• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.36 no.3
• /
• pp.457-470
• /
• 2016

We investigated the conceptual and methodological characteristics of self-study as an innovational way with reflective research methods and explored the possibility of application of self-study in the field of science education by reviewing previous researches done in foreign countries. The results show that Self-study in education means the study of self, self-practice, self-thought, and so on in the teaching and learning context. It is a kind of new research method to pursue the improvement of teaching and learning practice with integrated perspectives on the context of instruction, identities of members, their beliefs and values, innovation agenda for better education, etc. This can be attained by collective and critical reflection in doing research. Most previous articles on the methodology of self-study suggested that the self-study should be more than just daily journals written only by her/him self. To do self-study in the academic way, they requested interaction with critical and cooperative colleagues, multiple but strict qualitative research methods, and participants' efforts for making better practice in instruction. Similar features to the above are found in the previous 14 self-study papers related to science education done in foreign countries. Based on the results, we concluded that self-study could be applied usefully into the field of science education in Korea. This paper could contribute to stimulation in the innovation of science instruction in a more practical way by increasing the attention to self-study and provoking its practice in Korea.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.36 no.5
• /
• pp.739-756
• /
• 2016

The purpose of the study is to reflect on 'myself' as a teacher educator of college of education in depth and to improve my instruction through self-study with three critical collaborators. 17 pre-service science teachers and I have participated in this study of a teacher educator's course since March 2016 after the preliminary practice in 2015. The video recorded the course for 11 weeks with about 40 hours of lessons. The data source also included teacher educator's reflective journals, lecture evaluations, online boards and so on. Questionnaires were distributed and answered both at the beginning and at the end of the course and pre-service teachers wrote their reflective journals. Four of them were in the focus group interviews. During the course, the weekly group meeting of critical collaborators analyzed the emerging issues based on the lesson clips and teacher educator's reflective journals with discussion for the course innovation. Four phases were revealed in the process and for the purpose of the course such as exploration, conflicts, challenges, and changes. The results showed that first, we identified tensions among the teacher educator's multiple identities as a lecturer, a faculty member, and a researcher. Second, there were differences between goals of teacher educator and pre-service teachers in the course, and this obstructed the success of the course sometimes. Third, these practices led to explore balanced alternative views and interpretations of the problem by critical views and to expand and improve our teaching practice and thinking. In addition, the self-study with critical collaborators helped to bring conflicts and issues below my practice to light for collaborative reflection and it gave a chance to understand ourselves as teacher educators in different ways.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.42 no.2
• /
• pp.227-238
• /
• 2022

One of the main roles of the science teacher is to help students become active agents in their learning of science. This study described how an elementary science teacher used students' emotional resources to conduct emotionally responsive teaching and what were the learning outcomes of this approach. The participants of the study included the teacher himself and his 6^th grade students, and emotionally responsive teaching was applied in the science unit of 'Various Living Things and Our Human Lives'. Multiple types of data, including the teacher's teaching logs, video recordings of the lessons in the unit, and interviews with the students, were collected. The data were analyzed qualitatively, and the results were described using a self-study method. The teacher took advantage of three kinds of students' emotional resources (i.e., character drawing, t-shirt design, and raps) to organize his emotionally responsive teaching. The learning outcome included the students' positive emotions and active participation in science lessons, their epistemic practices such as explorations and justifications of knowledge, and the students' reconstruction of knowledge in consideration of their everyday lives. It was suggested that emotionally responsive teaching can promote elementary school students' active participation in science learning, resulting in meaningful learning outcomes in emotional, cognitive, and conceptual aspects. Further studies should thus be conducted to understand the characteristics of emotionally responsive teaching and its detailed teaching strategies.