• The Journal of Korean Philosophical History
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• no.32
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• pp.215-249
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• 2011

This essay reflects on the modernity of Korea by examining the transformation of the traditional knowledge system from a historico-semantic perspective with its focus on the opposition and collision of the old and the new conception occurred in the early period(1890~1910) of the acceptance of the Western modern civilization. With scientific success, trick of reason, Christianity and evolutionary view of history, the Western modernity regarded itself as a peak of civilization and forced the non-Western societies into the world system in which they came to be considered as 'barbarism(野蠻)' or 'half-enlightened(半開).' The East Asian civilization, which had its own history for several centuries, became degraded as kind of delusion and old-fashioned customs from which it ought to free itself. The Western civilization presented itself as exemplary future which East Asian people should achieve, while East Asian past traditions came to be conceived as just unnecessary vestiges which it was better to wipe out. It can be said that East Asian modernization was established through the propagation and acceptance of the modern products of the Western civilization rather than through the preservation of its past experience and pursuit of the new at the same time. Accordingly, it is difficult to apply directly to East Asian societies Koselleck's hypothesis; while mapping out his Basic Concept of History, he assumed that, in the so-called 'age of saddle,' semantic struggle over concepts becomes active between the past experience and the horizon of expectation on the future, and concepts undergoes 'temporalization', 'democratization', 'ideologization', 'politicization.'The struggle over the old and new conceptions in Korea was most noticeable in the opposition of the Neo-Confucian scholars of Hwangseongsinmun and the theorists of civilization of Doknipsinmun. The opposition and struggle demanded the change of understanding in every field, but there was difference of opinion over the conception of the past traditional knowledge system. For the theorists of civilization, 'the old(舊)' was not just 'past' and 'old-fashioned' things, but rather an obstacle to the building of new civilization. On the other hand, it contained the possibility of regeneration(新) for the Neo-Confucian scholars; that is, they suggested finding a guide into tomorrow by taking lessons from the past. The traditional knowledge system lost their holy status of learning(聖學) in the process of its change into a 'new learning(新學),' and religion and religious tradition also weakened. The traditional knowledge system could change itself into modern learning by accepting scientific methodology which pursues objectivity and rationality. This transformation of the traditional knowledge system and 'the formation of the new learning from the old learning' was accompanied by the intersection between the old and new conceptions. It is necessary to pay attention to the role played by the concept of Sil(hak)(實學) or Practical Learning in the intersection of the old and new conceptions. Various modern media published before and after the 20th century show clearly the multi-layered development of the old and new conceptions, and it is noticeable that 'Sil(hak)' as conceptual frame of reference contributed to the transformation of the traditional knowledge system into the new learning. Although Silhak often designated, or was even considered equivalent to, the Western learning, Neo-Confucian scholars reinterpreted the concept of 'Silhak' which the theorists of civilization had monopolized until then, and opened the way to change the traditional knowledge system into the new learning. They re-appropriated the concept of Silhak, and enabled it to be invested with values, which were losing their own status due to the overwhelming scientific technology. With Japanese occupation of Korea by force, the attempt to transform the traditional knowledge system independently was obliged to reach its own limit, but its theory of 'making new learning from old one' can be considered to get over both the contradiction of Dondoseogi(東道西器: principle of preserving Eastern philosophy while accepting Western technology) and the de-subjectivity of the theory of civilization. While developing its own logic, the theory of Dongdoseogi was compelled to bring in the contradiction of considering the indivisible(道and 器) as divisible, though it tried to cope with the reality where the principle of morality and that of competition were opposed each other and the ideologies of 'evolution' and 'progress' prevailed. On the other hand, the theory of civilization was not free from the criticism that it brought about a crack in subjectivity due to its internalization of the West, cutting itself off from the traditional knowledge system.

