• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.401-418
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• 2003

The purpose of this study was to examine philosophical views on science of two influential curriculum documents, AAAS' s Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy (Benchmark) and NRC's National Science Education Standards (Standard), and to get educational implications about a desired philosophical view on science at a school science level. In order to determine the philosophical views on science explicitly suggested in the documents, Soh's Philosophical Perspectives Probe (PPP) was used as a framework for analysis. Forty preservice teachers reviewed the documents, extracting paragraphs with which statements of the PPP' s questions would agree. The results of the study were as follows: First, the Benchmark's philosophical view on science corresponds to the borderline between inductivism and eclecticism, or eclecticism close to falsificationism. The philosophical positions by the PPP' s themes are very different. Second, the Standard's philosophical position on science corresponds to inductivism close to eclecticism. Its philosophical position by the themes of the PPP is very different like the Benchmark. These results indicate that philosophical positions of the documents are more complex than popular conceptions would have it. That is to say, the results suggest that the science curriculum documents hold not only a contemporary philosophical view on science but also a traditional view on science, and that the philosophical positions on science are different from each other by documents and even by the PPP's themes in the same document. The results suggest that the philosophical views on science in school science contexts need to be adjusted and presented to K-12 students according to topics related to philosophy of science.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.183-193
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• 2015

Teacher guidebooks are practical and commonly used resources for teachers to deliver the goals and contents of science curriculum in classroom teaching. Thus, the alignment of teacher guidebooks and science curriculum could be critical to undertake the effectiveness of curriculum implication in science classrooms. This study is to investigate how the learning objectives of science curriculum are implicated in teacher guidebooks by analyzing the dimensions of knowledge and cognitive process in learning objectives in both documents. Grade 3~4 learning objectives (82 objectives in the curriculum, 459 in the teacher guidebook, 541 in total) in 2009 Revised science curriculum and teacher guidebooks were coded and analyzed based on the Revised Bloom's Taxonomy. The analysis focused on how the knowledge dimensions and cognitive processes of the curriculum were emphasized and restructured in the teacher guidebooks to examine the coalition between the two important documents. The study found: 1) the learning objectives in Grade 3~4 in both documents were skewed to certain knowledge dimension (conceptual) and cognitive process (understand); 2) there was a high coalition between unit objectives and lesson objectives in the teacher guidebooks, however, relatively low coalition between the curriculum and the teacher guidebooks; and 3) learning objectives in the curriculum were delivered in teacher guidebooks in various patterns (similar, detailed, additional, in portion, and the same), and 'detailed' and 'additional' were frequently shown. There also appeared new objectives in the teacher guidebooks, which were not present in the curriculum. The findings in this study could provide some suggestions to the current project of developing 2015 Science Curriculum in regard to understanding the dimensions of knowledge and cognitive process of learning objectives and their alignments with textbooks and teacher guidebooks.

• Journal of the Korean Data and Information Science Society
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.603-608
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• 2005

The purpose of this qualitative case study is to understand how the idea of data view and information graphics is used in the social studios middle school textbooks. Data were collected through national curriculum documents and social studies middle textbooks for 7-9 grades. We set up three questions for this studies; what kinds of information graphics are used in the textbooks, how the graphics are organized in the social studies middle school, and how the 7th social studies curriculum is related with the 7th national mathematics curriculum. Through the data analysis, we found that 1) Photographs, illustrations, information maps, etc., are used and frequencies of their usages are in descending order, 2) double lines graphs, circle graphs, and stripe graphs nip often adopted for the comparison of populations, 3) the relation of the two subjects curricula is not so good, especially in the curriculum steps of information mads scatter diagrams, and comparison of populations. Finally we suggest that new web site of data view or information graphics be provided for two curricula, workshop of information graphics are needed for social studies teachers.

• Journal of the Korean Data and Information Science Society
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.843-848
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• 2005

The purpose of this qualitative case study is to understand how the idea of data view and information graphics is used in the social studies high school textbooks. Data were collected through national curriculum documents and social studies middle school textbooks for the 10th grade students. We set up three questions for this study; what kinds of information graphics are used in the textbooks, how the graphics are organized in the social studies middle school, and how the 7th social studies curriculum is related with the 7th national mathematics curriculum. Through the data analysis, we found that 1) photographs, information tables, illustrations, etc., are used and frequencies of their usages are in descending order, 2) double lines graphs, and stripe graphs are often adopted for the comparison of populations, 3) the relation of the two subjects curricula is not well developed, especially in the curriculum steps of information maps, scatter diagrams, and comparison of populations. Finally we suggest that new web site of data view or information graphics be provided for two curricula, workshop of information graphics be needed for social studies teachers, and modification of the 7th probability and statistics curriculum.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.215-223
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• 2017

This study aims to find an effective way to present essential science concepts in national science curriculum through international comparisons. Next Generation Science Standard (US), Ontario Science Curriculum (Canada), Australia Science Curriculum, and British/English Science Curriculum were selected for comparison. In science curriculum documents, these countries used terms such as 'Key ideas,' 'Big ideas,' 'Key concepts,' 'Disciplinary core ideas.' and 'Fundamental concepts' to present essential concepts of science. This study reviewed the characteristics of the meaning, the status, and the role of essential concepts country by country. The result shows essential concepts have been used with different meanings and statutes in each case. Furthermore, various roles were performed through essential concepts in order to organize their science curriculum. From these foreign nation's cases, this study proposes several ways to present essential science concepts based on results. First, interdisciplinary integrated concepts were needed to organize an integrated science curriculum. In science curriculum documents of the United States, Canada, Australia and England, two types of terms were used in order to structuralize an integrated science curriculum. Second, essential concepts should include concepts related with function and value as well as scientific knowledge. Third, essential concepts need to be presented in such a way as to show specific contexts. Therefore, selecting appropriate contents and structure are needed to be able to improve the way to present essential concepts in Korea's educational environment.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.58 no.3
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• pp.347-365
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• 2019

