• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.35-46
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• 1999

The most of elementary school science textbook contents are composed of observation and experiment activities. When students study natural phenomena, observation and experiment are st rongly emphasized to improve understanding of scientific concepts and inquiry abilities. The purpose of this study is deep understanding about experimental science classes. This ethnographic study is conducted by observations of experimental science classes in natural setting and interviews of teachers, students of the 5th grade. The conclusions of this study are as follows: First, the general process of the elementary science experimental classes is 'identifying learning purposes -1 planning experiments -1 predicting the results -1 experimenting-t summarizing the results.' The experiments are conducted by group activities and the teachers conceived that the me st difficult step considered by students is 'planning experiments'. Second, students like hands-on activities, but they feel difficulty on less guided experiments. Students perform results oriented-activities. Third, in group activities, students prefer to work with the same gender or collaborative peers.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.26-38
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• 2016

The purpose of this study was to grasp the characteristics of composition regarding the material-centered integrated unit of environmental and natural studies, a science subject in Finland, to investigate a need for applying the material-centered integrated unit to the science curriculum of Korea. For the purpose, the study made an analysis on contents, inquiry activities, and visual materials (the most important in the elementary science curriculum and textbook composition), and it brought following results: First, as a result of analyzing the area of contents, the bicycle material-centered integrated unit comprised a large proportion of 44 pages (25.3%) of the whole 174 pages from the environmental and natural studies textbook for the third grade. The contents included such various concepts as traffic rules, safety, environmental protection and pollution, recycling and separate collection, tubes and triangular structures, wedges and screws, leverage, wheels, axles, gears, elasticity (spring), friction, and so on. Second, as a result of analyzing contents related to the thinking ability of inquiry activities, "expecting or confirming expectations" and "application" are included in every lesson, and one lesson is composed in such a way that students can study on bicycles as a practical material for their daily life and they can improve various thinking abilities. Third, as a result of analyzing the circumstances of inquiry activities, daily circumstances made up eight lessons (80.0%) and technical and social circumstances made up two lessons (20.0%) by focusing on bicycles, a material related to students' daily life. Fourth, as a result of analyzing visual materials, the percentage of pictures and photos was high at 53.4% and 45.2% respectively. As a result of analyzing the role of visual materials, the percentage of the illustrative role and explanatory-complementary role was high at 52.1% and 47.9% respectively. Lastly, as a result of analyzing from the epistemological view to interpret the relation between visual materials and students and the position of visual materials, the visual textbook materials were provided toward a way that students can decrease their feeling of epistemological separation in the three fields of ideational metafunction, interpersonal metafunction, and textual metafunction.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.282-290
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• 2008

The Research and Education (R&E) program was a year-long, apprenticeship and research-based program that was guided by mentors who are scientists or science teachers. The objective of the R&E program was to help scientifically gifted students in Korea Science Academy (KSA) and Science High Schools (SHS) to enhance abilities in creative thinking, scientific inquiry, problem solving, positive attitude towards scientists, and promoting cooperative research and interests in science and technology. In this study, the impact of the R&E program on the goals of 182 gifted college students in KAIST was evaluated using Likert-type items and multiple-choice method approach that provided a more comprehensive evaluation of the program's impact on science attitudes, creative thinking, scientific inquiry, and interests in science and technology. The results indicated a positive impact on cooperative research, gaining knowledge on the research topic, attitude towards scientists, interest in science and technology, scientific inquiry, and creative thinking in that order. There were rather remarkable and meaningful differences in science inquiry (p<.05), and scientific knowledge (p<.01), between the two groups of KAIST freshmen who came from SHS and KSA in 2006. Implications for science apprenticeship or a research-based mentorship program and their respective evaluations are also discussed.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.25 no.8
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• pp.719-730
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• 2004

The International Astronomy Olympiad (IAO) was established and its foundation were published by the Euro-Asian Astronomical Society (EAAS), in order to spread astronomical knowledge, promote international cooperation in astronomical education area, and recognize the importance of astronomy in far-reaching field of science and human culture. In 1996, the first IAO was held at the Special Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) of the Russian Academy of sciences (RAS) located in the north Caucasus of Russia. Since then, it has been held every year. Here, we will describe the present status of the International Astronomy Olympiad, its major results by year, related institutions, organizations, and the main regulations regarding its operation. In order to measure the levels of scientific knowledge and thinking abilities, we develop a rubric to analyze the characteristics of problems in the IAO with regards to cognitive aspects of scientific inquiry. These problems require high levels of content knowledge and scientific method knowledge. Also high order thinking abilities and high levels of convergent thinking skills, instead of divergent, are needed to solve these problems. Thus, the problems presented are set a high difficulty. Through this analysis, we can understand main purpose of the International Astronomy Olympiad and explore the future direction of the Korea Astronomy Olympiad.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.109-121
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• 2008

The International Astronomy Olympiad (IAO) was established by the Euro-Asian Astronomical Society in order to disseminate astronomical knowledge, promote international cooperation in astronomical education area and recognize the importance of astronomy in far-reaching field of science and human culture. The first IAO competition was held at the Special Astrophysical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences located in the north Caucasus of Russia in 1996. Since then, it has been held every year. This paper describes the present status of the IAO main regulations regarding its operation and major results by year, related institutions, and organizations. We created a scientific inquiry framework to analyze past IAO problems in the recognitive aspect in order to measure levels of the scientific knowledges and the scientific thinking abilities. Through this analysis, we can understand the current status of the IAO, and examine the future direction of Korea Astronomy Olympiad. Also, we can make preparation for the IAO competition and the education of delegates.

