• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.339-358
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• 2021

This study explores the agency of a student leader, expressed through efforts to distribute power and encourage participation in elementary scientific modeling classes. The study also analyzes the context in which the leader's agency was expressed and the context in which the development of a collective agency was constrained. The participants were 22 fifth-grade students. The leader's agency was analyzed by examining his words and actions. As a result, at the outset of the study, the leader had the most power, performing all the activities as the sole authority in a non-cooperative participation pattern. However, with reflection and help from the researcher, the leader recognized the problem and facilitated the participation of other students. He developed an identity as a teacher and demonstrated the agency. The leader's agentic behaviors can be categorized into three aspects. First, regarding the cognitive aspect, the leader helped other students participate in modeling by sharing his knowledge. Second, regarding the normative aspect, he made rules to give all students an equal voice. Third, regarding the emotional aspect, the leader acknowledged the contribution of the students, increasing their confidence. The leader's agency temporarily helped the group to overcome the student hierarchy, facilitating a cooperative participation pattern. However, the development of a collective agency was constrained. The power of the leader was partially redistributed, and the other students did not position themselves as equal to the leader. To support the leader's agency to develop into a collective agency, it is necessary to redistribute the power of the leader more equally and to change the recognition of students.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.859-877
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to probe secondary science teachers' perception on scientific models and modeling. A total of 50 experienced science teachers were surveyed with 10 open-ended questions about several aspects of models and modeling: definition, examples, purpose, multiplicity, changeability, design/construction, evaluation and beliefs in the use of models and modeling as a teaching tool. The analysis of the data shows the following results: 1) understanding of models and modeling held by a majority of experienced secondary science teachers was far from that of experts as they concentrated on a model's superficial, representative, and visual functions, 2) when it comes to their view toward the use of a model, a model does not remain in the stage of 'doing science' but in the stage of being a subsidiary teaching tool for the teacher's explaining and the students' understanding of scientific concepts, 3) the subjects they majored in made meaningful differences in their contextual understanding of models and modeling, 4) though most of the teachers acknowledged the importance of teaching about models and modeling, even a lot of them showed a negative position toward the opinion that they are willing to apply modeling to their classes. Implications of the results were discussed in terms of intervention in order to enhance secondary science teachers' understanding and pedagogical content knowledge of models and modeling.

• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.203-212
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• 2017

A scientific model refers to a conceptual system that can describe, explain, and predict a particular physical phenomenon. The co-construction of the scientific model is attracting attention as a new teaching and learning strategy in the field of science education and various studies. The evaluation and modification of models compared with the predicted models of data from the real world is the core of modeling strategy. However, there were only a limited data provided by the teacher in many studies of modeling comparing the students' predictions of their own models. Most of the students were not given the opportunity to evaluate the suitability of the model with the data in the real world. The purpose of this study was to develop a scientific model co-construction program that can evaluate the model by directly comparing the predicted models with the observed data from the real world. Through a collaborative discussion between teachers and researchers for 6 months, a 5-session scientific model co-construction program on the subject 'image formation by convex lenses' for second grade middle school students was developed. Eighty (80) students in 3 classes and a science teacher with 20 years of service from general public co-educational middle school in Gyeonggi-do participated in this 2-week program. After the class, students were asked about the helpfulness and difficulty of the class, and whether they would like to recommend this class to a friend. After the class, 95.8% of the students constructed the scientific model more than the model using the construction rule. Students had difficulties to identify principles or understand their friends, but the result showed that they could understand through model evaluation experiment. 92.5% of the students said that they would be more than willing to recommend this program to their friends. It is expected that the developed program will be applied to the school and contribute to the improvement of students' modeling ability and co-construction ability.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.1037-1049
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to explore how the flow of discourse move and their reasoning process in dialogic argumentation during group modeling on excretion. Five groups of three to four students in the second grade of a middle school participated in the modeling practice of a Gifted Center. Analysis was conducted on argumentation during the modeling activity in which students should explain how the waste product (ammonia) leaves the body. It was found that there was a sequential argumentative process-tentative consensus, solving the uncertainty, and consensus. There were several discourse moves - 'claim' and 'counterclaim' in the stage of tentative consensus, 'query' and 'clarification of meaning' in the stage of solving the uncertainty, and 'change of claim' in the stage of consensus. Students participated in the dialogic argumentation by constructing argument collaboratively for reaching a consensus. Critical questioning in the stage of solving the uncertainty and reasoning in the stage of consensus were the impact factors of dialogic argumentation. By answering the critical questions, students changed their claims or suggested new claims by defending or rebutting previous claims. Students justified group claims with diverse argumentation scheme and scientific reasoning to reach a group consensus. These findings have implication for science educators who want to adopt dialogic argumentation in science classes.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.313-323
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• 2015

The purpose of this study is to investigate the cognitive process of student's modeling on a modeling-emphasized argument-based general chemistry experiment. The participants were twenty-one freshman students. Six topics were carried out during the first semester and semi-structured interview was implemented at the end of the semester. Semi-structured interview questions were used to elicit elements of effective model, modeling strategies, difficulties that students have experienced during modeling, and resolving the difficulties that students have experienced during modeling. All student interview data were collected and transcribed. The results of this study are summarized as follows: (1) Elements of effective model were considered to be visual expression, persuasive explanation, and rhetorical structure. (2) Modeling strategies included arranging important keywords or writing the outline, and during the modeling process, students used various data, suggested data after reconstructing, suggested definitions and explanations of core concepts, used meta-cognition, and considering rhetorical structure. (3) Difficulties students have experienced during modeling could be categorized as lack of modeling strategy and understanding. (4) Resolving difficulties students have experienced during modeling could be categorized as modeling strategy and understanding. Students learn the strategy by feedback, modeling experience, evaluation of experimental report, models which they constructed previously and references, and the understanding of contents were achieved through arguments which occurred during classes and during the process of writing the experimental reports. These results suggest that when using modeling in teaching and learning, the argument-based learning strategy can be effective in enhancing students' modeling by helping them to understand meta-modeling with scientific concepts.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.58 no.3
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• pp.383-401
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• 2019

This study started with the idea that it is necessary to focus on common concepts and ideas among the subjects when conducting integrated education in high school. This is a preliminary study for developing materials that can be taught in mathematics in the context of already learning scientific concepts in high school. For this purpose, Mendel 's law of genetics was studied among the contents of biological subjects which are known to have relatively little connection with mathematics. The more common links between the two subjects are, the better, in order to integrate math and other subjects and develop materials for teaching. Therefore, in this study, we investigated not only the probability domain but also the concept of statistical domain. We have been wondering if there is a more abundant idea to connect between 'Mendel's law' and 'probability and statistics'. Through these anxieties, we could find that concepts such as 'likely equality' and 'permutation and combination' including 'a large number of laws' can be a link between two subjects. Based on this, we were able to develop class materials that correspond to classes. This study is expected to help with research related to development of integrated education support materials, focusing on mathematics.