• Journal of Science Education
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.184-192
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• 2009

Understanding about the Nature of Science (NOS) is element of scientific literacy. Its importance is emphasized, especially understanding about NOS was presented as goal of science education on the fifth curriculum in Korea. Attempt of teaching NOS has been continuous in school, that was limited by method of using History of Science. Except method of using History of Science, Experimenting is appropriate for method of teaching NOS. We expected that is effective to apply reflective approach method for understanding the NOS and composite lesson to emphasize reflection and discussion to general experiment class in the school. We applied experiment class to emphasize reflection and discussion to second grade students in the middle school and researched whether positive reflection and discussion is helpful understanding the NOS in science experiment class or not, through questionnaire about NOS and analysis of observation and interview. As a result, experiment class to emphasize reflection and discussion was effective for scientific inquiry skills and sociality of scientific inquiry, particularly for relation observation with deduction and possibility of variable analysis to experiment result. Therefore, experiment class to emphasize reflection and discussion is effective for understanding the NOS.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.409-427
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• 1999

The aim of this study was to illustrate how STS-related ideas in science education have been developed historically in the context of British education, particularly focused on the period of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. It has been hardly considered that the basic ideas of the STS education, one of the two paradigms of current science education together with constructivism, can be traced back to the beginning of the school science education itself. far beyond some of the programs which are largely regarded as the first-developed STS programs in Britain, such as Science in Society and SISCON. The movement of Mechanics' Institute during the first half of the 19th century would be the first systematic attempt to bridge the gap between the knowledge of pure science and its practical applications, although the main target was working-class adults rather than school pupils. At the end of the first half of the 19th century, this application-focused approach of science teaching was echoed in the elementary schools by Richard Dawes, one of the early experimenters of school science. The second half of the century was in large the period of the establishment of science as one of the core elements of school curriculum, mainly by emphasizing the aspect of pure science as a means for mental training. During this period, the elements of STS education-related appeared in the subject called 'Object Lesson' in elementary schools which was practically a separate subject from those of science. After the turn of the century, triggered by the experience of World War I, the growing appreciation of the impacts of science upon society and of the necessity of the teaching of science for wider audience gave a great impact towards two new main movements, i.e. for General Science and Citizen Science. The later illustrates a typical example of the STS movement in school science during the first half of the 20th century, particularly driven by the socialistic ideas towards the relation between science and society.

• Journal of Korean Library and Information Science Society
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.239-263
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• 2012

Cooperation with public libraries for strengthening the solid foundation and the reading education of school library have been recommended in Korea. However with the immensity of the task, public libraries are under considerable pressure for the unilateral support. Under these circumstances this study developed and implemented the reading mentoring programs for school libraries with the help of public libraries, LIS schools, and Busan Metropolitan office of Education. On the basis of the result, this study analyzed the effect and the feasibility of the reading mentoring programs for improving the reading education in school libraries. This study emphasized to derive a lesson of immeasurable value from 7 months' experience in the 2 elementary schools.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.17-26
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• 2020

In Korea, primary school (also junior high school) is compulsory and free since 2004. But it looks high school is also compulsory, as over 80% of adults has a high school diploma currently. For 20 years improving high school education is only education-oriented, rather than occupation-oriented. And, the mismatch between the occupational requirement and the lesson from school is getting larger. To resolve this issue, the Korean government builds and utilizes National Competency Standards(NCS) to realize a competence-oriented society. With NCS, the government enables to run of a work-study program and tries to suggest the fundamental solution to improve occupational ability and the unemployment of young people. However, the prejudice against the education level and occupation is still engrained, and it is hard to match the education-career-qualification based on NCS. Therefore, we study NCS from the definition to the utilization, suggest an improving method to flexibly utilized the standards in the fields, and continuously improve and develop the NCS.

