• The Mathematical Education
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• v.48 no.4
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• pp.365-385
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• 2009

Recently, mathematical modeling has been attractive in that it could be one of many efforts to improve students' thinking and problem solving in mathematics education. Mathematical modeling is a non-linear process that involves elements of both a treated-as-real world and a mathematics world and also requires the application of mathematics to unstructured problem situations in real-life situation. This study provides analysis of literature review about modeling perspectives, case studies about mathematical modeling, and textbooks from the United States and Korea with perspective which mathematical modeling could be potential and meaningful to students even in elementary school. Further, teaching method with mathematical modeling was investigated to see the possibility of application to elementary mathematics classroom.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.357-371
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• 2016

The purpose of this study was to decide the task space and Rating Scheme of task difficulty in complicated mathematical modelling situations. One of main objective was also to conform the validation of Rating Scheme to determine the degree of difficulty by comparing the student performance with the statement of the theoretical model. In spring 2014, the experimental setting was in Modelling Course for 38 in-service teachers in mathematics education. In conclusions, we developed the Model of Task Space based on their solution paths in mathematical modelling tasks and Rating Scheme for task difficulty. The Validity of Rating Scheme to determine the degree of task difficulty based on comparing the student performance gave us the meaningful results. Within a modelling task the student performance verifies the degree of difficulty in terms of scoring higher using solution approaches determined as easier and vice versa. Another finding was some relations among three research topics, that is, degree of task difficulty on rating scheme, levels of students performance and numbers of specific heuristic. Those three topics showed the impressive consistence pattern.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.505-522
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• 2005

In this article we studied the role of spreadsheet in teaching function and modeling activity by some examples and students' activity performed by the six 10th graders. We especially focused the role of spreadsheet in understanding of various kinds of functions and the families of functions, and in the explanation of the given modeling problem situations. The functions of automatic copy, graphic and the cell reference of spreadsheet can be used to make students observe the causes and effects of changes of the various kind of mathematical representations of functions such as algebraic formulas, tables and graphs. Especially those functions give students a chance to identify family of functions by changing the parameters and this may lead them to the discovery of mathematical facts. In modeling activities they play a key role in the stages of the analysis of the model, explanation of the results of model and conjecture of the real world situations. As well as they make students find the rules underlying in the real world by making spreadsheet as simulation environments, which are almost impossible to make in paper and pencil environments, and give them a chance to justify their findings using mathematics.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.657-677
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• 2014

The present qualitative case study explored the ways in which three middle school students constructed and refined their mathematical models and modeling processes, and factors that had influenced such refinement. The results suggest that students' modeling processes are non-sequential in that the participant students reformulated their initial problem from the real-world problem situation and revised the model when they could not get a satisfactory solution or the acquired solution did not make sense. Moreover, the students' model refinement processes were affected by the following four elements: the types of real-word problem situations, students' metacognitive thinking, communications between teachers and peers, and the role of teachers.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.179-201
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• 2020

The purpose of this study is to analyze tasks reflected in Korean and US textbooks according to the mathematical modeling perspectives, and then to compare the diversity of learning opportunities given to students from both countries. For this, we analyzed mathematical modeling tasks of textbooks based on three aspects: mathematical modeling process, data, and expression. Results are as follows. First, with respect to modeling process, Korean textbook provides a high percentage of the task at all stages of modeling than US textbook. Second, with respect to data, both countries' textbooks have the highest percentage of matching task. Korean textbooks have a large gap in data characteristics by textbook. Third, with respect to expression, both countries' textbooks have the highest percentage of text and picture. Korean textbooks have a large gap in the type of expression than US textbooks, and some textbooks have no other expression except for text and picture. Fourth, tasks were analyzed by integrating the three features. The three features were not combined in various ways. It is necessary to diversify the integration of the three features.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.83-96
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• 1995

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.62 no.3
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• pp.381-400
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• 2023