• School Mathematics
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.27-43
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• 2006

The objective of this paper is to design teaching units to foster secondary pre-service teachers' mathematising abilities. In these teaching units we focus on generalizing area of a 2-dimensional triangle and volume of a 3-dimensional tetrahedron to n-volume of n-simplex In this process of generalizing, principle of the permanence of equivalent forms and Cavalieri's principle are applied. To find n-volume of n-simplex, we define n-orthogonal triangular prism, and inquire into n-volume of it. And we find n-volume of n-simplex by using vectors and determinants. Through these teaching units, secondary pre-service teachers can understand and inquire into n-simplex which is generalized from a triangle and a tetrahedron, and n-volume of n-simplex which is generalized from area of a triangle and volume of a tetrahedron. They can also promote natural connection between school mathematics and academic mathematics.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.187-200
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• 2002

The purpose of this study is to examine how well students can acquire scientific knowledge from the process and activity presented in the textbook. This is achieved by analysing of comparison on the material area in the 6th and 7th national curriculums' 3rd and 4th grade science textbooks. The method of this study is to analyse the contents, teacher's instruction and illustrations of the textbooks in the material area in both 6th and 7th national curriculum's 3rd and 4th grade science textbooks. Following is the result of the study. First, compared to the 6th national curriculum's content. 7th national curriculum is composed by phenomenon and activity focused. This considers student's developmental stages and abilities of concentration so one topic in the textbook is divided into 16 small contents. Therefore the textbook content of the 7th curriculum seems to have desirable changes. Secondly, teacher's instruction in the textbook of the 7th curriculum has impartial distribution in part Ⅰ and part Ⅱ according to Homey's analysis. This shows that some problems of writing textbooks that were pointed in the 6th curriculum have been improved. Thirdly, the content of the textbook emphasizes inquiry process as the 6th curriculum did. The 7th curriculum, however, more deeply deals with expecting and inferring. Finally, the analysis of illustration shows that the proportion of motive induction is high. This is also desirable approach to give students more interests in studying science.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.69-84
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• 2001

Present paper describes on the development of a new virtual program for science learning, and an exploration of it's application to science education. In addition, the method of teaching and loaming activities for science is suggested. The new type program is called Science Cyber Conference(that is Shimpark's Ssacon). It is developed to improve the abilities of inquiry and the scientific reasoning by planning on the investigation, arranging the data, synthesizing the results, and concluding and presenting one's opinions. On cyber environment, discussing about and communicating opinions and data investigated, are performed for special topic through chatting room, discussing room and electronic mailing, and totally synthesis and discussion about special inquiry topic at cyber conference day.

• Journal of the Korean BIBLIA Society for library and Information Science
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.85-104
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• 2016

The purpose of this study is to suggest the developmental strategies of information literacy program based on the integrated topics to promote inquiry abilities of middle school students who take part in the free semester system. To that end, the content of the 2015 revised curriculum on a national level was analyzed to develop 6 inquiry themes that incorporate Korean, Social Studies, Music and Art. The instruction and learning guide were consisted of three stages of forming a background knowledge, researching and creating and evaluating the conclusion of the research. The detailed activities for research step were consisted of the four steps of recognition of the problem, information analysis and interpretation, compilation of information and evaluation for each activity. Among the themes "environment" and "appreciation" were applied to a public library and a middle school library as a trial. The trial application saw that students took an interest in programs that subject themes are link with various topics. They were also very satisfied with such programs.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.540-549
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• 2002

The 7th national curriculum is focused on breeding an independent and creative Korean who will lead the age of globalism and information in the 21st century. It is necessary to improve the existing assessment methods in order to develop higher thinking abilities such as creativity and problem-solving skill. Although teachers have been aware of this necessity, they have realized that it is difficult to improve the current assessment methods. In this study, we selected some assessment domains on science learning with literature reviews and case analysis. In addition, we calculated the degree of its importance by the use of Analytic Hierarchy Process(AHP). We suggest a direction for improving the present assessment domains on science learning on the basis of the research. Inquiry, cognitive, creative, and affective domain among assessment domains seemed to be listed in order of importance. Moreover, problem-identifying, hypothesizing, and inquiry-planning appeared to be the highest in the degree of importance among sub categories. Considering the results of this study, the current school assessment system which is focused on cognitive domain should be improved.