• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.102-115
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• 2019

This study investigated how elementary school teachers reconstruct science curriculum and how they perceive about their experiences. In-depth interviews were conducted with four elementary school teachers who had experience in restructuring science curriculum. Two distinct types of reconstruction were found; restructuring within the subject and integrating between subjects. The teachers who were restructuring science curriculum from personal needs usually substitute, delete, add some contents or activities and change the order of unit within science subject. In contrast, the teachers who were participating in research school usually integrated science with other subjects, developing a new unit or project. The latter recognized the need of teachers' reconstruction of science curriculum more strongly and the importance of teacher's voluntary learning community in implementing the reconstruction. Though they had some difficulties in identifying students' interests and level of understanding and lack of time, all teachers valued curriculum reconstruction by relating it to teacher professional development, identity as a teacher, and job consciousness.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.437-451
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• 2013

This study was conducted as a part of the project to establish professional development system(PDS) for teachers in Korea. This study aimed to provide a case of running a professional learning community(PLC) of teachers in science education based on the collaboration of a national university of education and its affiliated elementary school, in search of learning by participants and implications for professional development of teachers as well as for science teaching in elementary schools. Teachers and researchers who participated in the PLC were able to accumulate meaningful experiences through 11 rounds of meetings. It was not easy to secure enough time for meetings, but they were able to boost their self-confidence for science teaching and enhance the quality of lessons through these gatherings. Participating teachers had a chance to share instructional design, planning, strategies and practices, which include cases of guiding free-choice research activities among students, thereby to be motivated for improved science teaching for the future. The researcher participating in this PLC was also able to understand the identity of an elementary school, especially the affiliated school, and identify the reality and difficulties related to science teaching in schools. Experiences of participating in PLC are expected to help improve the quality of science teaching in affiliated elementary school and pre-service teacher education of the university.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.44 no.4 s.111
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• pp.603-625
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• 2005

Identity is the concept which approaches individuals' affective problems with the social and cultural view. The previous studies on the problems, studied the attitudes, beliefs, or emotions while they restricted the problems to teachers or students' private problems. Otherwise, identities focus on individuals which participate to any community and share its social practices(Mclead, 1994). This study purposed to get an understanding on the teaching and learning mathematics in elementary mathematics classroom with an ethnographic view, while we consider mathematics as a kind of social practices, and mathematics classrooms as communities of practice. We analysed teacher's identities on mathematics and teaching mathematics depending on her responses of the questions as following: How does she think about mathematics, what are the instructional goals in her mathematics classroom, how do students learn mathematics in her mathematics classroom. In addition, we analysed students' identities on mathematics and learning mathematics depending on their responses of the questions as following: What do students think of mathematics, do they like mathematics, why do they study mathematics, how do they feel their mathematics classroom(describe your classroom) and themselves in it(describe yourselves in your classroom), what are their duties and what do they do actually in their mathematics classroom.

• The Korean Journal of Community Living Science
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.301-311
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• 2007

This study examined the needs analysis of school-based staff development at the elementary school level in rural areas of Kyungki and Chungnam provinces. Using a modified survey, the Korean School-based Staff Development Needs Assessment Survey (KSSDNAS), adapted from the Teacher Needs Assessment Survey (TNAS) developed by Gary M. Ingersoll et al. and the Korean Teacher Needs Assessment Survey (KTNAS) developed by K. Chung, the study analyzed 192 teachers' responses. In order to analyze the data, frequency, factor analysis, cross-tabulation, and one-way ANOVA were computed. The findings of this study indicated that there were significant differences between years of teaching experience and the teachers' perceptions of school-based staff development needs. These involved "building learning objective and learning group "and" cooperation of classroom management and students' activity". However, elementary school teachers' perceptions of their school-based staff development needs were not significantly influenced by school size or school location. Most of all, it may be suggested that active teachers can improve the achievement of their rural schools by rearrangement of the subject contents and by understanding their students in rural areas.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.237-250
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• 2021

