• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.92-103
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• 2022

This study was designed to explore the ways to improve the organization and implementation of the curriculum for the small rural middle schools. In order to do this, the situations and demands in organizing and operating the curriculum were analyzed through interviews and classroom observations. Having separated the country into 5 distinct regions and the cases of 10 small rural middle schools across these regions of the country were directly observed and analyzed. As a result of the study, it was necessary to prepare a fundamental solution to the following problems: 1) insufficient linkage between school levels of integrated operating schools in terms of curriculum, 2) lack of educational facilities and cultural space in rural areas in terms of local communities, and 3) supply and demand of teachers in small-scale middle schools in rural areas in terms of supply and demand of teachers. Based on the discussed issues, the following implications could be drawn for the improvement and support of school curriculum organization and implementation. Firstly, the autonomy in organizing and operating curriculums for small rural middle schools should be greatly expanded so that integrated schools or joint curriculums between schools can be operated in a robust manner. Secondly, it needs to strengthen the out-of-school support for small rural middle schools alongside local governments and local communities, including the operation of Edu buses and the construction of multipurpose educational and cultural centers. Finally, it is necessary to address the difficulties of operating circuit teachers by systematically expanding the pool of teachers and instructors, and managing teachers and instructors at the level of the local education office.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.154-163
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• 1996

In Korea, previous survey in science education mainly dealt with Quantitative variables. Qualitative ethnographic observation can bring deeper understanding of the context of school lesson and it's feature. The purpose of this study was to develop qualitative understanding about the learning experiences provided in middle school and students' responses to them through observation and interview and to investigate it from a constructivist perspective. Six lessons of the 9th grade were observed and recorded on the video tape. The topics of the lessons were potential energy, kinetic energy and conservation of mechanical energy. We had also unstructured interview with the teacher and three groups of students. The teacher's deductive explanation starting from scientific definition and quantitative problem solving using formula were the main features of the classroom lectures. The video - watching lesson was taking the role of a break rather than being seen as a useful tool for science learning and teaching by both students and the teacher. The teacher's perception about the lab experiment was not supported by the responses from the students. The teacher and students preferred problem-book to textbook for their teaching and learning. From a constructivist's perspective, however the teacher seemed to have intention of introducing daily life context, he couldn't unfold it to main context of the lessons. Students were so accustomed to passive learning that they did not express directly their complaint about their learning and did not participate in planing and controling their learning. The teacher and the students believed the scientific knowledge came from an exact experiment. There was a cooperation to seek right answer rather than a social process of making sense of knowledge. In conclusion, the observed science lessons of a middle school showed typical cross section of teacher - centered, passive learning environment, which is far from constructivist perspective.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.417-439
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• 2016

The purpose of this study is to compare and analyze the effects of teaching based on learning-communities approach to mathematics for 7th grade students. Two classes of 7th graders at two different middle schools in same city were selected as the experimental group and the control group respectively. Students in the experimental group learned mathematics in a learning-community while their counterparts in the control group received the traditional whole-class instruction employed in most schools. The results are as follows. Firstly, there was no statistically significant difference in mathematics achievement between the experimental group and the control group. Secondly, between the two groups, there were statistically significant differences in students' attitudes toward mathematics. Participants enjoyed the learning process itself by asking difficult questions to one another, sharing their ideas freely and figuring problems out for themselves. During these active participations, they displayed more confidence and interest in learning mathematics.

• Journal of Korean Home Economics Education Association
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.79-97
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• 2018

The purpose of this study was to analyze the democratic civic competencies of the activity tasks in 'the Family Life' part in Middle School Technology Home Economics textbooks according to the 2015 revised national curriculum. In order to achieve the purpose of this study, the activity tasks of six types of middle school Home Economics textbooks (for a total 12 of volumes) were analyzed. As a result, the use of the citizenship competency group was the most often recorded out of the three democratic civic competency groups and the subset of trust and value competencies also were frequently observed. Additionally, democratic civic competency was the seen most within the 'human development and family' area by the national curriculum, and showed the highest frequency in big idea, 'the relationship'. Activity tasks in the 'KH' textbooks were dealing with democratic civic competency the most. Based on the relationship between Home Economics education and democratic civic competencies, it is necessary to study the practice of classroom instruction so that students can develop democratic civic competence in 'the Family Life' by means of a Home Economics curriculum.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.719-738
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to examine 'orientations toward teaching science (OTS)' of science teachers and to analyze the factors affecting OTS found in middle school science classes. For this purpose, we selected three female teachers as participants named Kim, Ryu, and Park who had various teaching experiences. Semi-structured interviews and classroom observations were gathered for data. After analysis of the characteristics of the teachers' orientations toward teaching science from the data, the factors affecting the orientation were investigated. As results, three types of orientation toward science teaching were observed: inquiry, activity driven, and didactic. These types of orientation toward science teaching were affected by internal factors rather than external factors. The internal factors found out were experience as a student, understanding of the nature of science, curiosity, and reflective thinking.

• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.249-262
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• 2010

Large Midwest university faculty members proposed the Science and Technology Enhancement Program Project (STEP) to improve students' learning in the secondary mathematics classroom using modules of inquiry-based teaching. The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of the STEP Project on students' attitude toward mathematics. Hierarchical linear models (HLM) were used to evaluate the impact of the STEP Project. The sample group for the study was 130 ninth grade students enrolled in Integrated Algebra I in a large urban school district. The school was one of eight secondary schools that participated in the STEP Project. The classes in the treatment group were three of five classes ordered in terms of the highest, middle, and lowest mean GPA. The control group consisted of two other middle GPA classes. The classes had an average of 25 students. Teachers who previously had been involved in the STEP Project taught all treatment and control classes. The inquiry-based teaching activities provided by the project were confined to the treatment classes. The survey measuring students' attitudes toward mathematics were obtained for both groups of students. The inquiry-based teaching affected students' attitudes toward mathematics (p < 0.07, ES = 3.07). Especially, students who had preexisting low attitudes toward mathematics were significantly affected by treatment (p < 0.02, ES = 0.02), while the treatment positively affected African American students overall at p < 0.08 (ES = 0.58).

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.620-636
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• 2006

The purpose of this study was to analyze one science teacher's understanding of student argumentation and his explicit teaching strategies for implementing it in the classroom. One middle school science teacher, Mr. Field, and his students of 54 participated in this study. Data were collected through three semi-structured interviews, 60 hours of classroom observations, and two times of students' lab reports for eight weeks. Coding categories were developed describing the teacher's understanding of scientific argumentation and a description of the main teaching strategy, the Claim-Evidence Approach, was introduced. Toulmin's approach was employed to analyze student discourse as responses to see how much of this discourse was argumentative. The results indicated that Mr. Field defined scientific inquiry as the abilities of procedural skills through experimentation and of reasoning skills through argumentation. The Claim-Evidence Approach provided students with opportunities to develop their own claims based on their readings, design the investigation for evidence, and differentiate pieces of evidence from data to support their claims and refute others. During this approach, the teacher's role of scaffolding was critical to shift students' less extensive argumentation to more extensive argumentation through his prompts and questions. The different level of teacher's involvement, his explicit teaching strategy, and the students' scientific knowledge influenced the students' ability to develop and improve argumentation.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.252-263
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• 2015

This study analyzed the effects of science outdoor activity applying a Brain-Based Evolutionary (ABC-DEF) approach on elementary school students' interest and academic achievement. Samples of the study were composed of 3 classes of 67 sixth graders in Seoul, Korea. Unit of 'Ecosystem and Environment' was selected as a object of the research. Textbook- and teachers' guidebook-based instruction was implemented in comparison group, brain-based evolutionary approach within classroom in experimental group A, and science outdoor learning by a brain-based evolutionary approach in experimental group B. In order to analyze the quantitative differences of students' interests and achievements, three tests of 'General Science Attitudes', 'Applied Unit-Related Interests', and 'Applied Unit-Related Achievement' were administered to the students. To find out the characteristics which would not be apparently revealed by quantitative tests, qualitative data such as portfolios, daily records of classroom work, and interview were also analyzed. The major results of the study are as follows. First, for post-test of interest, a statistically significant difference between comparison group and experimental group B was found. Especially, the 'interests about biology learning' factor, when analyzed by each item, was significant in two questions. Results of interviews the students showed that whether the presence or absence of outdoor learning experience influenced most on their interests about the topic. Second, for post-test of achievement, the difference among 3 groups according to high, middle, and low levels of post-interest was not statistically significant, but the groups of higher scores in post-interest tends to have higher scores in post-achievement. It can be inferred that outdoor learning by a brain-based evolutionary approach increases students' situational interests about leaning topic. On the basis of the results, the implications for the research in science education and the teaching and learning in school are discussed.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.437-453
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• 2007

In this thesis, look around about problems of the present mathematics education, and then it devised the alternative plan to improvement of educational spot that mathematics instruction which considers an individual differences it applied the portfolio. To minimize the level deepening of knowledge, we choose the instruction which classified by level in the classroom. Above all things, we lay emphasis on searching the method to student for oneself can feedback about studying contents. We also carry out this method to students in Sang Dong middle school from 2002 to 2005. Therefore, we develop the instruction it applied the portfolio, to effectual studying participation of the students. Go through this process, we settle down the instruction which classified by level it applied the portfolio in the classroom at 2005 and produce a result that the instruction have an positive effect on the students' cognitive and sentimental filed.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.365-387
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• 2016

This study examined the effects of students'perceptions of classroom on self-regulatory strategy use, persistent intention, and achievement in an online Science gifted program. The sample included 434 middle and high school students who participated in the 3-months online gifted program. Participants volunteerly surveyed on their perceptions of classroom (appeal, challenge, choice, meaningfulness, academic self-efficacy), self-regulatory strategy use, and persistent intention. Student achievement data was collected from online learning system. Multiple Regression was conducted to analyze the effect of students'perceptions of classroom on various dependent variables. The results of this study showed that (1) students use of rehearsal strategy was positively related to academic self-efficacy among the sub-variables of students'perceptions of classroom and the use of rehearsal strategy was negatively related to challenge; (2) the use of elaboration strategy was positively related to challenge and meaningfulness; (3) the use of time management strategy was positively related to academic self-efficacy and the use of resource management strategy was positively related to challenge; and (4) students' persistent intention was related to appeal, challenge and meaningfulness, achievement was related to challenge.