It is important to pay attention to how teachers recognize and use curriculum materials in order to link written curriculum and enacted curriculum. In this study, 90 preservice mathematics teachers were surveyed to identify their perspective and reading of curriculum materials. Especially, we focused on the curriculum documents, textbooks, and teachers' guidebooks containing the concept of conditional probability which is addressed in highschool mathematics curriculum. The various misconceptions of conditional probability were reported in the many researches, and there are multiple methods to introduce conditional probability in mathematics classes. As a result, curriculum materials have some limits to be used as they are and considered to be reconstructable by participants, but their curriculum reading were mainly classified to be descriptive and evaluative, not to be interpretive. However, unlike curriculum documents, textbooks and teachers' guidebooks were partially interpreted by participants using their knowledge of conditional probability. The purpose of this study is to investigate the profession of mathematics teachers in terms of curriculum implementation. We expect that this study will provide a basic framework for analyzing mathematics teachers' works and suggest some implications for the professional development of mathematics teachers.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.97-111
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• 2020

In the 2015 revised curriculum, 'Integrated Science' was established to increase convergent thinking and designated as a common subject for all students to learn, regardless of career. In addition, the 2015 revised curriculum introduced 'competence' as a distinctive feature from the previous curriculum. In the 2015 revised curriculum, competencies are divided into core competencies of cross-curricular character and subject competencies based on academic knowledge and skills of the subject. The science curriculum contains five subject competencies: scientific thinking, scientific inquiry, scientific problem solving, scientific communication, scientific participation and life-long learning. However, the description of competencies in curriculum documents is insufficient, and experts' perceptions of competencies are not uniform. Therefore, this study examines the perceptions of science subjects in science high school teachers by deciding that comprehension of competencies should be preceded in order for competency-based education to be properly applied to school sites. First, we analyzed the relationship between achievement standards and subject competencies of integrated science through the operation of an expert working group with a high understanding of the integrated science achievement standards. Next, 31 high school science teachers examined the perception of the five subject competencies through a descriptive questionnaire. The semantic network analysis has been utilized to analyze the teachers' responses. The results of the analysis showed that the three curriculum competencies of scientific inquiry, scientific communication, scientific participation and life-long learning ability are similar to the definitions of teachers and curriculum documents, but in the case of scientific thinking and scientific problem solving, there are some gaps in perception and definition in curriculum documents. In addition, the results of the comprehensive analysis of teachers' perceptions on the five competencies show that the five curriculum competencies are more relevant than mutually exclusive or independent.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.87-103
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• 2024

The content system table of the subject-matter curriculum is considered important in the Korean national curriculum, textbook writing, and teaching and learning in the classroom. However, studies that comprehensively organize the issues concerning the format of the subject-matter curriculum content system have been scarce. This study scrutinized the evolution of the content system from its inception in The 6th Curriculum to the most recent 2022 Revised National Curriculum, focusing on science curricular. The following issues and suggestions were derived for the format of the subject content system. First, caution should be exercised in using terms such as "domain," "field," and "category," and it should be clarified whether these terms are intended simply for logical differentiation or to serve as a content organizer with a specific emphasis. Second, the nature of components such as "core ideas," which can serve as innovative content organizers, should be strictly defined. Third, while the introduction of three-dimensional content elements such as "knowledge and understanding," "process and skill," and "value and attitude" is viewed positively, it is suggested that a further delineation be made, elaborating how each can be utilized to form core competencies. Fourth, the construction of the subject-specific content system in national curriculum needs caution because whether it will resolve or exacerbate the 'disparity between general curriculum and subject-matter curriculums' is uncertain. Finally, as an apparent pendulum motion of the subject-matter content system is observed in national curriculum documents, efforts should be made to ensure that it does not result in meaningless repetition, but instead achieves meaningful dialectical progress.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.49 no.2
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• pp.223-246
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• 2010

Goos(2004) introduced educational researchers' demand for change on the way that mathematics is taught in schools and the series of curriculum documents produced by the National council of Teachers of Mathematics. The documents have placed emphasis on the processes of problem solving, reasoning, and communication. In Korea, the national curriculum documents have also placed increased emphasis on mathematical activities such as reasoning and communication(1997, 2007).The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of inquiry-oriented instruction with guided reinvention on students' mathematical activities containing communication and reasoning for science high school students. In this paper, we introduce an inquiry-oriented instruction containing Polya's plausible reasoning, Freudenthal's guided reinvention, Forman's sociocultural approach of learning, and Vygotsky's zone of proximal development. We analyze the impact of mathematical findings from inquiry-oriented instruction on students' mathematical activities containing communication and reasoning.

• Education of Primary School Mathematics
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.193-208
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• 2018

Classification is presented in the curriculum of elementary school mathematics, science, Korean language, and integrated subjects as the major function that needs to be learned. In addition, mathematics textbooks teach the classification as a basic process for organizing and interpreting collected materials in a separate unit. So, we analyzed the curriculum documents and textbooks of mathematics, science, Korean language, and integrated subjects. And we explored how to teach the classification in the context of mathematics subject. As a result, it is necessary to find different classification criteria in conjunction with detailed observation and investigation activities, and to teach that considering the circumstances and purpose of the classification. It also provided implications on how to revive converged classes that focus on big ideas and skills, which are commonly offered by various subjects.