• Title/Summary/Keyword: science classrooms

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Interdisciplinary Knowledge for Teaching: A Model for Epistemic Support in Elementary Classrooms

  • Lilly, Sarah;Chiu, Jennifer L.;McElhaney, Kevin W.
    • Research in Mathematical Education
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    • v.24 no.3
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    • pp.137-173
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    • 2021
  • Research and national standards, such as the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) in the United States, promote the development and implementation of K-12 interdisciplinary curricula integrating the disciplines of science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and computer science (STEM+CS). However, little research has explored how teachers provide epistemic support in interdisciplinary contexts or the factors that inform teachers' epistemic support in STEM+CS activities. The goal of this paper is to articulate how interdisciplinary instruction complicates epistemic knowledge and resources needed for teachers' instructional decision-making. Toward these ends, this paper builds upon existing models of teachers' instructional decision-making in individual STEM+CS disciplines to highlight specific challenges and opportunities of interdisciplinary approaches on classroom epistemic supports. First, we offer considerations as to how teachers can provide epistemic support for students to engage in disciplinary practices across mathematics, science, engineering, and computer science. We then support these considerations using examples from our studies in elementary classrooms using integrated STEM+CS curriculum materials. We focus on an elementary school context, as elementary teachers necessarily integrate disciplines as part of their teaching practice when enacting NGSS-aligned curricula. Further, we argue that as STEM+CS interdisciplinary curricula in the form of NGSS-aligned, project-based units become more prevalent in elementary settings, careful attention and support needs to be given to help teachers not only engage their students in disciplinary practices across STEM+CS disciplines, but also to understand why and how these disciplinary practices should be used. Implications include recommendations for the design of professional learning experiences and curriculum materials.

Science Teachers' Perceptions to the Utilization of Calculator Based Laboratory System with Experimental Kit in Science Experiments (Calculator-Based Laboratory system과 실험 Kit를 이용한 과학실험에 대한 교사들의 인식)

  • Seo, Hae-Ae;Yoon, Ki-Soon;Sohn, Jong-Kyung;Chung, Hwa-Sook;Song, Bang-Ho;Yang, Hong-Jun;Park, Sung-Ho;Kwon, Duck-Kee
    • Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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    • v.19 no.2
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    • pp.293-304
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    • 1999
  • A Calculator-Based Laboratory (CBL) system was introduced to science teachers and their perceptions to its classroom application was assessed. A CBL survey instrument was responded by 54 middle and high school science teachers who undertook a three-hour workshop of science experiments with CBL system. There were significant differences in teachers perceptions to CBL system among gender, school level, school location, teacher's degree, and years of teaching in terms of learning CBL system, applicability of CBL system for science classrooms, and effects on science achievement. Male teachers showed significantly (p<.05) higher agreement to learning of CBL system and applicability for science classrooms than female teachers. Compared to middle school teachers, high school teachers showed significantly (p<.05) high interests in CBL applicability for science classrooms and perceptions that there will be an increase of science achievement. Teachers with 4-8 years of teaching experience also showed significantly (p<.05) higher interest toward learning CBL system and its applicability. It was concluded that science teachers perceived CBL system as a promising science teaching method in Korean middle and high schools. However, a science teacher inservice training program for CBL system should be developed in consideration of gender, school level, school location, and years of teaching.

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Problem Based Learning in Physical Therapy (물리치료학에서의 문제중심학습(Problem Based Learning))

  • Lee, Kyung-Hee;Kim, Chul-Yong;Kim, Seong-Hak
    • Journal of Korean Physical Therapy Science
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    • v.9 no.4
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    • pp.141-153
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    • 2002
  • Problem based learning(PBL) is one of the learning strategies from the constructivism. It is a learning centered students. The tutors are facillitators as activators, helpers and cooperators not organizer in the classrooms. PBL makes that students learn creativity, independence, reasoning skits, communication and collaboration for problem solving. As the PBL process, students get the problems that are in real situation, discussed with others for brain storming, self directed study and revisited to the situation. They think critically and apply to the real situation. When students are to be physical therapists, they are easy to adopt their job and efficient to manage well. But inspite of a lot of advantages to them, there are much conflict to use as the learning strategies. Students perceived one of best learning method that they have experienced, but there are stress, burden, anxiety, timeless to prepare, lack of information and so on. PBL is effective to learning health oriented subjects, problem solving, even a lot preparation and processing for learning. It is reduced the differences between theories in colleges and practices in the fields. In processing of PBL, students get more many skills than the conventional learning. As trying many times to the classrooms, we can fixed to PBL with mistakes and conflict for better the development of the teaching and learning.

