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教育實踐與研究期刊
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Vol. 16-2（2003/9）

  • The Analysis and Discussion of the Time Concept of Movement Education

    Hsin-pei Shuei*

     

    Time is one of the fundamental composition factors of movement education theory. There is academic and practical value in analyzing and discussing the time concept that is expressed by documents, so it induces the motivation of writing this paper. The purpose of this paper is to provide as the reference learning of deep planting theory foundation for teachers. Through the merging methods of dogmatism and the empiricism, this paper analyzes and discusses the time concept of movement education from three aspects. they are substantiation, mentality, and spiritual. The procedure is extended from the substantiation to the abstract time and examples are provided in the content to express the meaning. At last, discussion comes back again to the purpose of movement education. The time concept of movement education is defined as below: The time of movement education includes three parts, including substantiation time (the time of movement displaying), mentality time (psychology progress time), spiritual (conscious time). In the concept, the substantiation time of movement education is based on the substantiation time of celestial revolution. The substantiation time displays movement and is equal to the revolution time of the celestial body. However, when movement does not display, it then goes astray away from the revolution time of the celestial body. The mentality time is equal to the revolution time of the celestial body, but the freedom and extensiveness is larger than the revolution time of the celestial body. There are the past, the present and the future in the spiritual time, and the freedom and extensiveness is larger than the revolution time of the celestial body.


Keyword: the education for elementary school, movement education, physical education teaching, time concept.

  • A Study to Comprehend the Causes and Impact of Teachers’ Using a Microphone during Classes in Elementary and Junior High School in Taipei.

    Sui-li Wang*

     

    The purpose of this study was to comprehend the causes and impact of teachers׳ using microphones during class in elementary and junior high school, and to remind teachers to avoid the negative effects caused by overusing microphones, such as making noise, disturbing other classes, damaging students’ listening abilities, and reducing the interaction between teachers and students. According to 328 questionnaires from elementary and junior high school, percentages consistent with previous research was found. Nearly half of the teachers usually use a microphone during their teaching, because of their lack of volume and dysphonia. Furthermore, the man-made noise inside and outside the classroom makes this situation even worse. Teachers also know that using microphone during the class might cause some negative effects. However, only twenty percent of teachers received such kind of training programs. Nearly seventy percent of teachers hope to develop such skills as soon as possible.


Keyword： school noise, hearing loss, dysphonia, sound correctly

  • Utilizing Knowledge Management Theory and Strategies to Promote School Effectiveness

    An-min Li & Chuan-chung Hsieh*

     

    The purposes of this paper are (1) to probe some existing school problems with respect to the implementation of knowledge management theory and practice to promote school effectiveness and (2) to explore some powerful strategies to solve these identified problems. To accomplish these two major purposes, this research focused on (1) advocating the significant influence of knowledge economy on education, (2) exploring the relationship between the implementation of school knowledge management and the promotion of school effectiveness, (3) analyzing the contents and meaning of knowledge management, (4) exploring the current situation and problems of elementary school knowledge management, (5) exploring some effective strategies to solve knowledge management problems, and (6) proposing constructive suggestions to solve school knowledge management problems.

This research found that strategies which can effectively solve knowledge management problems are: (1) transforming school principal’s concept of knowledge management, (2) defining the meaning and dimensions of knowledge management, (3) selecting or recruiting an appropriate person who is totally in charge of the implementation of knowledge management, (4) deliberating and strengthing the function of school library, (5) developing learning network of school knowledge, (6) establishing shared culture of school knowledge, (7) transforming school into learning organization, and (8) applying assessable strategies of knowledge management.

According to the research results, the researchers propose the following suggestions for the educational governing authorities and elementary schools : 1. For educational governing authorities, they should (1) develop significant indicators of knowledge management, (2) provide financial support to build school knowledge management system, (3) assess the effectiveness of school knowledge management, (4) provide inservice training of knowledge management, and (5) upgrade their concept of knowledge management so as to lead the knowledge management activies. 2. For elementary schools, they should (1) facilitate knowledge management tasks, (2) encourage school members to ulitize knowledge management theory in their daily jobs, (3) build a cooperative and shared atmosphere for the implementation of knowledge management, (4) actively integrate the community professionals and school members as a learning team, (5) strengthen inservice training programs of knowledge management, and (6) properly use information and technology system to promote the overall effectiveness of school knowledge management.


