The purpose of this study was to analyze the character of the creative design processes that appear at the creative design stage of the design thinking based on STEAM class and what factors affect the creative design process. Students who served as the subjects of this study were 4 elementary school students. We developed the design thinking based on STEAM program to look more specific the creative design process. The project was conducted with a total of 12 sheets of paper materials. The conclusions of this study are as follows. First, the problem solving process of the design thinking based on STEAM classes is not anticipatory and is cyclical and complex. So, teachers should provide sufficient time for students to create and simulate ideas and accept the solving problems through trial and error. Second, Having presented the STEAM class as a practical problem in the real world, there was less fear of students' failure and heightened motivation and enthusiasm. Providing with the real topic and open questions in classrooms can lead to students' voluntary participation in the classroom. Third, In the design thinking based on STEAM class, students develop concrete ideas through visualization courses. The group of students made the best solutions through communication.

The purpose of the study was to explore the effect of using discussions and debates in science laboratory classes on science learning motivation, science process skills, and science academic achievement. Participants in this study were 6th grade students at an elementary school. Students in the experimental group participated in science laboratory classes using discussions and debates while students in the comparative group participated in common laboratory classes with a teacher-directed approach. The results of this study are as follows: by using discussions and debates in science laboratory classes, there were statistically positive effects on the students' science learning motivation and science process skills. However, there was no statistically significant difference in science academic achievement by using discussions and debates. Even so, in the narrative survey of the students'reactions after the class, students in the experimental group responded that it was much easier to understand the meaning of the scientific concepts when they used discussions and debates. Therefore, there is a need to investigate how to use discussions and debates effectively by introducing them at different time or in different ways, rather than considering that discussions and debates have no effect on science achievement. These findings provide science teachers and researchers pedagogical implications about utilizing discussions and debates in science classes.

The current study explores students' views about artificial intelligence (AI) through analyses of their drawings and perceptions. The data were gathered from a total of 177 elementary school students. The constant comparative analysis was used as the data analysis method. Based on the result, the current study found that students' views about artificial intelligence were constructed into two distinct dimensions: form and relationship. The form dimension, students' views about artificial intelligence were categorized into human, household goods, machine, smart computer, electronic chip/algorithm, or the hybridized form related to the game of go such as AlphaGo. On the relationship dimension, students' views about artificial intelligence were categorized into servants, friends or enemy. Given the combination of two dimensions, the current study found two noted patterns. The first, students who viewed artificial intelligence as human form perceived artificial intelligence as a friend or an enemy. However, those who viewed artificial intelligence as non-human form perceived artificial intelligence as a servant or an enemy. Based on these results, educational implications related to the preparation of artificial intelligence era for elementary science education are discussed.

The purpose of this study is to compare the elementary science curriculum and textbooks of Korea, the United States, Japan, and Singapore to know how the contents on particulate concept of matter is introduced and expressed. In Korea, particulate concept of matter was adopted as a term for 'molecules' in the 3rd through 6th curriculum, and the term for 'particles' was adopted in the 2009 revised curriculum. In the United States, NGSS adopted the term 'particle' in fifth grade. Japan presented the concept of 'particle' as a core concept of matter in the commentary, and the expressions 'particles' were being introduced in the textbooks. But it did not cover particulate nature of matter at the elementary school level in Singapore. An analysis of elementary textbooks in Korea, the United States and Japan except Singapore showed particulate expressions in 'dissolution', 'state change of water', 'gas pressure and volume', 'combustion and extinguishment' units. Korean textbook was only being introduced in 'dissolution' and 'gas pressure and volume', but in the textbooks of Japan and the United States, water was expressed as particles in 'state change of water' unit. Discussion and implication on the introduction of particulate concept to elementary science curriculum and textbooks were suggested based on the results.

This study investigated the changes in representation on analogies that elementary science-gifted students generated by using Algodoo program to explain the electric current. After the students were taught about the 'components in circuit and their function' and 'electric current' with teacher centered analogy and PhET program for 4 class hours, they generated analogies to the electric circuit. Then they compared the similarity between generated analogy and target concept and matched it to the target concept. The result revealed that the battery, light bulb, and electric wire were changed according to the change of representations on free electrons. And they generated more proper analogies reflected the target concept when represented the free electrons by the circular particles than the water. From these results, we can say that generating analogy using Algodoo program is the effective education activity to help students understand abstract concept by visualizing it more easily and simply.