As the era of solving various and complex problems in the real world using artificial intelligence and big data appears, problem-solving competencies that can solve realistic problems through a mathematical approach are required. In fact, the 2015 revised mathematics curriculum and the 2022 revised mathematics curriculum emphasize mathematical modeling as an activity and competency to solve real-world problems. However, the real-world problems presented in domestic and international textbooks have a high proportion of artificial problems that rarely occur in real-world. Accordingly, domestic and international countries are paying attention to the reality of mathematical modeling tasks and suggesting the need for authentic tasks that reflect students' daily lives. However, not only did previous studies focus on theoretical proposals for reality, but studies analyzing teachers' perceptions of reality and their competency to reflect reality in the task are insufficient. Accordingly, this study aims to analyze in-service mathematics teachers' perception of reality among the characteristics of tasks for mathematical modeling and the in-service mathematics teachers' competency for designing the mathematical modeling tasks. First of all, five criteria for satisfying the reality were established by analyzing literatures. Afterward, teacher training was conducted under the theme of mathematical modeling. Pre- and post-surveys for 41 in-service mathematics teachers who participated in the teacher training was conducted to confirm changes in perception of reality. The pre- and post- surveys provided a task that did not reflect reality, and in-service mathematics teachers determined whether the task given in surveys reflected reality and selected one reason for the judgment among five criteria for reality. Afterwards, frequency analysis was conducted by coding the results of the survey answered by in-service mathematics teachers in the pre- and post- survey, and frequencies were compared to confirm in-service mathematics teachers' perception changes on reality. In addition, the mathematical modeling tasks designed by in-service teachers were evaluated with the criteria for reality to confirm the teachers' competency for designing mathematical modeling tasks reflecting the reality. As a result, it was shown that in-service mathematics teachers changed from insufficient perception that only considers fragmentary criterion for reality to perceptions that consider all the five criteria of reality. In particular, as a result of analyzing the basis for judgment among in-service mathematics teachers whose judgment on reality was reversed in the pre- and post-survey, changes in the perception of in-service mathematics teachers was confirmed, who did not consider certain criteria as a criterion for reality in the pre-survey, but considered them as a criterion for reality in the post-survey. In addition, as a result of evaluating the tasks designed by in-service mathematics teachers for mathematical modeling, in-service mathematics teachers showed the competency to reflect reality in their tasks. However, among the five criteria for reality, the criterion for "situations that can occur in students' daily lives," "need to solve the task," and "require conclusions in a real-world situation" were relatively less reflected. In addition, it was found that the proportion of teachers with low task development competencies was higher in the teacher group who could not make the right judgment than in the teacher group who could make the right judgment on the reality of the task. Based on the results of these studies, this study provides implications for teacher education to enable mathematics teachers to apply mathematical modeling lesson in their classes.

• School Mathematics
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.153-179
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• 2004

In this article, we classify the middleschool students' mathematical modeling activities with three types as following: perceptive activity, cognitive activity, and metacognitive activity. And we research model development process through the interaction of perceptive, cognitive, and metacognitive activities. We report three results of our case study as following: First, students understanded the context of the modeling tasks on the base of their own experience and constructed the tasks with perceptive activity operating tool. Second, students developed various models with reorganizing cognitive activity which think and reason about perceptive activity-based model. Third, students were able to create generalizable and reusable models through metacognitive activities. This study revealed that the possible contribution of modeling activity as following. Students are able to understand abstractive mathematical knowledge as connecting between realistic activity and abstractive activity.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.221-239
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• 2010

Attention to Korean perspective mathematics education has been increasingly paid m international academic meetings or international comparative studies. Personal or intuitive, vague explanation has been given based on limited literature or observations. This increasing attention and Jack of studies warrant the necessity of systematic researches on it. This article aims at clarifying the research issues in searching for Korean perspective on mathematics education and finding the starting point through discussion on mathematical modeling by teacher on researchers and researchers. Firstly, hypothetical perspective will be described. Secondly, Fourteen teacher educators' and seven researchers' opinion on it will be discussed. Findings imply that strong responsibility for Korean mathematics teachers to reveal theoretical aspects of mathematical knowledge, i.e., structure or essence, as well as to pursue efficiency and effectiveness in mathematics teaching and learning is the main aspect of Korean perspective on mathematics education.

• Education of Primary School Mathematics
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.351-374
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to support the understandings of teachers about the instructional strategies of collaborative problem solving and mathematical modeling as presented in the 2015 revised mathematics curriculum. For this, tasks of the Cubes unit from six grader's and lesson plans were developed. The specific problem solving processes of students and the practices of teachers which appeared in the classes were analyzed. In the course of solving a series of problems, students have formed a mathematical model of their own, modifying and complementing models in the process of sharing solutions. In particular, it was more effective when teachers explicitly taught students how to share and discuss problem-solving. Based on these results this study is expected to suggest implications on how to foster students' problem solving ability as mathematical subject competency in elementary classrooms.