Keyword：Knowledge economy, Knowledge management, School effectiveness

Li-juing Wu*

 

The aim of this study is to investigate curriculum continuity between primary and secondary (middle) schools in England. It is hoped that the experiences of England can tutor the judgment in Taiwan in terms of the issue of transition. Based on the context of curriculum continuity in England, three levels of examples have been explored, i.e. the national level, the local level as well as the institutional level. A further analysis of these examples is provided in the third part of this report. Based on the examples studied, ten prototypes have emerged. In addion, the characteristics of these transitional arrangements have also been analysed. The last part of the paper discusses insights learned from this investigation from the perspective of Taiwan. Substantively, four lessons can be drawn, i.e.
1. It is worthwhile to enrich the discourse concerning the issue of transition in Taiwan.
2. It is necessary to pay more attention to the group of students with special educational needs in the Taiwanese educational system.
3. The arrangements for transition between primary and secondary schools could be more humanized in Taiwan.
4. A top-down approach to the promotion of curriculum continuity between primary and secondary schools is necessary
In addition, some reflections on methodology are provided at the end of this article. First, the factor of culture has exerted considerable impact upon the issue of curriculum. The concept of curriculum continuity in England is different from the very same concept as discussed in the Taiwanese educational community. Second, it is desirable to go beyond the dimension of system and penetrate the 'flesh and blood' life
world when we carry out comparative or international educational studies. However, the author of this article would like to confess that it takes time as well as considerable resources to achieve this fully. With this aim in mind, this study still has some way to go.

Keyword : middle school, transition, curriculum articulation, key stage 3 national strategy

Pei-i Chou*

 

Postmodern approaches on curriculum have created a lot of interesting issues in educational research community. They are also important references for the foundations of current curriculum reforms. For this reason, the study employs theoretical inquiry to discem the key elements in postmodern approaches on curriculum comprising of deconstruction, construction, social criticism, aesthetic and ecology. Then the relationship of those elements and the characteristic of the conceptual scheme are explored, including the rejection of meta-narratives and dualism, the criticism of Tyler's rationale, the inheritance of Dewey's philosophy, the development of curriculum theorizing, the validity of voices, and the improvement of school practice. After that, the study criticizes and evaluates the conceptual scheme and points out its limitations and possible developments in the future.

 

Keyword : Postmodernism, Curriculum Theories, Curriculum Inquiry

 

This study examined how goal setting and social comparative information affect children's skillful performance and perceptions of self-efficacy in the context of arithmetic competency development. Fourth-grade children were initially pretested on their self-efficacy and division skill. Following the pretest, children received instructions in division and solved problems while pursuing either self-set or teacher-assigned goals. Half of the children in each goal condition obtained comparative information indicating that the goals were attainable, whereas the other half were not given any comparative information. Results of this study suggested that there existed significant interaction between the effects of goal setting and social comparison. At the level of self-set goals, children who received social comparative information scored higher on the division skill test than did children obtaining no comparative information. Conversely, at the level of teacher-assigned goals, participants who were provided with social comparative information scored significantly lower than did those in the non-comparison group. The effects of pursuing multiple goals on children's skill development were explored. Moreover, effective strategies that may be used to facilitate students' self-regulated learning were discussed as well.

 

Keyword : Goal setting, Social comparison, Self-efficacy, Self-regulated learning

 

The teacher role in social context is studied based on the sociological perspectives. By the method of literature study, four findings in this study are as follows: 1.Teacher has a multi-dimensional figure. Ten metaphors of teacher role are employees, mothers, technical experts, labors or workers, organic intellectuals, new petit bourgeoisie, the agents of ideological state apparatuses, independent artisans, transformative intellectuals, and cultural workers. 2.There are several factors influencing the teacher role, including politics, economy, culture, ideology, morality, and individual response, etc. 3.The teacher role is ambiguous and ill-defined. 4.The teacher role not only possesses a positive function, but also has a negative function. The recommendations for "incorporating teacher role into teacher's self-image" are also suggested.

 

Keyword : teacher, teacher role, and sociological discourses.

