• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.213-223
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• 2012

This study explored practicing elementary school teacher's beliefs of scientific inquiry and scientific inquiry teaching methods. Defining teacher's beliefs as a broad construct, we tried to examine the teachers' understandings about the scientific inquiry and scientific inquiry teaching method. This study drew on interview data from 10 elementary teachers in busan and changwon area of korea. Conclusions of this study include; First, we found that elementary teacher's beliefs of inquiry were represented variously. And they considered that inquiry is the important goal of science education. They though that the goal of science education is development of Scientific inquiry skills, Scientific thinking skills, development of Creativity and problem solving ability, increasing interest about science, understanding of the basic concepts of science and apply of real-life. second, most of the teachers though that Scientific inquiry is scientists activities, they defined 'the process of creation of new knowledge', 'the process of deriving theory', 'solving process of intellectual curiosity', 'Problem-solving process'. third, they considered that teaching method of scientific inquiry is open inquiry activities. however, they thought that there are many difficulties to actually apply. Understanding teachers' beliefs has implications for both the enactment of inquiry teaching in the classroom as well as the uptake of new teaching behaviors during professional development, with enhanced outcomes for engaging students in Science.

• Education of Primary School Mathematics
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.71-94
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• 2001

The purposes of this study were to design small group collaborative learning models for developing the creativity and to analyze the effects on applying the models in mathematics teaching and loaming. The meaning of open education in mathematics learning, the relation of creativity and inquiry learning, the relation of small group collaborative learning and creativity, and the relation of assessment and creativity were reviewed. And to investigate the relation small group collaborative learning and creativity, we developed three types of small group collaborative learning model- inquiry model, situation model, tradition model, and then conducted in elementary school and middle school. As a conclusion, this study suggested; (1) Small group collaborative learning can be conducted when the teacher understands the small group collaborative learning practice in the mathematics classroom and have desirable belief about mathematics instruction. (2) Students' mathematical anxiety can be reduced and students' involvement in mathematics learning can be facilitated, when mathematical tasks are provided through inquiry model and situation model. (3) Students' mathematical creativity can be enhanced when the teacher make classroom culture that students' thinking is valued and teacher's authority is reduced. (4) To develop students' mathematical creativity, the interaction between students in small group should be encouraged, and assessment of creativity development should be conduced systematically and continuously.

• Journal of the Korea Furniture Society
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.103-111
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• 1999

In the age of knowledge and information when every aspect of economy, education and culture in society is changing rapidly, the teacher is not just a provider of knowledge in classroom. Ultra-modern educational tools and materials have come into being with the latest developments in science and technology and we see classroom teaching in general tending towards more 'open' classroom and study. What the students need most for the coming century is the cultivation of higher faculties such as creative thinking, the power to solve problems, and the spirit of inquiry. The present-day teacher is required to make use of various teaching medial in order to provide the students with better educational environment for developing these faculties, not the teaching method of the past with the teacher at the center. One way to enhance classroom environment is in reintroducing the modernized teacher's desk to the center of teaching apparatus. This paper is about the better way of designing the teacher's multimedia desk equipped with a PC that will make it possible for the teacher to utilize the internet-based educational resources.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.565-582
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• 2004

The purpose of this study was to explore the elements of teaching behavior and classify instructional types through the teacher's classroom observation in elementary school science classrooms. 18 elementary school teachers were selected at Seoul city and Kyungkido. The topic of lesson was 'How the weight of object is changed according to the shape to sink in the water'. Each class was recorded and analyzed that. The teaching behavior elements were used inductional analysis method. The instruction types were classified into instructional organization, teaching strategies in teaching-learning processes, the level of openness of inquiry at science classroom. The validity and reliability of the data were analyzed by 7 science educators. The results of the analysis of the teachers discourse showed that there are 23 types of teaching behavior elements. Used teaching behavior elements revealed the differences from each teacher. There were 7 types among the 12 types of class and the most common types of instruction were unsystematic, teacher-centered, and guided-inquiry. The result showed that guided inquiry type was found more than open inquiry type and teacher-centered instructional, content-centered instructional, superficial inquiry process showed characteristic.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.273-289
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• 2001

Given that the culture of the mathematics classroom has been perceived as an important topic in mathematics education research, this paper deals with the construct of sociomathematical norms which can be used as an analytical tool in understanding classroom mathematical culture. This paper first reviews the theoretical foundations of the construct such as symbolic interactionism and ethnomethodology, and describes the actual classroom contexts in which social and sociomathematical norms were originally identified. This paper then provides a critical analysis of the previous studies with regard to sociomathematical norms. Whereas such studies analyze how sociomathematical norms become constituted and stabilized in the specific classroom contexts, they tend to briefly document sociomathematical norms mainly as a precursor to the detailed analysis of classroom mathematical practice. This paper reveals that the trend stems from the following two facts. First, the construct of sociomathematical norms evolved out of a classroom teaching experiment in which Cobb and his colleagues attempted to account for students' conceptual loaming as it occurred in the social context of an inquiry mathematics classroom. Second, the researchers' main role was to design instructional devices and sequences of specific mathematical content and to support the classroom teacher to foster students' mathematical learning using those sequences Given the limitations in terms of the utility of sociomathematical norms, this paper suggests the possibility of positioning the sociomathematical norms construct as more centrally reflecting the quality of students' mathematical engagement in collective classroom processes and predicting their conceptual teaming opportunities. This notion reflects the fact that the construct of sociomathematical norms is intended to capture the essence of the mathematical microculture established in a classroom community rather than its general social structure. The notion also allows us to see a teacher as promoting sociomathematical norms to the extent that she or he attends to concordance between the social processes of the classroom, and the characteristically mathematical ways of engaging. In this way, the construct of sociomathematical norms include, but in no ways needs to be limited to, teacher's mediation of mathematics discussions.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.282-295
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• 1993