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How did Elementary Teachers Handle Critical Experiments in Science Classrooms?

  • Kwon, Sung-Gi;Lee, Mi-Kyoung;Nam, Il-Kyun
    • Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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    • v.28 no.2
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    • pp.105-120
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    • 2009
  • Critical Experiments (CE) in science classrooms mean, tentatively, critical situations as comparable to anomalous cases in scientific revolutions where the results of science experiments in schools are unclear, differ from the theory, or students misunderstand the purpose of the experiments. The purpose of this research is to identify what CE occurred during science classes and to investigate how elementary teachers handled them. To analyze how teachers recognized and handled CE, we selected nine typical CE from the $7^{th}$ Korean science curriculum. 125 teachers were selected from 8 districts' elementary schools in a local city. A questionnaire with photos of the nine CE above-mentioned was distributed to these teachers. The focus in this research was the way that each teacher handled the CE. We discovered that there were three basic ways in which teachers handled CE. When CE occurred, 51% of elementary teachers explained the correct result of the experiment (what should have happened) to the students while 40.7% of the teachers repeated to get the correct results. The focuses of handling CE varied. 57 % of the teachers focused on the 'materials' while 30% of the teachers focused on the 'theory'. The other focus was 'thinking'. Only 7.6% of the teachers answered that they gave students a chance to think about the reasons why the CE happened. By analyzing our survey results, we could determine what each teacher did as a follow up to the CE and their focus and reasoning for handling the CE this way. When the CE happened in the science class, few handled the CE with the point of view about purpose of doing experiment. As a result, students could not gain educational experience from the CE. If we use CE as a new method to teach science, it will be a good subject incorporating the nature of science in science education.

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A Case Study on The Changes in Space Composition According to Departmental System - Through the 10 Remodeling Cases of High School - (교과교실제 운영에 따른 공간구성 변화에 대한 현황분석 - 리모델링된 10개 고등학교의 사례 -)

  • Lee, Dong-Wook;Rieu, Ho-Seoup
    • Journal of the Korean Institute of Educational Facilities
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    • v.19 no.1
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    • pp.13-24
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    • 2012
  • Recently, many middle and high schools are remodeling the buildings and facilities based on departmental system. This study, through analyzing on 10 remodeling cases of high school, is showing the variation before and after remodeling, space organization types, and the types of school management. This also gives us the information on the number of classrooms and teachers' rooms for each subject, the area and number of home base, and the current state of all these facilities. Furthermore, this study is comparing and analyzing the rate of use of specialized classrooms to the type of management. Through this analysis, we reach the following conclusions. l. However all the cases remodeled their buildings to implement departmental system, the methods of space composition, the numbers of the classrooms, and the status of home base are in various forms. 2. Taken as a whole, there are only few spaces used by departmental system. 3. The spaces for practical subjects such as Science and Art are inadequate than the ones for major subjects such as Languages and Mathematics. 4. A system to assign a room for a teacher records the lowest space usage rate. 5. The area of home base per one student is only $0.48m^2$, and even the area is mostly filled with lockers. The present condition of the 10 high schools which we surveyed shortly after remodeled shows that departmental system is not firmly settled down yet.

Improving Children's Emotional Health through Installing Biowalls in Classrooms

  • Lee, A-Young;Kim, Ha-Ram;Kwon, Hyuk Joon;Kim, Soo-Young;Park, Sin-Ae
    • Journal of People, Plants, and Environment
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    • v.24 no.1
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    • pp.29-38
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    • 2021
  • Background and objective: The physical environment where children spend most of their time is closely associated with their emotional development. To improve the emotional health of children, the introduction of natural elements in the indoor space has been suggested, the benefits of which have been shown in preliminary studies. This study aims to examine the effects that a biowall - a wall installation - in a classroom has on the emotional health of children in kindergarten. Methods: A total of four biowalls were separately installed in four kindergarten classrooms at a school in Seoul, South Korea, and the 60 children in these classrooms participated in the study. We assessed the children's emotional intelligence (via an Emotional Intelligence Rating Scale), resilience (via the Devereux Early Childhood Assessment), and eco-friendly attitudes (via the Children's Attitudes Toward Scale) before the installation of the biowalls and then again 3 months later. Results: The children's emotional intelligence, resilience, and eco-friendly attitudes had been significantly improved after the installation of the biowalls (p = .01). The sub-categories of the children's emotional intelligence and resilience were also significantly improved (p < .001). Conclusion: This study demonstrates the potential of biowalls-as an indoor environmental factor-in promoting the healthy emotional development of children. By bringing natural elements into indoor classroom settings, biowalls appear to increase children's direct/indirect contact with nature. To extrapolate the results of the study to the general population, future studies should be conducted with broader age groups.