 

The human capital is important for national development. The study is based on the human capital theory for analysis. The main purpose of this study is to explore the influencing factors of educational quality in developing countries. The research employed the multi-regression, Cluster analysis, and Discriminant analysis to test the null hypotheses in this study. It used 11 educational quality indicators in 1996 for
analysis. These indicators were chosen from World Education Report (2000). In the study, it used the ratio of population, the ratio of dependency population, per capital income, the ratio of economic growth, the GDP ratio of educational expenditure, and the government ratio of educational expenditure to test the best influencing predicted variable in regression model, and to discriminate and cluster the countries of the high, middle, and low educational quality. There are ten hypotheses, and they tested how the variable is most important to influence 11 educational quality variables. The results showed these hypotheses. From that finding, some suggestions were given.

 

Keyword : human capital theory, educational quality

 

This study investigated one elementary school novice teacher on her knowledge of teaching, development of this knowledge, and factors affecting its development. Qualitative research method was used for case study. Data were collected by naturalistic observations, interviews, and documentary analysis. Following results were found after two years of research: (a) The contents of teaching knowledge of the
elementary school novice teacher included primarily the following: knowledge of learners , knowledge of classroom management, knowledge of general pedagogy, knowledge of teacher's role, and knowledge of pedagogical content. (b) The elementary school novice teacher's development of teaching knowledge was under the influence of her early experiences and her knowledge showed extremely individualized
characteristics. (c) The elementary school novice teacher got the preliminary concepts of her teaching knowledge from teacher education courses, and these preliminary concepts were later validated in her teaching experiences. (d) The development of elementary school novice teacher's teaching knowledge during the first year was obvious, due primarily to her own teaching experience. (e) Factors affecting the
elementary school novice teacher's teaching knowledge included the early experiences, teacher education courses, teaching experience, and her supervising teacher.

 

Keyword : elementary school, novice teacher, teaching knowledge, development, learning to teach

 

In Taiwan, teachers' manpower market is influenced and changed after the Teacher Education Act was declared in 1994. Teachers Colleges come up against these competitive conditions such as how to create an advantageous position and enhance their competitiveness. These problems need to be explored and investigated. The purposes of this study are to understand the reform actions which Teachers Colleges
take, to analyze the problems which Teachers Collegeges encounter in the process of reforms, and to offer some strategies for reconstructing Teachers Colleges. Survey questionnaires and semi-structured interviews are conducted. A key agendas in this study is about the school transformation of Teachers Colleges. The results indicated that reform actions of Teachers Colleges now are to integrate themselves to become a Taiwan's United Education University System and to upgrade themselves to become educational universities. However, Teachers Colleges also confront some problems in the process of reform. The main impediments of school transformation are narrow campuses, government's regulation, and insufficient budget. Besides, no support from the administration authority and conservative traditions of Teachers Colleges are also the hardship of school transformation. Thus, the future of Teachers Colleges needs self regulation and government's support.

 

Keyword : teacher education system, teachers college, school transformation

 

In the final period of Ching Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China (R.O.C.), the YMCA was a Christian charity; however, it had overcome the traditional race, cultural superiority and strong, deep self-consciousness of mainland China to develop the physical education activities project and to lead these activities development of mainland China recent time. It was a miracle and it never happened on
the Chinese history. When the physical education activities were developed and rode on the crest of success, Mainland China had explored the Anti-Christian Movement (1922-1927) based on the nationalism that was anti-imperialism and took back the right of education. During the six years, Christianity was under ruthless attack. Being one of the Christian branches, YMCA couldn't omit the challenges. In this paper, we also wanted to understand the impact of the YMCA's physical education in the Anti-Christian Movement and cleanse the Chinese physical education development history on recent time. Through historical documents, data collection and materials analysis, we get the conclusion as follows: In March 1922, the anti-imperialism tide swelled up. The current thought was anti-religious society and non-religious education during that time. Under this circumstance, the six years' the Anti-Christian Movement had exploded finally. YMCA and other Christian schools were accused as the tool of imperialism aggression and
under the intelligentsia denounced by spoken word and writing, the Kuomintang (Party) and Communist's (Party) military operations, they suffered serious damage. Under the effect of the Anti-Christian Movement, YMCA lost all benefits to develop the physical education activities. Chinese government also put the Chinese traditional physical exercise activities and military physical exercise activities into the formal lessons of school curriculum. Moreover, YMCA suffered the criticism from the "championship" and "representative system". The physical education activities of YMCA and other Christian schools were often resisted. The sport organizations and contests held by Chinese and the foreign physical education activities instructors also went back to their countries one after another. For these reasons, the physical education activity project of YMCA in Mainland China stopped.

