• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.28 no.8
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• pp.796-813
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• 2008

A good understanding of how gifted science students understand physics is important to developing and delivering effective curriculum for gifted science students. This dissertation reports on a systematic investigation of gifted science students' reasoning model in learning physics. An analysis of videotaped class work, written work and interviews indicate that I will discuss the framework to characterize student reasoning. There are three main groups of students. The first group of gifted science students holds several different understandings of a single concept and apply them inconsistently to the tasks related to that concept. Most of these students hold the Aristotelian Model about Newton's second law. In this case, I define this reasoning model as the manifold model. The second group of gifted science students hold a unitary understanding of a single concept and apply it consistently to several tasks. Most of these students hold a Newtonian Model about Newton's second law. In this case, I define this reasoning model as the coherence model. Finally, some gifted science students have a manifold model with several different perceptions of a single concept and apply them inconsistently to tasks related to the concept. Most of these students hold the Aristotelian Model about Newton's second law. In this case, I define this reasoning model as the coherence model.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.1033-1053
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• 2011

In the process of establishing the principle of genetics, Mendel discovered problems based on various observations. Mendel's scientific thinking ability can be effective if this ability is embedded in gifted science education programs. The study aims to develop a science gifted education program utilizing Mendel's scientific thinking ability shown in the principles of genetics and examine students' changes in scientific thinking ability before and after the program implementation. For the program development, first, the characteristics of Mendel's scientific thinking ability in the process of establishing the principle of genetics were investigated and extracted the major elements of inquiry. Second, the science gifted education programs was developed by applying the inquiry elements from the Mendel's Law. The program was implemented with 19 students of $7^{th}$, $8^{th}$ graders who attend the science gifted education center affiliated with university during July 2011. The Mendel's scientific thinking ability was classified into induction, deduction, and integration. The elements of inquiry extracted from the Mendel's scientific thinking include making observation, puzzling observation, proposing causal questions, generating hypothesis, drawing inference, designing experiment, gathering and analyzing data, drawing conclusions, and making generalization. With applying these elements, the program was developed with four phases: $1^{st}$ - problem finding; $2^{nd}$ - hypothesis generating; $3^{rs}$ - hypothesis testing and $4^{th}$ - problem solving. After implementation, students' changes in scientific thinking ability were measured. The findings from the study are as follows: First, students' abilities of problem finding is significantly (p<.05) increased. Second, students' abilities of hypothesis generating is significantly (pp<.05) increased.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.25 no.spc5
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• pp.548-555
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• 2007

In this paper, we suggested that those elementary school students who are gifted in science should be taught basic and fundamental concepts to solve applied problems. We developed a teaching model based on a lesson regarding the path that light takes when passing through a lens on the base of refraction of light. We applied the teaching model to scientifically-gifted elementary school students and analyzed the results. The teaching model is based on the circulation loaming model appropriate for learning such concepts. The problems were designed and applied in order to determine the students' level of concept skills held and also to develop new teaching tools to help their understanding of concepts. As a result, we confirmed that the students, who were unable to describe the path of the light before the course of instruction was given, were able to draw and explain the path of light passing trough lens by using the law of refraction following the instruction.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.731-750
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• 2013

Conceptions toward the artistically gifted were investigated through analyzing newspaper articles from 5 major newspapers for 14 years beginning from 1999 to 2013. There were a total of 1,281 articles having to do with artistically gifted, and showed a steady increase in number of articles as the years went by. Largest number of articles were about musically gifted, and an increase in number of articles were observed following new implementations in law and policy. Implications for education and policy development for the artistically gifted are discussed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.823-840
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• 2012

The importance of teaching the nature of science (NOS) has been emphasized in the science curriculum, especially in the science curriculum for science-gifted students. Nevertheless, few studies concerning the structure and formation of students' mental model on NOS have been carried out. This study aimed to explore science-gifted students' understanding of 'fact', 'hypothesis', 'theory', 'law', and 'scientificness' by utilizing semantic network analysis. One hundred ten science-gifted middle school students who were selected by a national university participated in this study. We collected students' written responses of five items and analyzed them by the semantic network analysis(SNA) method. As a result, the core ideas of students' understanding of 'fact' were proof and reality, of 'hypothesis' were tentativeness and uncertainty, of 'theory' was proven hypothesis by experimentation, of 'law' were absoluteness and authority, and of 'scientificness' were factual evidence, verifiability, accurate and logical theoretical framework. The result of integrated semantic network illustrated that the viewpoint of science-gifted students were similar to absolutism and logical positivism (empiricism). Methodologically, this study showed that the semantic network analysis method was an useful tool for visualization of students' mental model of scientific conceptions including NOS.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.249-260
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• 2010

