The purpose of this study is to provide basic data for improving the STEAM class by examining elementary school teachers' difficulties in the STEAM class and discussing solutions. For this research, 25 elementary school teachers in Seoul City and Gyeonggi-do were asked to write their difficulties in the STEAM class in the open-ended questionnaires. After classification of the collected data, an in-depth interview was conducted with one in-service elementary school teacher who is richly experienced in STEAM education to find solutions for each type of difficulties. The study result showed that most of elementary school teachers had difficulties in the STEAM class, due to selection of integrated subjects, production of teaching devices and materials, guidance of group activities, reorganization of the curriculum, assessment and uncooperative co-teachers. One teacher that participated in the interview to discuss solutions for teachers' difficulties was solving the problems in various ways. She said that many of her solutions came from her experience and also, knowledge obtained through a participation in the STEAM training or opportunities to share information with other teachers who belong to the STEAM research institution, was highly helpful.

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This study investigates the effects of formative assessment utilizing mobile applications on interest and self-directedness in science instruction. The study subjects are two 6th grade classes from H elementary school located in Incheon, and the experimental group and the comparative group are composed of 21 students, respectively. The students from the experimental group have been taught with mobile devices while the comparative group has been taught in methods consistent with the current teaching standards. For the sake of research, the results of the method applied to the mobile device focus group have been edited using Google Drive Forms, entered as QR codes and stored in order for them to later be utilized for teaching and learning process. In the process, the teacher has provided the students with feedback based on their answers. The students of comparative group are to solve the same formative assessment in paper. As a result, the teacher of the mobile device focus group has been able to go through twenty-nine questions on formative assessment in the teaching and learning process, confirm the correct answers five times and provide feedback twenty-five times for additional explanation. In the inquiry about interest, the mobile device group scored 4.64 points and the standard one scored just 1.99 points (p<0.01). Fifteen students answered in the interview that and the major reason why they scored high has been because it was fun to study with mobile devices. When it comes to self-directedness over the process of teaching and learning, the mobile device focus group has answered positively but the standard group has scored relatively low (p<0.01).

The purpose of this study was to analyze the characteristic of the linguistic interaction according to leadership type of the leader in the scientific inquiry activity groups and examine how leadership factors affect the linguistic interaction within a group. In this investigation, leaders among 12 elementary school students were chosen by considering results of the leadership diagnosis that tested 3 leadership factors: vision and promotion, assignment responsibility, and decision-making. The members of the groups were organized according to scientific inquiry ability and academic achievement; the groups were assigned to perform scientific inquiry activities. The linguistic interaction was largely divided into the cognitive domain and the affective domain for analysis. According to the results, the frequency of linguistic interaction within a group sorted by leadership type is more influenced by the cognitive domain than the affective domain. The highest frequency of linguistic interaction appeared within the group that had vision and promotion type leader. Assumedly, the vision and confidence of the vision and promotion type leader produced such an outcome. While solving the assignments, linguistic interaction in all three groups had more cognitive domain than affected domain. Linguistic interaction in cognitive domain displayed only low level of linguistic interaction in relation to the experiment itself: high level of linguistic interaction barely occurred. In the case of affected domain, active participation appeared more frequently than maintaining the mood: Interactions related to restricting the group members actions to solve the assignment appeared more frequently than those for maintaining the mood.

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