 

Keyword : Anti-Christian Movement, YMCA, Physical Education

 

This study investigated the effects of the services provided by an itinerant consultant team on the quality of inclusive education in preschools. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected. Quantitative data were collected using a questionnaire filled out by 5 preschool administrators and 12 regular teachers. Qualitative data were collected through two focus groups -- the administrators and teachers, and the final discussion meeting for consultants.  Research findings are as fallows.

(1) Assistance from the consultant team improved regular teachers' related abilities of special education, the interactions between teachers and children with special needs, the communications between teachers and the parents of children with special needs, and the acceptance of preschool administrators and teachers.

(2) The difficulties faced by preschools included the limited abilities regarding special education of teachers. Besides, teachers were not able to write the IEP, and were not able to follow the teaching suggestions offered by the consultants, and there was a need to educate parents about inclusion. The difficulties experienced included being unable to arrange the case meeting within teammates or to well function the role of the social worker.

(3) It is necessary to provide a series special education courses to early childhood teachers in order to improve their professional abilies related to special education. There is a need to improve general teachers' abilities to diagnosis children with developmental delays. It is necessary to adjust the frequencies of providing consultant services. Last, we should provide parents education and relevant information about inclusion. Relevant discussions and suggestions were also provided.

 

Keyword : itinerant consultant services, inclusion, young children with special needs, early childhood education

Taiwan indigenous peoples whose population is only 2 percent of all residents in Taiwan have their incessant history, multiple clans, distinctive customs and diverse languages which construct parts of Taiwan culture. And then as a reflection of society, literature should emphasize these existing actualities. Hence, taking the exemplary Annual Collection of Selected Poems as an example, this article investigated the appearance and achievement of new poem writing in Taiwan indigenous peoples by two categories which are the non-aborigines’ writing about aborigines and the writing of indigenous peoples themselves. Besides, by listing graphic tables containing authors, conditions of publication and social environments and by displaying text of Annual Collection of Selected Poems, this article also analyzed various aspects of new poem writing in indigenous peoples and their cultural intent to cmploy words eagerly to get beyond literature.

 

Keyword：New poem, Indigenous peoples, Annual Collection of Selected Poems, Mother tongue

 

“New Juyan Han-Jian”, ancient correspondences written on wooden strips in the lst century B.C. and the lst century A.D., was unearthed on the E-ju-na River after two years’ exploration since 1972. The writing style of “Zhuan-shu” was in the Ch’in dynasty and it disappeared in the Han dynasty when “Li-shu” style was popular and a new style of 80 percent “Zhangcao” appeared at the same time. It should be noticed that mixing use of these three styles shows that artistic sense of writers at that time became vigorous, and it can be understood as the first gleam of calligraphy. These situations are actually proved by the Juyan Correspondence written on wooden strips extending through 240 years. For a wonder there were two sets of strips bound together on Jiagu Houguam. These were written in the 3rd and 8th years of the Jian-wu era late in the Han dynasty, and the characters are doubtless “Cao-shu” (cursive) style. However, the succeeding writing style “Cao-shu” was not completed at the era so that it can be more correctly classified into “Zhang-cao” style. Originally, “Zhang-cao” style can be considered a mixture of “Li-shu” and “Cao-shu” style, but the letters of the style written on the strips have the character of a variation of “Li-shu” style having “Bo-zhe” spatter. The style of the character of the arms list is a progressed one of the above-mentioned “Zhang-cao” without “Bo-zhe” spatter and all letters were written separately without succession. As this was written featuring a grand and heavy nature, it is suited for a good example of handwriting. It would be written by a secretary of the best hand.