• Education of Primary School Mathematics
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• v.10 no.1 s.19
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• pp.29-39
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• 2007

This paper is to give a brief introduction to a new discipline called 'conceptual metaphor' and 'mathematical metaphor(Lakoff & Nunez, 2000) from the viewpoint of mathematics education and to analyze the metaphors at 4th graders' mathematics classroom as a case of conceptual metaphors. First, contemporary conception on metaphors is reviewed. Second, it is discussed on the effects and defaults of metaphors in teaching and learning mathematics. Finally, as a case study of mathematical metaphors, conceptual metaphors on the concepts of triangles at 4th graders' mathematics classrooms are analyzed. Students may reason metaphorically to understand mathematical concepts. Conceptual metaphor makes mathematics enormously rich, but it also brings confusion and paradox. Digging out the metaphors may lighten both our spontaneous everyday conceptions and scientific theorizing(Sfard, 1998). Studies of metaphors give us the power of understanding the culture of mathematics classroom and also generate it.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.468-478
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• 2000

In this study, the effects of a teaching strategy based on interactive formative assessment on students' science concept understandings and science-related attitudes were investigated. Students' perceptions toward this teaching strategy were also examined. Eight classes chosen from a co-ed middle school in Seoul. Four classes were assigned to the experimental group and the other four classes were assigned to the control group. After the instructions, tests regarding students' conceptions and science-related attitudes were administered. We also interviewed 24 students randomly chosen from the experimental group to investigate their perceptions toward the teaching strategy used. The results showed that the teaching strategy used was more effective for enhancing students' science concept understandings. However, there was no significant difference in science-related attitudes between the two groups. For the experimental group, no significant differences were found in the gain scores of the conceptions tests between the subgroups by previous achievement or cognitive levels. From interviews, it was found that students thought that the teaching strategy used encouraged much interactions and motivated them to think, and that teacher's appropriate feedbacks were helpful to their understanding scientific concepts.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.1049-1062
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• 2004

In this study, various scientific viewpoints of 'motion of objects' were analyzed from the Aristoteles age to the Newton age. From the analysis, a questionnaire was developed which was including causes of motion, forms of motion, and preservation quantity of movement. The conceptions of pre-service science teachers were researched by the questionnaire developed in this study based on the science historical viewpoints. The subjects were twenty sophomore students of physic education major and thirty four of other science education major who majored common science education also in a college. Most of the pre-service teachers of physical education major had inertia and Newton's force conception related to the question situations of 'causes of motion' and 'forms of motion'. But a lot of the pre-service teachers of physic education major and other science education major had viewpoints of Descartes or Huygens related to the question situation of 'preservation quantity of movement'. Only few pre-service teachers regardless of major had Newton's viewpoint which represented in current Korean science curriculum for secondary school.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.28-39
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to investigate the conceptions about altitude of the Sun of elementary students according to differences by the spatial ability. In this study through the qualitative analysis, 4 students who were similar understanding levels of concepts to altitude of the Sun and differences by the spatial ability were selected out of 75 in 6th grade elementary located in Sunchang, Jellabuk-do Province. 4 students for the qualitative analysis were selected by the test instrument of spatial ability and altitude of the Sun. The results of study was students with higher spatial ability were higher understanding levels of concepts to altitude of the Sun. However, both of student with higher and lower spatial ability showed a false concept to the expanded concepts into outer space like a cause of seasonal change, change of altitude of the Sun by latitude unlike the intution. Students with lower spatial ability didn't form the scientific concepts, not only a cause of seasonal change and change of altitude of the Sun but also difference of energy density by altitude of the Sun. A student of two with lower spatial ability has been impediment strongly to form the scientific concept by the false concepts to the distance. The findings were as follows; Learning to altitude of the Sun regardless of the difference of spatial ability should be learned to interact to the intution, celestial movement and model experiment. To students with lower spatial ability should be developed teaching methods to understand the relation between the Sun and celestial movement.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.871-876
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• 2015

The purpose of this research was to investigation of elementary preservice teachers' understanding of the image observed in a diverging lens. To achieve the research purpose, Scientific inquiry activity of 'Observing Objects through a Diverging Lens' in the 2009 Revised Science Curriculum was carried out by 29 junior elementary preservice teachers, and preservice teachers' difficulties were analyzed during scientific inquiry activity. The results were as follows. First, preservice teachers had difficulties in comparing the size of the images. Second, preservice teachers couldn't correctly explain the reason about the changing of the image size according to distance from the lens to the object. Third, preservice teachers couldn't correctly explain the changing of the image size according to distance from the lens to the eyes. Fourth, preservice teachers were classified into five levels according to their conceptions of the image formation by the diverging lens, and most of them stayed in the first level. The result of this research suggests that reformations in text and preservice teachers' education.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.589-600
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• 1998