This study was accomplished to survey of current situation and management of science education in the special classroom(school) managed by firm. The status of management and the evalution of the scientific inquiry ability were taken on workers attending 17 Special Classes and 9 Special Schools located in Taegu City and Kyungpuk Province. As a responses, most students chose the subject "Science"as an option within their limited 8 units credits. About 88.5% of the students were female. About 78.3% of the classes/schools were conducted in the evening only. About 59.4% of teaching staffs were prevailed with female in these classes, and most of them were young, naive, and unexperienced with their major in chemistry and physics. Insufficient facilities and equipments, crowded classes, understaffed instructors, and inappropriated text materials. etc., were reasons for the students not receiving maximum benefit from these classes and schools. In order to evaluate of scientific inquiry ability, 25 items were constructed and administered to 250 students. The processes of scientific inquiry were classified into 5 categories(category I : establishing a subjects, category II : planning a experiments, category III : conducting a experiments. category IV : interpreting a result of experiments, category V : formulating generalization). As the result obtained from the achivement test analysis, the scores for all the students were significantly low, and the scores for girls were higher than those for boys. The results of test in the selected students showed that inquiry abilities in the category I, II and V were higher than those in category III and IV.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.349-357
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• 2014

The purpose of this study is to consider the implications of science experiment in class and to seek a direction for its improvement. For this purpose, Science textbooks, teachers' cognitions, and classroom activities have been analyzed to find out how many and what kind of levels of inquiry elements are included in those. In this study, 22 teachers have participated in the questionnaire to investigate their perception about experiment class, and the two instruction cases in two classes of 9th grade have also been analyzed. Results show that most of the textbooks have included questioning, evidence collecting, explanation of phenomena, and connection with existing scientific knowledge. But the elements of communication and justification have been few. Most levels of the inquiry are teacher-led. Although the teachers thought communication and justification are important, their classroom activities does not coalesce with their thoughts. The students mostly spend their time with connecting evidence, they hardly explain the phenomenon based on the proofs as the results of experiment, and the activities of connection with the existing scientific knowledge, and communication and justification.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.149-160
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• 1998

The purpose of this study was to analyze the 6th national secondary science curriculum and classroom practices to collect the basic data for developing secondary science program focusing on creative problem-solving ability. The creative problem-solving ability was conceptualized as an active process of producing new solutions to problems and consisted of five components: general knowledge, domain-specific knowledge, motivation, divergent thinking and critical thinking. The research questions were generated as follows: (1) Whether creative problem-solving elements-domain specific knowledge(declarative knowledge and inquiry methods) were included or not in the 6th secondary science curriculum, textbooks and teacher's guide? If so, how are they represented? (2) Whether the teachers tried to enhance divergent and critical thinking of their students. Through content analyses, observations and interviews, these research questions were answered as follows: (1) Inquiry methods, which are important to develop creative problem-solving abilities in science, were underestimated in comparison with declarative knowledge. In other words. inquiry methods were regarded only as tools to understand the scientific concepts and principles. (2) It was hard to find the situations which teachers provided opportunities for divergent and critical thinking to their students. Based on these results, the followings were recommended: (1) Inquiry methods should be regarded as a goal not as a tool and be used to acquire inquiry methods themselves. (2) Teachers should not stick to the prescribed inquiry methods prescribed in the textbook, but to give opportunities for thinking various kinds of inquiry methods to improve divergent and critical thinking.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.47 no.5
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• pp.487-494
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• 2003

In this study, the effects of science achievement faculties improvements upon students' logical thinking, science inquiry skills, experiment attitudes, manipulated skills and inquiry process skills were investigated in high school inquiry chemistry experiments. For this purpose, the participants were 150 students taking the course of high school chemistry class in Anyang-city. Logical thinking and science inquiry skills' data were collected from written tests, inquiry process skills' data were collected from reports and experiment attitudes and manipulated skills' data were collected from classroom observations. As the results of this study, students' inquiry process skills, experiment attitudes and manipulative skills were very low. But other parts except inquiry process skills were significantly increased. And the science achievement of students were improved when continuously inquiry chemistry experiment were applied to students.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.146-151
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• 1993

This study analyzed the problem associated with inquiry centered science education and formulated some improvement Strategies for inquiry learning in the standard Korean high school course. In order to attain the goals of questionaire survey methods were used. To examine the current status of biology education, seperate questionaires were developed through an educational research and development procedure used for tearchers and student. The questionaires were developed to ask about instruction and evaluation methods, the level of inquiry learing and abstacles to it. Here are some of our results: 1) Biology instruction and learning is more knowledge-orinted than inquiry-orinted, 2) Inquiry approach in science teaching is hard to be applied because of crowed classroom conditions. 3) The material is too broad in range and too difficult in content. There is virtually nothing that can be related to everyday life. The material focusing on inquiry activities is unsatisfactorily selected and organized. 4) Effective methods of inquiry-based instruction and evaluation are not available. 5) Biology teachers are burdened with too many class hour a week and too many varieties of additional works. 6) 91.1% of biology teachers and 90.3% of students recognize that lab and field works are needed to enhance inquiry learning. However, in reality, such inquiry activities are lacking. 7) 73.3% of schools have no lab assistants. 8) The university entrance examination is the greatest factor against inquiry learning. 9) There are very few chances of in-service education for biology teachers to learn more about biology curriculum and science education theory.