 

Keyword：Han, Juyan, Han-Jian, Cao-shu, Zhang-cao, cursive, calligraphy

 

The art of arrangements of smells received by human olfactory organs is called: olfacto-arts”. Without real images, one can still be aware of the existence of smells. By suitable arrangements, olfactory arts, like visual arts and auditory arts, may form another type of art and increase the variety of arts in 21th century. Smells include natural ones of flowers, fruits, leaves, woods, grasses, roots, and bodies, and artificial ones of chemical perfumes. Developments of olfactory arts require cooperation. Different persons and groups are in charge of the production, preservation and control of smells and perfumes, and composition, notation, reproduction and recording of olfacto-arts, as well as the training of audience and promotion of olfacto-arts. It is predictable that olfactory arts will become a new branch of art in 21th century.

 

Keyword：olfactory arts, olfacto-arts, smell, perfumes.

 

The purpose of this research was to investigate the differences in line styles when elementary school students draw with computer mouse and with paint brush, and the research has come up with the conclusions as follows: （1）In terms of the smoothness of lines, students perform better when they draw realistic subjects with traditional painting pens than with the computer medium, but there is no significant difference between these two media when they draw imaginary subjects. （2）The subject of drawing is the most important factor that influences line forms – the realistic drawing subject has more expressions of line form than the imaginary drawing subject. （3）Except the “winding line” the two media are consistent in terms of the concentration of line forms. （4）The realistic drawing subject has better expression of line fineness than the imaginary drawing subject, but there is no significant difference between the two media in terms of their expression of line fineness. （5）Regardless of drawing subjects, the computer medium is superior to drawing pens in terms of the expression of line color shade.

 

Keyword：computer graphic, art paint brush, line styles

 

It was well understood that planned associated measures are of great importance to the realization of one-to-nine school curriculum. One of the associated measures was seed teacher workshop. The authors studied the roles and duties of the seed teachers in school mathematics and analyzed the self cognizance of the seed teachers in the realm of should-be and could-be. Open questionnaire inquiry and focus interview were used. The subjects were the teachers who participated in the workshops of one-to-nine school curriculum in mathematics numbered 1081 and 1146 held by Taiwan Provincial Institute for Elementary School Teachers' Inservice Education. The following conclusions were found: the teachers were not selected carefully; the self cognizance of the seed teachers about their roles and duties was bad; they were not aware of the abilities that they should and could have and they tended toward individual cognizance; they felt that they might face a lot of difficulties and thus their influence was reduced; they needed the help of experts.

 

Keyword: Elementary School Mathematics, Seed Teachers

 

Two aims were in this study. First was to apply the theoretical framework of the uses of parentheses to develop the experimental curriculum via the constructive approach and examine whether that improved children's cognitive development of relevant property uses in the concept of parentheses. Another was to explore the interaction process between the teacher and students to examine whether the constructive approach clarify children's conception of parentheses use in comparison with the control group. The qualitative and quantitative research methodologies were both applied. In the qualitative approach, I used the videotape analysis and, in the quantitative methodology, the row and column model was implemented. Participants were from one of the primary schools in Taipei County. The results indicated that students' conceptions of parentheses were improved, and their progress may closely correlate to the design of the curriculum. These student's learning process can be referenced by in-service and pre-service elementary teachers.

Keyword: the constructive approach, the row and column model, the concept of parentheses

 

The purpose of this research is to study children’s behavior of telling time, their strategies of telling time, errors of telling time, the performance of turning the hands of a clock and reading a clock, and the clock concept related to telling time. The researcher has chosen the digital clock and the analog clock, which are commonly seen in children’s daily life, as the tools of this investigation. The procedure is based on the scheme of quality research and semi-structured interviews given via questionnaires A and B to 42 children from kindergarten to sixth grade, six from each level. Questionnaire A includes the questions of clock hand turning and the clock reading. Questionnaire A includes four types of clock faces. Questionnaire B involves the concept of the time and the two-dimensions of a clock face. The results of this investigation are presented in five different aspects mentioned above. The first grader can read “Hour Time” and “Half-Hour Time” and both “Five-Minute Time” and “One-Minute Time” can only be recognized by the children who are already second graders and above. For the simplified clock face, children are having difficulty reading the time because of lacking the number marked on both big and small time scales. The second topic is the strategy of time telling. Most children read time by separating hours and minutes by a colon in the middle of a digital clock. When dealing with the clock with pointers on it, children read time depending on the status of the clock face and time. For the mistakes made by children who are reading the time, only the fourth grader and above have the perception that when the minute hand moves a circle, the hour hand moves to the next hour scale. It turns out most children who made mistakes “determine the hour time by reading the big (hour) scale which the hour hand is close to.” The performances on dragging hands to match the right time and reading the time are about the same for different ages of children. As the concept related to time telling, most of the first graders and above already have this time concept. They believe that the standard reference exists and won’t be affected by the change of the size and structure of the measurement tools. In their daily life, they are well educated about finding the reference point.