Cases of Science Classroom Discourse Analyzed from the Perspective of Knowledge-Sharing (지식 공유의 관점에서 본 과학 교실 담화의 사례)

  • Oh, Phil-Seok;Lee, Sun-Kyung;Kim, Chan-Jong
    • Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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    • v.27 no.4
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    • pp.297-308
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    • 2007
  • Inspired by the idea that classroom instruction proceeds through knowledge-sharing, this study examined different modes of knowledge-sharing that were realized in discursive practices in Korean secondary science classrooms. Data came from 9 science teachers. An interpretative strategy was employed to analyze the video-recording of the teachers' own science classrooms and transcriptions. The results showed four different modes of knowledge-sharing, including 'retrieving subject matter knowledge', 'reformulating subject matter knowledge', 'expansion and elaboration of understanding', and 'negotiation of meaning'. It was also revealed that there was a tie between an active mode of knowledge-sharing and scaffolding: the former allowed students to take active roles in discourses and the latter was one of the desired patterns of classroom interaction. It was suggested that further studies should be conducted to understand science instruction from more varied perspectives and to examine and utilize the detailed features of desired classroom practices like scaffolding.

Development and Application of an Instrument for Assessing Inquiry Level in Secondary School Science Laboratory Classrooms (중등학교 과학실험수업의 탐구수준을 평가하기 위한 도구 개발 및 적용)

  • Lee, Keun-June;Jeong, Jin-Woo
    • Journal of the Korean earth science society
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    • v.25 no.7
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    • pp.507-518
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    • 2004
  • The purpose of this study was to develop and validate an instrument for analysing secondary school science laboratory classroom. Three classroom of novice teachers were observed and administered Dana's (2001) situated laboratory activity instrument. Dana's situated laboratory activity instrument consists of eight categories. Each category includes four levels. Three doctoral students and two science education specialists participated in modification of the through 15 science education graduate students. To achieve reliability, the researcher and two raters observed and analyzed three videotaped classrooms through discussion. The finalized instrument was employed in four novice teacher' classes and result indicated the instrument to be useful in identifying the inquiry level of a secondary laboratory classroom. The inquiry level of four novice teachers was confirmation or observation.

Perceptions on Microcomputer-Based Laboratory Experiments of Science Teachers that Participated in In-Service Training (연수에 참여한 교사들의 MBL실험에 대한 인식)

  • Park, Kum-Hong;Ku, Yang-Sam;Choi, Byung-Soon;Shin, Ae-Kyung;Lee, Kuk-Haeng;Ko, Suk-Beum
    • Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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    • v.27 no.1
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    • pp.59-69
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    • 2007
  • The aim of this study was to investigate teachers' perceptions on MBL (microcomputer-based laboratory) experiment training program for teachers, the expecting effects of MBL experiment and application of MBL experiment after conducting MBL experiment training for science classes in schools. This study showed that most of the teachers who participated in the training program thought that the MBL experiment training program was very useful and instructive. Many teachers considered that MBL experiments using a computer could decrease time spent in the experiment by accurate and fast data collection and analysis. They also thought that the reduced time could be used more effectively in the analysis of experimental data and discussion activities leading to correct concept formation as well as in the development of graphical analysis and science process skills. However, they thought that MBL experiments were ineffective in learning how to operate experiment apparatus. This study also revealed that most teachers intended to apply MBL experiments in real classrooms context right after the training course and they pointed out many obstacles in introducing MBL experiments into their classrooms such as a budget to purchase equipment, poor laboratory conditions, and few MBL experiment training opportunities. In order to apply MBL experiment into the real classrooms, further changes were suggested as follows; development of technologies to reduce unit cost of equipment for MBL experiments, production and supply of many kinds of sensors, development of MBL experiment materials, and expansion of the training program for teachers.

A Study on Classrooms Arrangement Editor for Making a Timetable (시간표 작성을 위한 교실배치 편집기에 관한 연구)

  • Yang, Dan-Hee
    • Proceedings of the Korea Information Processing Society Conference
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    • 2002.04a
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    • pp.621-624
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    • 2002
  • 현 교육시설 환경에서 제7차 교육과정에 의한 수준별, 선택형 수업을 잘 수용하기 위해 시간표 작성 시스템은 매우 유용한 도구이다. 본 연구에서는 그러한 시간표 작성 시스템과 연계하여 수행되는 교실배치 편집기를 설계하고, 그 주요 부분의 구현 방책에 대해 다루었다. 이 편집기는 중고등학교 건물내의 각 교실에 대한 제반 정보를 전산화시키기 위해 사용된다.

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