The main purpose of this study is to examine the effects of explicit instructions on the nature of science (NOS) on the understanding of science-gifted students. Participants were engaged in 8 explicit NOS instructions spanning 6 months. Data were collected before and after the instructions from 20 science-gifted students using student worksheets, open-ended questionnaires (Views of Nature Of Science, VNOS), and in-depth interviews. The results of this study showed that explicit instructions were helpful in improving the understanding of the tentativeness in science and socially and culturally embedded aspects of science. However, participants not only still possess naive views on the nature of science about the distinction of law and theory and the empirical aspects of science, but also had conflicting views and misconceptions in some areas. The study has implication for development of science-gifted program that the explicit instructions on NOS and science inquiry should be provided concurrently, given the complementary relationship of the two activities.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.569-589
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• 2008

One of the main factors that affect the improvement of G/T education is the number and the level of quality of the professionals who are working for the gifted. The professionals vary depending on the role they play for the gifted from the classroom teacher, coordinator, to consultant. Since the legislation of the law for the enhancement of the gifted education in Korea, the in-service training for the classroom teacher has been expanded in number throughout the country. Nowadays, the gifted education is about to be expanded into the general school population, and it becomes more necessary that the training at the level of university graduate program be expanded beyond the short-term in-service training so far. In this vein, the number of universities in Korea that offer the staff development for the gifted education at the graduate level has been increased. However, the problem is whether those programs meet the need to produce the quality professionals. Based on this problem awareness, the study analyzed the graduate programs of 8 universities in Korea by comparing their course descriptions with the graduate-level training program standards of the United States and Europe. It was found that most of the universities fulfilled the areas that both standards commonly consider import, such as "concept and development of giftedness", "curriculum development for the gifted", "teaching methods for the gifted." However, the number of the offered subjects was different among the universities, which indicates that it is suspicious that the universities equally satisfy the areas both standards require. Furthermore, it was also found that the universities differ in satisfying the other standards, From these findings, several suggestions were made for the improvement of the university graduate programs in Korea.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.1-18
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• 2004

This study attempted to survey the present status of the eight students who, 17 years from now, had participated in a special program for 170 days preparing for early entrance to the KAIST. With six students who responded to the questionnaire previously sent, the study focused on each participant's achievement at present, his evaluation on Accelerated Education, his personal opinions on early entrance to university and Gifted Science Education. From the survey, we could find out that three participants had received a doctorate and they are currently working as researchers at research center or professors at university. The other three participants are working as researchers at research center after receiving the M. S. Academic achievements vary according to each participant, but three of them, who ranked high in research achievement, had their articles published in international journals of the SCI level even when they were between 25 and 28 of age. Two of them in particular showed outstanding engineering and developing the commercial modem for IMT 2000 for the first time in Korea. One participant entered Harvard University to major in physics and afterwards studied the law in UCLA. He is now a professor in the law department. Concerning the evaluations on Accelerated Education and early entrance system, four participants answered positively while two participants expressed negative attitudes. When asked their opinions on the Gifted Education in Korea, such problems were pointed out as too much pressure of entering the first-class universities, the tendency to avoid choosing science-related major at universities, the lack of education system that encourages creative thinking, etc. It is necessary that the accelerated education play an important role to maximize their hidden potentials. It remains to be seen in what places these six participants will find themselves and of what ideas they will come up within the next 17 years. It will be worthwhile to wait until then for another survey.

• Communications of Mathematical Education
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.473-495
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• 2011

Across the secondary school, students deal with the algebraic conditions like as identity, inverse, commutative law, associative law and distributive law. The algebraic structures, group, ring and field, are determined by these algebraic conditions. But the conditioning of these algebraic structures are not mentioned at all, as well as the meaning of the algebraic structures. Thus, students is likely to be considered the algebraic conditions as productions from the number sets. In this study, we systematize didactically the meanings of algebraic conditions and algebraic structures, considering connections between the number systems and the solutions of the equation. Didactically systematizing is to construct the model for student's natural mental activity, that is, to construct the stream of experience through which students are considered mathematical concepts as productions from necessities and high probability. For this purpose, we develop the program for the gifted, which its objective is to teach the meanings of the number system and to grasp the algebraic structure conceptually that is guaranteed to solve equations. And we verify the effectiveness of this developed program using didactical experiment. Moreover, the program can be used in ordinary students by replacement the term 'algebraic structure' with the term such as identity, inverse, commutative law, associative law and distributive law, to teach their meaning.

• The Journal of Korean Association of Computer Education
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• v.7 no.5
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• pp.71-82
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• 2004

The purpose of the study was to suggest policy implications to support K-12 education, especially weak areas, through e-Learning, With the literature review and discussions among experts in the field of K-12 education, we identified three areas - support for neglected students, preference-based curriculum, and gifted education - as the ones e-Learning may contribute much, and discussed current situations and problems for the each area followed by policy implications accordingly. In addition, we suggest strategic bases for the policy implications, which were reform of the law and polices, contents sharing, and quality control of e-Learning.