科學的 探究活動과 멘토제 및 科學敎授方法에 대한 初‧中學校 學生, 敎師의 認識

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to survey the scientific inquiry activities in the elementary and middle school(Student-led Inquiry Activity), the awareness of the teachers' participation as a mentor, and the preference for science teaching and learning method, and then to compare them from the perspective of a teacher and a student each. After that, to check the possible problems and to find out the solution for the improvement is the ultimate objective of this study. In terms of the elementary and middle school students, first of all, to get the ideas about the small group scientific inquiry activities, some questionnaire items developed by Jeong et al.(2006) were revised and used. Secondly, to survey the awareness of the teachers' participations as a mentor, A 10-item questionnaire was made after. According to the result of the reliability test, Cronbach's Alpha coefficient for the questionnaire is 0.84. Finally, to understand the preference for science teaching and learning method, the questionnaire developed by Jones & Harty(1978) was revised and used. This is to survey which method the students prefer, a traditional teaching method or a student-led inquiry learning method. According to the survey, the scientific inquiry activities are done more in the lower grades and for each task it takes about 4 hours. It is less than 6 hours suggested in 2007 Revised Curriculum. Also, among many kinds of activities most activities are the textbook-based inquiry activities, so students-led inquiry activities taking more time are needed. When students perform the students-led inquiry activities, they think to set a subject and to assign a role in a team are the most difficult ones. In spite of these difficulties, they understand the subject better. Like this, more opportunities should be provided to think scientifically by themselves. For the roles of a mentor teacher, students expect the positive influences like getting helpful advice. For the teaching and learning method, students prefer students-led inquiry learning method to the traditional teaching method. It points to the need of students-led inquiry activities. In terms of teachers, many teachers feel burden for the inquiry activities, so most of the cases can be done simply. This burden and the group organizing by teachers lead to students' passive attitude. During the inquiry activities teachers focus on acquiring science precess skills, improving communicative skills, and understanding the fundamental concepts. Most teachers think that there's a difficulty in collecting various materials for task performance. As a cognitive effect students memorize what they learn through the inquiry activities based on the problem solving and experiences. As a social and affective effect most students say that they can feel confident and successful. This result points to the need of designing and developing many kinds of activities up to each students' group level. Also, there're positive replies about the teachers' participation as a mentor because students expect to get a new and different view and to feel confident by sharing ideas with teachers. This study can be helpful for designing and operating the scientific inquiry activities. Also, it can useful tips for developing science teachers'training program.