The purpose of this study is to clarify the specific terms of epistemic and epistemological by reviewing the literature on epistemological understanding of science learning, examine the necessity of epistemic discourse analysis based on the view of social epistemology, and provide an exemplar of practical epistemology analysis for elementary children's science learning. The review was conducted in terms of meaning and terminology about epistemic or epistemological approach to science learning, epistemology of/for science, and methodologies for epistemic discourse analysis. As an alternative way of epistemic discourse analysis in science classroom I employed practical epistemology analysis (by Wickman), evidence-explanation continuum (by Duschl), and DREEC diagram (by Maeng et al.). The methods were administered to an elementary science class for the third grade where children observed sedimentary rocks. Through the outcomes of analysis I sought to understand the processes how children collected data by observation, identified evidence, and constructed explanations about rocks. During the process of practical epistemology analysis the cases of four categories, such as encounter, stand-fast, gap, and relation, were identified. The sequence of encounter, stand fast, gap, and relation showed how children observed sedimentary rocks and how they came to learn the difference among the rocks. The epistemic features of children's observation discourse, although different from scientists' discourses during their own practices, showed data-only conversation, evidence-driven conversation, or explanation inducing conversation. Thus I argue even elementary children are able to construct their own knowledge and their epistemic practices are productive.

For STEM education science teachers usually choose topics which are related to both science and other disciplinary contents. Nevertheless it is not clear for the teachers to adopt what kind of criteria for their choices. Interdisciplinary teaching is not a mixture of science content with another one from different disciplines as resources for the content teaching. Instead the criteria and perspectives for the integration need to be clearly defined. In this study we investigated how to integrate science and other disciplines in terms of interdisciplinary teaching. Family resemblance approach by Wittgenstein, recently revised by Erduran and Dagher, was applied to comparative analysis of science, math, and physical education curriculum documents in Korea. Aim and value, methodological rules and methods, knowledge, and activities in each discipline were compared and analyzed with the view of FRA. Results of the study described alternative criteria of how to find appropriate topics for interdisciplinary teaching.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the teaching behaviors and visual attention according to teacher's career in Elementary Science Inquire-based Class. Participants were four elementary school teachers in Seoul. They were all in grade 5 and taught science. According to the experience of elementary science education, two novice teachers and two expert teachers were identified. Participants taught Respiration in the 'Structure and Function of our Body' in the elementary science fifth grade. The mobile eye tracker used in this study is SMI's ETG 2w, which is a binocular tracking system. In addition, a video camera was installed behind the classroom to record the entire class. We recorded all the contents of the recorded video and analyzed the results. In this study, the actual practice time, participant's visual attention, and decentralized attention ability were analyzed by class phase. The results of the study are as follows. First, there was a difference between planned class time and actual practice time. The novice teachers were having difficulty in reconstructing the contents of education, and the expert teachers were reconstructing the curriculum and interacting with the students with high understanding and application of the curriculum. There were many differences between the novice teachers and the expert teachers in the tour guidance to confirm student activities. Second, if we look at the visual attention on the area related to teaching and learning by class phase, the novice teacher concentrates all the steps in a specific area, expert teachers showed an equal visual attention to meaningful areas of teaching and learning activities. Third, there was a statistically significant difference in activities 1-1, 1-2, 2-1, and 2-2 when the participants' decentralized attention ability. Expert teachers frequently checked students' understanding and interests. There was a lot of interaction with students. It is also shown through the decentralized attention ability that the novice teachers concentrate on a specific area, and the expert teachers have a high degree of decentralized attention ability and visual attention evenly.

This study surveyed the elementary school teachers' use of visual representations and their perceptions of the functions of visual representations in the teaching of electricity unit. A total of 110 elementary teachers who have experiences in teaching electricity unit responded to online survey. The result showed firstly that most of the teachers use visual representations in their teaching and it is mostly limited to those presented in textbooks or images that they can get easily from internet search. Secondly, elementary teachers thought that they have high ability in using visual representations and low ability in understanding students' visual presentation ability. Thirdly, visual representations are more often preferred to be used as teacher-centered ways than student-centered ways for motivating students and conceptual understanding. However, in case of scientific inquiry, both teacher-centered and student-centered ways were equally preferred. Lastly, the teachers' perceptions of the functions of visual representations were categorized into 'teaching-instrumental function', 'learning-instrumental function', 'communicative-instrumental function' and 8 subcategories were found. The most frequent function was the 'information delivery function' in the 'teaching-instrumental function' category. Implications for teacher education and further studies were discussed.