The present study tested the hypothesis that adolescent's prefrontal lobe growth plateau and spurt exists and that this plateau and spurt influence students' ability to reason scientifically and to learn theoretical science concepts. In theory, maturation of the prefrontal lobes during early adolescence allows for improvements in students' abilities to inhibit task-irrelevant information and coordinate task-relevant information, which along with both physical and social experience, influences scientific reasoning ability and the ability to reject scientific misconceptions and accept scientific conceptions. Two hundred six students ages 13 to 16 years enrolled in four Korean secondary schools were administered tests of prefrontal lobe functions, scientific reasoning, and theoretical concepts derived from kinetic-molecular theory. A series of 14 lessons designed to teach the concepts were then taught. The concepts test was then re-administered following instruction. As predicted among the 14-year-olds, performance on the measures of prefrontal lobe functions, scientific reasoning, and conceptual change remained similar or regressed. Performance then improved considerably among the 15 and 16-year-olds. Because so few of the present students were able to undergo this apparently necessary conceptual change, the value of introducing theoretical concepts to early adolescent is questioned.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.887-900
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• 2011

Teachers use explanations to communicate important scientific ideas to students. Consequently, all biology teachers should be evaluated to determine how effective they are at constructing and communicating biological explanations. Open response questions are required to detect pre-service biology teachers' abilities to communicate robust and accurate scientific explanations. Nevertheless, multiple-choice questions are typically preferred by educators because of the common drawbacks of using open-response instruments, such as scoring time, inter-rater scoring disagreements, and delayed feedback to test takers. This study aims to measure pre-service biology teachers' competence in building scientific explanations and to investigate how accurately multiple-choice questions predict the results of open-response questions. One hundred twenty four pre-service biology teachers participated in the study and were administered 20 multiple-choice items and three open-response items designed to measure the accuracy and quality of their explanations of evolutionary change. The results demonstrated that pre-service teachers displayed higher competence when tested with multiple choice items than when tested with open response items. Moreover, scores derived from multiple-choice items poorly predicted the scores derived from open-response items. Multiple-choice items were also found to be poor measures of the consistency, purity and abundance of conceptual elements in teachers' evolutionary explanations. Additionally, many teachers held mixed-models composed of both scientific and naive ideas, which were difficult to detect using multiple-choice formats. Overall, the study indicates that multiple-choice formats are poorly suited to measuring several aspects of biology teachers' knowledge of evolution, including their ability to generate scientific explanations. This study suggests that open-response items should be used in teacher education programs to assess pre-service teachers' explanatory competency prior to being permitted to teach science to children.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.88-97
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• 2005

The purpose of this study was to investigate explanations of science textbooks and science teachers' conceptions related to freezing point depression phenomenon. Seven kinds of middle school science textbooks and five kinds of high school chemistryII textbooks were analyzed for the purpose. The teachers' conceptions were searched by a questionnaire developed in this study. The subjects were 146 science teachers. The explanation types of science textbooks were divided into two; 'Description of the phenomenon' and 'Vapor pressure lowering'. The explanations in most of middle school science textbooks and high school chemistryII textbooks belong to 'Description of the phenomenon' and there was no explanation of the reason. The graphs related to depression of freezing point were diverse, too. Most of the science teachers also did not have scientific conception. The percentage of the teachers who thought that the cause of freezing point depression was blocking of solute in solution was high. But the teacher could not find meaningful relation the 'Blocking of solute' explanation represented for elevation of boiling point with depression of freezing point. It is insisted that entropy concept is need to explain depression of freezing point phenomenon in this study.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.46 no.5
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• pp.456-465
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• 2002

The purpose of this study was to investigate the educational effects of an animation materials developed with the macroscopic particle moving sight. The 11 animations developed by the researchers showed the movements of molecules, ions, and electrons. The materials were developed for teachers to use when they taught "electrochemical cell' unit. The subjects were 151 students of 9th grade who were divided into the experimental and control group and were taught during 16 hours. In order to figure out the characteristics of each student before the instructions, a short-version GALT(Group Assessment of Logical Thinking) and the pretest of conceptions were carried out. After the instructions, students tested 3 types of exam; the posttest of conceptions, attitude test connected with science, cognition test. After 4 months later, students tested the posttest of conceptions agin for long-term memory effect. It was found that the exper-imental group using the developed animation materials had significantly higher scores of conceptual understanding than control group. The experimental group had also significantly higher scores of the long-term memory test and attitude test than control group. The results mean that animation materials which shows the macroscopic particle movement help stu-dents to understand scientific concepts and to elevate interests.