 

Keyword：Tell time, Time concept, Elementary school students, Kindergarten children

 

The purpose of this research is to explore the third and fourth grade children's plane geometric concepts in elementary schools. Written tests and individual interviews were taken as research methods. First, two classes of the third and the fourth grade students were selected from each of the two elementary schools chosen in Taipei city and Taipei county to give them ''written tests''. The third grades totaled 129 students and the fourth grades totaled 137 students. Four students (2 boys and 2 girls each) were selected from the high-score and low-score groups of each grade in the written tests, and a total of 16 students were given individual interviews.

The research findings are as follows: 1. Most of the third and fourth grade children in the elementary schools selected used "adjectives" to describe circles. Squares, rectangles, rhombuses, equilateral triangles, isosceles triangles were described with "the characteristics of sides", whereas it was more difficult for these children to describe parallelograms, trapezoids and kite shapes, and therefore they gave examples in their daily life to describe these shapes. 2. These elementary middle-grade students' identification of shapes could be affected by shapes' size, positions, side numbers, angle numbers, whether the edge is curved or straight, whether the side is long or short, angles' characteristics and closure property, etc., so that they generated some misconceptions. For example, someone didn’t think it was a triangle if the difference of the length proportion for each side of the figure was big; they thought that squares must be upright, whereas rhombuses must be oblique because of the impact of orientation; they thought a rectangle is in a "long" shape, and neglected the characteristics of right angles. 3. These elementary middle-grade children understand better the characteristics of shapes' "sides" than the characteristics of shapes' "angles"; hence they pointed out "adjacent sides and equal sides" when saying "opposite sides and parallel lines". The rate of their correct answers to the figure prompt questions was higher than that to the figure naming questions. 4. The pass rate of the third-grade students' identification of quadrangles and angles was higher than that of the fourth-grade students. Some children thought special quadrangles like rhombuses, trapezoids, and kite shapes weren't quadrangles, and only "pointy angles" or "right angles" were angles, whereas straight angles weren't angles. 5. It was more difficult for these elementary middle-grade children to draw parallelograms, rhombuses and kite shapes, which they couldn't draw accurately. They drew the shapes mostly with horizontal or vertical sides and only a few changes in positions. 6. There was no distinct difference in the written test performance between the third-grade and fourth-grade children. As for children of different sexes in the written test performance, there was no distinct difference in the third-grade students, but in the fourth grade, the girls' average scores were higher than those of the boys.（t = -3.151, P =.002 ） There was not much variation in the geometric-shape drawing ability for school children of different sexes and grades.

 

Keyword: the third and fourth grade children in the elementary school, plane shapes, shape concepts, misconceptions

 

This study employed the method of Cooperative Action Inquiry. The researcher and two other teachers team up to develop homeland teaching materials for Shin Chuang Sports Park, including resource investigation, curriculum development and the implementation of teaching activities. This study focuses on the interaction and cooperation of team teachers and the performance of students in homeland class. Observation, interviews, conference minutes, questionnaire, and related information gathering are major concerns to conduct the research. In addition, this study also tries to document the development and implementation process of homeland teaching materials in Shin Chuang Sports Park.

Conclusions of this study are summarized as follows: 1.Using community resources to develop homeland education activities is beneficial to the implementation of school-based curriculum. 2.Outdoor homeland education is appealing to students. 3.The process of using homeland education can inspire students’ community recognition and appreciation of their own homeland. 4.Through the Homeland education activities, teachers can cultivate students’ positive attitude toward environment education.5.Teachers’ professional growth and confidence are improved through team action researches. 6.Activity sheets could be used optionally to control teaching process and to achieve teaching objectives of outdoor homeland education.