Teachers play a key role in designing a students' learning experience. Teachers are asked to interpret the context in which they are located and to adjust their practice to fit circumstantial needs based on their teacher agency. In this study, we explore the emergence of teacher agency in distance learning caused by COVID-19 and we analyze factors shaping the teacher agency. For this purpose, we interviewed six secondary science teachers who practiced distance learning in 2020. Semi-constructed interviews and their artifacts were collected and analyzed. This study shows that teacher agency is captured when they respond to circumstantial change and modify their practice to achieve their professional purpose or adjust their practice in space for maneuvering or keep their practice consistent. This study also analyzes the factors that affect the emergence of teacher agency in two dimensions. One is individual and the other is contextual. In the individual dimension, educational values shaped by his/her experiences and short/long-term goals for the future support the emergence of teacher agency. In the contextual dimension, there are collaborative and flexible culture shared by the community, co-operation within the teacher community, and material support. On the other hand, in the individual dimension, the teachers' sense of their role, and no reflection for own practice constrain the emergence of teacher agency, and in the contextual dimension, performativity discourse and strong requirement without guidance constrain the emergence of teacher agency. We suggest an effective lens for establishing a strategy that support teachers' professional practice and the emergence of teacher agency.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.58 no.4
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• pp.545-566
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to show that research community activities can contribute to the professional development in respect of average concepts and mathematical creativity. In the community, activities were undertaken to transform the existing task into the task that contributes to the manifestation of creativity. In this process, researchers tried to connect the theory with the practice of the class, and the teacher acted as an active learner. The findings show that the teacher who had difficulty in teaching average could overcome difficulties, and also derived the way of task modification and strategies necessary for teaching average. The modified task induced improvements in students' achievement levels, which led to change in teachers' perspective on the relationship between mathematical creativity and learning. Research community activities have been shown to have contributed to improvements with regard to both teaching the average and promoting mathematical creativity.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.221-232
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• 2019

Despite the continuing emphasis on the importance of scientific inquiry, research studies have commented that authentic scientific inquiry is not implemented in school science classroom due to a lack of understanding of scientific inquiry by the teacher. The purpose of this study is to investigate understanding of scientific inquiry developed by beginning teachers through open-ended questionnaire and semi-structured interview. They voluntarily set up the goal of inquiry-based classes, planned inquiry-based classes, shared and reflected their teaching experience in professional learning community for more than a year. It appeared that participant teachers understood scientific inquiry as 'what scientists do', 'process how students do science' and 'science teaching methods.' All teacher participants described scientific inquiry as 'what scientists do', and understood 'the process of doing scientific investigation to solve problems related to natural phenomenon' and 'the process of constructing scientific knowledge using scientific practice.' Two participant teachers seemed to understand scientific inquiry as a 'teaching method' based on the understanding of the process how scientists or students do science. Participant teachers had a limited understanding of scientific inquiry that it is the same as laboratory works or hands-on activities prior to engaging the professional learning community, but they developed an understanding of scientific inquiry that there are various ways to conduct scientific inquiry after engaging in professional learning community.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.254-266
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• 2018

The aim of this study is to analyze STEAM lessons focused on the learner's learning. This study was conducted on 4th-graders in Y city, Kyung-gi province. The lessons were based on a joint teaching plan for students through the teacher learning community (TLC) with three teachers from the same school. Each of the three classes that conducted the class was selected and analyzed as the main center of observation by three students. The conclusions from this study are as follows: First, we identified that different levels of learners are learning in STEAM lessons through a learner-centered class analysis. Some students arrived on their own by taking the initiative in class, others by consulting with a group of friends, and others needed active teacher guidance to learn. Second, Depending on the level and characteristics of the students, some learning criteria were not reached. Some students need guidance at a glance level, and others need individually instructed or guided activities. Teachers need to keep an eye out for students and give them an appropriate level of guidance during class. In STEAM lessons, it appears that students of different levels and characteristics can immerse themselves in their own way, as well as the clear guidance of activity for their students.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Library and Information Science
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.55-72
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• 2008

This study intends to evaluate the relationships between DLS union catalog and curricula and to suggest methods for its quality control. Comprehensiveness, specificity, currentness, and location of copies were selected for evaluation criteria. And this criteria were practiced to evaluate the relationships its indicators and library-based learning topics of social subjects in Seoul DLS. The results of analyses the DLS union catalog serves users with book-based learning information and lacks specificity to evaluate quality of learning materials. Especially the DLS don't satisfy the learning community with on-line contents. Accordingly it is essential to appoint teacher librarians understanding curricula and instructional values of the catalog for its quality control.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.185-200
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• 2024

This study explored the changes in the elementary science teaching expertise of teachers who participated in an in-school professional learning community for elementary science instructional research. Six elementary school teachers from grades 4, 5, and 6 at an 18-class S elementary school in a medium-sized city in Chungcheongbuk-do conducted collaborative instructional research on elementary science lessons as part of an in-school professional learning community, which was held 26 times over 7 months in 2020. During the professional learning community, video and audio recordings of the activities, research lessons, course materials, and professional learning community reflection activities were collected for analysis. The collected data were analyzed using qualitative research methods; data processing, reading, note-taking, description, classification, interpretation, reporting, and visualization; and the instructional professionalism elements were extracted based on the instructional professionalism framework. In the early professional learning community activity stages, the participating teachers first discussed their teaching perspectives, their experiences, and their goals for teaching science, which resulted in a selection of research questions. The teachers then collaboratively designed and implemented research lessons for each grade level, after which lesson reflections were conducted. The teachers' abilities to engage in qualitative reflection on the research questions improved after each reflection iteration. It was found that this professional learning community collaborative lesson study experience positively contributed to teaching expertise development. Based on the study findings, the implications for using professional learning communities to improve elementary teachers' science teaching expertise are given.