. Hermeneutics seeks the meaning of 'real understanding' through the concepts of horizon, hermeneutical circle, and fusion of horizons. Both hermeneutics and constructivism have positive attitude to students' pre-understanding and accept contextualization of knowledge. Thus, they both can criticize traditional teaching method and propose an alternative. Moreover, hermeneutics approaches human understanding holistically with the concept of horizon, and pays attention to the circularity of the process of human understanding. As a result, hermeneutics can open a new horizon and give new discourse to science education and contribute to the development of research and practice of science education.

• Education of Primary School Mathematics
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.53-68
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• 2017

Although the table, as one of the representations for helping mathematics understanding, steadily has been shown in the mathematics textbooks, there have been little studies that focus on the table and analyze how the table may be used in understanding students' functional thinking. This study investigated the elementary school 5th graders' abilities to design function tables. The results showed that about 75% of the students were able to create tables for themselves, which shaped horizontal and included information only from the problem contexts. And the students had more difficulties in solving geometric growing pattern problems than story problems. Building on these results, this paper is expected to provide implications of instructional directions of how to use the table as 'function table'.

• 한국지구과학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.04a
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• pp.71-71
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• 2010

대학생들의 야외 지질 실습 전과 후에 퇴적층 형성에 대한 이해도 변화를 파악하기 위해 충남대학교 지질환경과학과 3학년 재학생 27명을 대상으로 3일 동안, 참여 학생들에게 매일 실습 전과 후로 나누어 6번의 설문 조사를 실시하였다. 설문 조사 문항은 모두 주관식이며, 3일에 걸쳐 총 68문항을 제공하였다. 제시된 문항은 퇴적층 형성과 관련된 기본개념 31문항과 조사 지역의 노두관찰 37문항으로 분류 된다. 야외 실습 전과 후의 개인별 점수를 각각 비교한 결과 실습에 참여한 모든 학생들의 점수가 향상되었다. 실습 3일에 대한 전체 학생들의 평균점수는 실습 전에 28.3점, 후에 51.6점으로 실습 전보다 후에 34.2% 향상되었다. 또한 전체 학생들의 기본개념 31문항에 대한 평균점수는 실습 전에 19.8점, 후에 26.9점으로 22.9%, 조사 지역 노두관찰 37문항에 대해서는 실습전에 8.5점, 후에 24.7점으로 43.8%가 각각 향상되었다. 퇴적층은 공간적으로 넓은 장소와 시간적으로 오랜 기간 동안에 걸쳐 형성되어 학생들은 광범위한 공간적, 시간적 개념을 이해하는 것이 필요하며 대학의 지질학 교육 과정에서 야외실습은 필수적인 요소이다. 야외 실습은 학습자가 직접 자연과 같은 실제 세계를 관찰하고 조사하는 활동으로 이루어지는 학습 방법으로 교실 밖에서 일어나는 모든 학습을 총칭한다고 할 수 있다. 본 연구 결과는 야외 실습 후에 학생들의 점수가 향상된 것을 보여주었다. 이런 결과는 야외 실습이 야외에서 학습자가 주체가 되어 적극적인 참여로 학습하는 학생 중심 학습이고, 자연 환경을 학습의 장으로 하여 실물을 활용한 직접적인 조사활동과 같은 경험에 의한 체험 학습이기 때문인 것으로 해석된다. 또한 야외 실습에서 그룹 활동은 학생들이 지질조사를 하면서 발견된 문제나 내용에 대해 공유할 수 있는 토론 학습인 동시에 야외 활동에서 교수는 전문가 혹은 학습 촉매자로서 문제에 대한 해결책을 주거나 학생들에게 질문이나 토론의 기회를 주어 학생들의 지적, 정신적 향상에 영향을 미치기 때문인 것으로 보인다. 그러므로 야외 실습은 계획, 실행, 정리 단계가 매우 중요하다. 우선 장소 선정에 있어 강의실에서 토론된 주제 및 개념과 관련된 장소를 선정해야 하며, 야외에서는 학생과 학생, 학생과 교수 간의 그룹 활동, 토의 및 질문 시간을 충분히 가져야 함은 물론 실습 후에는 세미나를 통해 야외 활동에서 새롭게 발견하거나 조사 및 학습한 내용, 해결하지 못한 문제 등을 토론하고 정리하는 과정을 갖는 것이 필요하다고 판단된다.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.304-322
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to explore the effects of student-centered instruction using analogies for middle school students' learning of the photosynthesis concept. Participants in this study were 8th grade students at a middle school in Seoul (N=132). The students were divided into two groups for implementation. In the experimental group the teaching materials containing analogies were used while the contents of a science textbook were taught in the control group. The results of this study indicated that student-centered instruction using analogies was more effective than traditional methods of instruction for understanding photosynthesis concepts and the students' attitude toward the science class. Analogies were also found to contribute to developing an understanding of the photosynthesis concept through activating students' prior knowledge, focusing on structural features of the target concept and elaborating knowledge. In addition, analogies play an important role in activating small group discussions, improving students' meta-cognitive skills, and revealing and revising of misconceptions about photosynthesis. Moreover, analogies can help improve students' interests and self-efficiency in science classes.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.895-905
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• 2015

Citizens should be sensitive to the complex and controversial SSIs (Socioscientific Issues), be able to make a responsible decision with evidence and empathy, and furthermore take political action for the larger welfare. The premise of this research is that understanding the nature of science (NOS) takes an important role when students and adults participate in the discourse on SSIs because SSI reasoning requires individuals to examine information and counter-information with skepticism. We therefore designed SSI programs that were incorporated with NOS by adapting a contextualized-reflective approach. The leading research question was to what extent SSI contexts contributed to promoting students' understanding of NOS. A total of 71 11th grade students participated in this program. The school was located in an urban city near the capital city of Seoul, South Korea. We designed SSI programs to cover the issues of genetically modified organisms, climate change, and nuclear energy. Each issue required four to six class periods to complete. We conducted pre- and post-program tests using the revised VNOS-C, recorded group discussions or debates and collected student worksheets to observe the increase of student NOS understanding. As a result of this program, students showed moderate improvement in their understanding of NOS.