 

Keyword: homeland education, action research, Shin Chuang Sports Park

  • The Development of Skills and Relevant Concepts in the Operation of Microscope for High and Elementary School Students in the Northern Area of Taiwan

    Chow-chin Lu*

     

    This research used "the two-tier multiple-choice instrument of the world under microscope"（TIWM） to explore skills in the operation of microscope and the development of relevant concepts for high and elementary school students in the northern area of Taiwan. According to analysis of the answers to TIWN questions, it was found that the alternative concept on the mistaken experience model frequently happened in elementary school students. The reason was that the microscope experiment was implemented well. The high school students incline to have alternative concepts on the mistaken cognitive model and the misunderstood deducible model. The reasons were that the relevant cellular materials were enormous and complicated and students were preoccupied by alternative concepts in their mind.

The research results revealed that there were above half of high and elementary school students having the concepts of microorganisms and their living environment, and there were above half of high school students having skills in the operation of microscope and concepts of the recognizable characteristics of cells. The research also found some significant mistaken skills and alternative concepts, which included the following: adjusted mirror to the brightest in order to have clear observation; wiped extra-water before covering slide to avoid bubbles while making water mount specimen; the image of object shown on compound microscope was enlarged directly by the specimen; all plant cells have chloroplasts; multicellular organisms are more independent, functional, and cooperative than single-celled organisms.

 

Keyword: types of alternative concepts, the recognizable characteristics of cells, the two-tier multiple-choice instrument of the world under microscope （TIWM）

 

The major purpose of this study was to develop and validate the "Pupils's' Perceptions of Science Teachers' PCK" instrument (PPSTPCK) to evaluate science teachers' PCK. The sample of this study was 3321 elementary school students from southern Taiwan. The PPSTPCK includes five subscales: encouraging engagement, applying medium and instrument, subject and curriculum, evaluating and understanding students, and representation. Cronbach alpha coefficients were computed for internal consistency. Expert judgment and factor analysis were used to collect content-related and construct-related validity evidences respectively. The results of this study supported that the PPSTPCK has good reliability and validity in evaluating elementary school science teachers' PCK.

 

Keyword: Elementary Science Teacher, Questionnaire, PCK.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the journey through the science project entitled “ Super-Cool 3-D stereoscopic mirror” designed and produced by four primary students. Data were collected by field notes written from on-the-spot observations, the transcripts taken from the informal interviews as well as the dialogue among the teacher and students, students’ journals, recording on the lab sheets, final project and other documents. Findings showed that :(1) during the initial observational stage, the students integrated prior experience by taking the problem as the central part for investigation, creating the purposeful learning cycle model, and developing a miniature of scientific community; (2) during the investigation stage, the students developed the final research questions via the frequent cross-checks by the “question organizers”. The cross-type thinking model provided the strategies for solving problems and the foundation for extra-curricular learning; (3) during the data analysis stage, the students exerted their efforts to describe precisely with words, charts, symbols, and the interpretation for the images through red/blue glasses interlocking function which influenced the parallax. However, the principles as well as the conclusions of stereoscopic phenomena were inducted from the so-called “context-free” experimental activities. The exploratory journey showed that the four students could operate the higher-order thinking skills, such as the induction and problem-solving skills, and then actively constructed the investigation procedures based on the “learner-centered” rationale. The study not only demonstrated the educational meaning for science fair, but also could provide a reference for children’s multi-dimensional development.


Keyword: light concepts, project-based learning, science projects, science investigation

 

The purpose of this study was to examine pupils’ different perceptions of dinosaurs’ from scientific and fictitious films. There were two groups: (1)fictitious film group (watching Jurassic Park) (N=106)，(2) scientific film group (watching Dancing with Dinosaurs) (N=105) analyzed by quasi-experimental research method. The “ Test in the Concept of Dinosaurs” was used as pretest and as post-test in order to find out the differences between these two treatments. Results indicated that there were significant differences for pupils’ cognition about dinosaurs between scientific film and fictitious film. Moreover, it also showed that social myth, explanations about terms, direct/indirect hints, and erroneous metaphors influenced pupils’ cognition. Implications of this study revealed the importance of films in learning and the caution teachers should take when selecting instructional media.


Keyword: dinosaur movie, fictitious film, scientific film

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