• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.31 no.8
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• pp.1055-1076
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• 2011

In this study, we investigated the changes in beginning chemistry teachers' teaching practice without mentoring program and after the implementation of mentoring program. Participants in our study included two chemistry teachers who have less than one year of teaching experience and three mentor teachers. We collected data such as video recordings of teacher's classes, interview, and recordings of mentoring after each class. The results show there were slight changes in teaching contents, teaching procedure, and explanation method without mentoring. On the other hand, there were a lot of significant improvement in classroom environment, teaching contents and teaching procedure, teaching-learning techniques, questioning and feedback, and explanation method after mentoring has been implemented. However, there were no easy changes in the teaching style, understanding of students, and ways of interaction with students in connection with teaching purposes. Based on the results of this study, we explored the possibilities of instructional improvement through mentoring on beginning chemistry teacher's teaching practice. Therefore, we consider that more systematic and long-term mentoring is necessary to improve professionalism in teaching beginning teachers. In particular, we propose mentoring programs reflecting the individual needs of beginning teachers.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.20 no.8
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• pp.101-113
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• 2020

This study aimed to explore how effective explicit form-focused instruction (FFI) is in teaching the schwa vowel /ə/ to EFL students in a classroom setting. The participants were 25 female high school students, who were divided into the experimental group (n=13) and the control group (n=12). One female American also participated in the study for a speech sample as a reference. The treatment, which involves shadowing model pronunciation by the researcher and a free text-to-speech software and the researcher's feedback in a private session, was given to the control group over a month and a half. The speech samples, for which the participants read the 14 polysyllabic stimulus words followed by the sentences containing the words, were collected before and after the treatment. The paired-samples t test and non-parametric Wilcoxon signed-rank test were used for analysis. The results showed that the participants of the experimental group in the post-test reduced the duration of the schwa by around 40 percent compared to the pre-test. However, little effect was found in approximating the participants' distribution patterns of /ə/ measured by the F1/F2 formant frequencies to the reference point, which was 539 Hz (F1) by 1797 Hz (F2). The findings of this study suggest that explicit FFI with multiple repetitions and corrective feedback is partly effective in teaching pronunciation.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.14-23
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to investigate beginning earth science teachers' perceptions about Learning in Geologic Field Trip. The hundred and sixteen high school earth science teachers who were in the training for their promotion answered the questionnaire of Learning in Geologic Field Trip. It was divided into five parts: needs and educational values, teachers' experiences and their difficulties, and desirable teaching methods of Learning in Geologic Field Trip. Results indicated that the participants perceived Learning in Geologic Field Trip important in earth science education and responded positively to the educational values of Learning in Geologic Field Trip. Most of the beginning teachers had experience of geologic field trip, but did not learn how to teach it to their students during the geologic field trip in the pre-service training program. It was shown that only a few teachers had experience of geologic field trip and of teaching students in the outdoor of geologic fields after they became a classroom teacher. Most of the participants perceived that teaching students about the geologic field trip is difficult because of lack of their experience. In order to overcome the difficulty, teachers suggested that they need to learn how to teach the geologic field trip to students through their in-service training. leachers suggested that a desirable teaching method of the geologic field trip is to provide teachers with a teacher's manual including geological explanation and information about field trip sites before their visit so that they can scaffold it and facilitate the students' cooperative group activity during the field trip. As a follow up activity, the participants agreed that the presentation and discussion about the results should concur.

• The Journal of Sustainable Design and Educational Environment Research
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.66-90
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• 2007