• 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.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.123-129
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• 2005

The purpose of this study was to investigate the interaction patterns between teachers and students appeared in sixth grade elementary science lessons. To this end, we set research questions as what are the types of SPS (Social Participation Structure) between teachers and students in the class. Eighteen elementary science lessons were observed. Data were collected by video recordings and observation method. The result showed that the types of SPS were classified into nine. 1) A teacher initiates the whole students into interaction with him. 2) The whole students keep silent or carry out specific activities under the teacher's direction. 3) A teacher initiates some students into interaction. 4) A teacher names specific students to read a text. 5) A teacher initiates the whole students into group interactions. 6) Students interact with each other irrespective of the teacher's intention. 7) Students initiate a teacher into interactions with them. 8) A teacher intervenes during the students' activities and this intervention, in turn, produces interactions between the teacher and the students. 9) A teacher directs the whole class to read a learning goal or a learning material. This study shows that SPS-1 and SPS-3 are the most frequently observed interaction patterns in the elementary science lessons.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.154-163
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• 2012

In this study, we analyzed the proportions of STS content, components, topics, and types of the activities of STS content in the elementary science textbooks developed under the 2007 Revised National Curriculum. The analyses of the results revealed that the percentage of STS content included was 15.9% by the number of pages, and 13.5% by the lesson hour. By the components of the STS content, the proportion of 'application of science', 'science-technology and our life' and 'social problems and issues' were large. Most STS topics were related to the 'effects of technological developments' and 'environmental issue', and the topics of 'family and population' and 'human engineering' were few. By the types of the activities, reading was the most, and investigation and writing were also found. Compared with those of the science textbooks developed under the 7th National Curriculum, the variety of components of the STS content increased, but the proportion of STS content and the variety of activities of STS content decreased in the science textbooks developed under the 2007 Revised National Curriculum.

• Journal of The Korean Association of Information Education
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.525-532
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• 2015

Unplugged has been widely used as an instrument for teaching the basic principles of Computer Science. This study presents the teaching contents developed for the children without any knowledge of binary numbers. which successfully guided them to understand the natural number binary system. The level of the pre-lesson for this learning requires counting numbers, matching numbers with cards, and arranging numbers. The activity-based learning is provided for describing natural numbers with the binary system and finding out them in everyday life. To check the adequacy of these materials on their organization and assessment they were tested at the classroom, which showed effective about the knowledge, the attitude and the generalization.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.286-294
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• 1996

In this study, the image of scientists and the self-image in terms of stereotypical masculine and feminine characteristics were investigated for 562 primary and secondary school students. The perceived differences between the image of scientists and the self-image were quantified and compared across grade levels and gender. Their relationships with science-related attitudes were also studied. The results indicated that students hold more masculine characteristics in the image of scientists and more feminine characteristics in the self-image. The perceived differences between the image of scientists and the self-image were greater for female students than male students. Female students also had more negative attitudes than male students on Career Interest in Science and Enjoyment of Science Lesson of the Test of Science-Related Attitudes. It was found that the differences between the perceived images were negatively correlated with science-related attitudes. Although the relationships were found to be statistically significant, the magnitudes were relatively small. Educational implications are discussed.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.11-23
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• 2023

In this study, we examined the effect of socioscientific issue (SSI) based science lessons on underachieving 9th-grade students. A total of seven lessons centered on two SSIs related to the national science curriculum were developed and implemented during the first semester of 2021. Data were collected from 185 9th-grade students in one middle school in a mid-sized city of South Korea. Among them, 37 were identified as achieving far below the standards (underachieving students hereafter). Quantitative data were collected from pre- and post-tests on basic science content and attitudes and competency measures. To supplement quantitative data, lesson observation notes were recorded, and student interviews with a selected number of students were conducted. The analysis of quantitative data was conducted through the Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test and paired t-tests. Qualitative data were analyzed to find reasons for changing attitudes. The findings showed that the SSI-based lessons were more effective on underachieving students than the others in enhancing basic academic achievement, while there was no significant effect on all in attitudes and competency. Lesson observation data showed that underachieving students were more engaged in SSI-based lessons than before. Student interviews demonstrated several reasons why they were engaged, suggesting the aspects of SSI-based lessons that facilitated underachieving students' learning. Further research topics are suggested.