The purpose of this study is to measure and analyze primary causes of indoor air pollution, including carbon dioxide, minute dust, and total volatile organic compounds, for each room before the beginning of a class through the time of discharge after the end of the class in general classrooms, computer rooms, and science rooms of three newly-established schools that opened in 2006, examine properties of indoor air environment in each room by educational activities at school, and determine effective management schemes; the results of this study can be summarized as follows: 1) As for implications for each item found in the mean for each place, since minute dust (PM10) was more likely to occur in time slots full of students' activities, such as a traveling class and a recess, than in the middle of a class and could be expected fully, it is necessary to make a scheme for cleaning in order to reduce minute dust within a room, for example, by usually using a vacuum cleaner indoors. 2) While carbon dioxide was expected to vary with the differences in the amount of breath between higher-graders and lower-graders in a general classroom but showed insignificant difference by grades, showing differences in pollution by four times at a maximum according to the opening of a window as expected, it is necessary to implement artificial or natural ventilation and take a positive measure, for example, by presenting a concrete ventilation scheme, in order to improve indoor air pollution at a room practice. 3) Total volatile organic compounds were found to exceed the standard by more than twice in general classrooms, science rooms, and computer rooms of the schools because of building materials, furnitures including desks and chairs, panels and boards for environment beautification, and items which could be detected even from students' clothes; while a field directly-reading tool was used, obtaining high reliability for the results, it is necessary to apply an analytical method based on process test separately for actual correct measurement if a significantly great amount of total volatile organic compounds appear as compared with other schools due to measuring expenses and consecutive measurements. 4) Since formaldehyde (HCHO) was generally found to exceed the standard in general classrooms, science rooms, and computer rooms, it is necessary to establish and operate a ventilator during a class in a computer room which requires airtightness and a science room in which an organic compound should be used for a class.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.572-581
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• 2000

Teachers' perceptions about curricular objectives are very important to achieve given educational objectives. This study examined teachers' perceptions about priority and hinderance of science objectives. The national science curriculum stated four areas of objectives: inquiry, knowledge, attitude, and STS. A total of 76 elementary and 217 secondary teachers were responded to questionnaire developed for this study. Non-parametric statistics, such as Friedman test, Kruskal-Wallis test, and chi-square test were used by using SPSS/PC program. Teachers in general ranked the inquiry first among the four areas at their perception on the national curriculum, on themselves, and on their instructions. Elementary teachers ranked inquiry higher than secondary science teachers, while secondary science teachers ranked knowledge higher than elementary teachers. As factors hindering teachers from achiving the objectives, elementary teachers pointed out overcrowded classroom and secondary science teachers pointed out college and university entrance examination respectively.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.233-244
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• 2020

The purpose of this study is to explore this music class activity and its effectiveness based on design thinking and using applications class. To this end, the effectiveness study was conducted based on the researchers' prior study of 'Development of Music learning program Using Applications Based on Design Thinking'. Under the study, two first graders who are attending P Middle School in Gyeonggi Province were selected as experimental(29) and control groups(29). The experimental group conducted the class using this program and the control group conducted a general music class. The pre-post-examination was conducted to find out the effects of this class on students' creativity, empathy, teamwork, and problem-solving skills. The course of the study was developed for seven weeks, a program pre-post-survey, and a response sample t-test was used to analyze the results. The study found that experimental groups show significant differences in creativity, empathy, cooperative spirit and problem-solving skills, while control groups that conducted general music classes had similar results in advance-postmortem. The group's students found that their ability to empathize with others in the problem situation was enhanced, their sense of rapid problem solving and achievement was high, and their ability to create creative ideas and enhance creativity in the process of solving the problem was improved. In the future, we look forward to using this music class activity in the field where new, creative, and diverse classroom models are needed.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.42
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• pp.261-283
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• 2016

The aim of this study is to consider the possibility of learning polite expressions of English using the mobile application Naver Band. To improve communicative competence, students need to develop sociolinguistic competence as well as grammatical and discourse competence. To be accordant to social context, the roles of the participants, and the purpose of the interaction, students have to make an appropriate utterance. When a hearer has a higher social status and is older than a speaker, or have low levels of familiarity, Korean native speaker tends to use polite expressions. Students need to learn polite expressions of English because English has a different honorific system from Korean. To realize the characteristics and function of polite language is one thing, but to learn it in a real classroom is another. This study attempts to apply the use of a mobile application, which is considered a user-friendly tool for students, into learning polite language using the UK historical drama, Downton Abbey. Two tests were administered to an experimental group that used the mobile application and a control group that used group work. The results of the two tests show that the use of the mobile application has a positive effect on learning polite expressions and is effective as an after-school activity. In an open-ended questionnaire, students tend to identify polite expressions as superior or high-level language forms and separate these forms from practical expressions. It should be noted as well that teachers need to consider instructing in modern English when using a historical drama in the teaching and learning of polite expressions.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.47 no.3
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• pp.251-262
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• 2023

In this study, we examine other factors that may contribute to the decline in students' academic performance and educational attainment. Many media reports, as well as previous studies, have suggested that virtual learning is the main reason for the decline in students' academic performance. However, the 2020 National Student Achievement Survey, which was conducted in conjunction with the COVID-19 Distance Learning Environment Student Survey, showed that students were highly satisfied with distance learning (70-80%), and the analysis of the National Assessment of Educational Achievement showed that students' academic performance had already been declining year by year since 2017, with a general downward curve. For further confirmation, we analyzed the performance of high school students on mock exams and found that their performance was not normally distributed, but rather a right-skewed U-shaped distribution with a shrinking number of medians and severe polarization. We found that this phenomenon is not simply because of the mode or quality of the virtual classroom, but to a variety of factors, including environmental influences such as care and management at home, changes in investment in private education, increased time spent on online devices while taking virtual classes at the bottom, and increased time spent watching online content, games, and videos that are not related to learning.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.42 no.6
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• pp.770-788
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• 2021

This study aimed to determine whether middle school students could understand global warming and the greenhouse effect, and explain them in terms of global radiative equilibrium. From July 13 to July 24 in 2021, 118 students in the third grade of middle school, who completed a class module on 'atmosphere and weather', participated in an online assessment consisting of multiple-choice and written answers on radiative equilibrium, the greenhouse effect, and global warming; 97 complete responses were obtained. After analysis, it was found that over half the students (61.9%) correctly described the meaning of radiative equilibrium; however, their explanations frequently contained prior knowledge or specific examples outside of the presented data. The majority of the students (92.8%) knew that the greenhouse effect occurs within Earth's atmosphere, but many (32.0%) thought of the greenhouse effect as a state in which the radiative equilibrium is broken. Less than half the students (47.4%) answered correctly that radiative equilibrium occurs on both Earth and the Moon. Most of the students (69.1%) understood that atmospheric re-radiation is the cause of the greenhouse effect, but few (39.2%) answered correctly that the amount of surface radiation emitted is greater than the amount of solar radiation absorbed by the Earth's surface. In addition, about half the students (49.5%) had a good understanding of the relationship between the increase in greenhouse gases and the absorption of atmospheric gases, and the resulting reradiation to the surface. However, when asked about greenhouse gases increases, their thoughts on surface emissions were very diverse; 14.4% said they increased, 9.3% said there was no change, 7.2% said they decreased, and 18.6% gave no response. Radiation equilibrium, the greenhouse effect, and global warming are a large semantic network connected by the balance and interaction of the Earth system. This can thus serve as a conceptual system for students to understand, apply, and interpret climate change caused by global warming. Therefore, with the current climate change crisis facing mankind, sophisticated program development and classroom experiences should be provided to encourage students to think scientifically and establish scientific concepts based on accurate understanding, with follow-up studies conducted to observe the effects.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.51 no.1
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• pp.73-81
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to find out chemistry teachers' perceptions on the aims and characteristics of the chemistry I course from the 7th national curriculum by means of investigating how frequently particular learning contents were selected and what the teachers' teaching styles were in order to find out how effectively teachers were working with the 7th national curriculum in teaching. For this study, data was collected by means of questionnaires, which was answered by 44 chemistry teachers in 40 different high schools. Results from this study are as follows: As for the perception on the aim and characteristics of chemistry I course, many chemistry teachers have already perceived that the aim of the course was to promote democratic citizens with the knowledge of chemistry. And the most appropriate way of teaching chemistry I course was inquiry-centered teaching such as experiment-practice and inquiry-discussion. However, these perceptions were not reflected when they actually taught students in the classroom. Instead, most of the class was concepts learning and there were a lot of differences in selecting learning contents among chemistry teachers. Furthermore, although chemistry I course was considered a good subject to make students have interest and curiosity in chemistry, it was not appropriate to make students understand the concepts of chemistry. Therefore, learning contents in chemistry I course need to improve. In conclusion, as the goal of 7th national curriculum of chemistry I course was to emphasize inquiry teaching, inquiry based teaching should be practiced in the class. Moreover, sufficient teacher training should be accompanied and alternative additional teaching contents should be developed. Finally teachers' experiences should be reflected in the national curriculum when it is revised.