• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.32 no.8
• /
• pp.1295-1317
• /
• 2012

There has been disagreement on the importance of definitions in science education. Yager (1983) believes that one crisis in science education was due to the considerable emphasis upon the learning of definitions. Hobson (2004) disagrees with physics textbooks that do not provide general definition on energy. Some textbooks explain that "there is no completely satisfactory definition of energy" or they can only "struggle to define it." In general, imprecise definitions in textbooks (Bauman, 1992) and inaccuracies in definition provided by teachers (Galili & Lehavi, 2006) may cause alternative conceptions. Besides, there are at least four challenges in defining physical concepts: precision, circularity, context and completeness in knowledge. These definitional problems that have been discussed in The Feynman Lectures, may impede the learning of physical concepts. A meta-study approach is employed to examine about five hundreds journal papers that may discuss definitions in physics, problems in defining physical concepts and how they may result in alternative conceptions. These journal papers are mainly selected from journals such as American Journal of Physics, International Journal of Science Education, Journal of Research in Science Teaching, Physics Education, The Physics Teachers, and so on. There are also comparisons of definitions with definitions from textbooks, Dictionaries of Physics, and English Dictionaries. To understand the nature of alternative conception, Lee et al. (2010) have suggested a theoretical framework to describe the learning issues by synthesizing cognitive psychology and science education approaches. Taking it a step further, this study incorporates the challenges in semantics and epistemology, proposes that there are at least four variants of alternative conceptions. We may coin the term, 'alternative definitions', to refer to the commonly available definitions, which have these four problems in defining physics concepts. Based on this study, alternative definitions may result in at least four variants of alternative conceptions. Note that these four definitional problems or challenges in definitions cannot be easily resolved. Educators should be cognizant of the four variants of alternative conceptions which can arise from alternative definitions. The concepts of alternative definitions can be useful and possibly generalized to science education and beyond.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
• /
• v.3 no.2
• /
• pp.59-67
• /
• 2000

Two groups of students, who are the students in the natural science course of high school in Korea, learned the equation of figure in space (point, line, plane) to understand more effectively with two different textbooks. One group was taught with the textbook used now in most high schools and the other group was taught with the textbooks systematized by associating old concept with new concept. The results are as follows : 1) We need understand the basic concept of vector plainly and flexibly to apply it to the solution of problems. 2) It helps students understand new concepts how we should establish the concept about point, line and plane in space by applying the concept about those on XY plane, 3) It is very effective in understanding the new knowledge system more easily to analyze the existent concepts and to arrange them systematically for efficient understanding of new concepts. 4) The texts which consist of contents organized by basic concepts improve students' learning ability.

• The Mathematical Education
• /
• v.43 no.4
• /
• pp.419-440
• /
• 2004

The purpose of this paper is to know the effects on number and operation abilities of the 1st grade children of elementary school by applying teaching and learning activity throught communication. For this purpose, we have studied according to the following procedure. 1. We divised teaching and learning model through communication and applied in the actual teaching and learning activity. 2. We investigated the effects of number and operations abilities of the 1st grade children by applying teaching and learning activity through communication. To accomplish this purpose, we applied learning activity through communication to the 1st grade of 40 elementary school children for about six months(September 1, 1999 ～ February 20, 2000). In process of applying this model, we collected all sorts of cases in the children's learning activity and investigated children's response on learning activity through communication, interview with children and researcher's observation. We applied the model through communication in class and compared with the traditional learning. 1. In learning through communication, children could solve the problem in themselves with a sense of responsibility. 2. It was impossible to find out the degree of children's comprehension in the explanatory learning. But in the learning through communication, it was a great help to individualize and plan the learning because children express their ideas clearly. It has conclusion as follows. The learning activity through communication has effected on forming number and operations abilities of the 1st grade of elementary school children importantly. 1. Children have improved in the abilities through communication to express their own ideas. 2. Children have studied with a sense of responsibility not in the teacher-oriented learning but in the self-directed learning 3. Children could find out the mathematical concepts in themselves - correcting false concepts, reguiding concepts by errors, finding invisible errors, solving problems variously and knowing the easy method. 4. The activity through communication in mathematics was a base of children's individual learning and important data of next learning plan. 5. The mathematical concepts formed through communication had a high transfer of learning. 6. Children have taken pleasure of discovery and had affirmative attitude about mathematics learning. We can make sure that number and operations abilities of the 1st grade children are formed by applying teaching and learning activity through communication. However, help and control of teacher have to be with it.

• Education of Primary School Mathematics
• /
• v.4 no.1
• /
• pp.1-17
• /
• 2000

The purpose of this study is to analyze the articulation between the kindergarten and 1st grade in mathematics education. for this purpose, the problems of this study selected as follows ：(ⅰ) What is the mathematical concepts related between the kindergarten curriculum and the 1st grade curriculum\ulcorner (ⅱ) How is the mathematics classroom in the kindergarten and 1st grade\ulcorner (ⅲ) Which instructional materials are used in the kindergarten and the 1st grade\ulcorner (ⅳ) What is the new direction of articulation between the kindergarten and first grade in mathematics education\ulcorner The results of this study are as follows ： (ⅰ) According to examining each curriculum the focus is on understanding the basic concepts of number in the kindergarten, on the concepts of number, addition and subtraction in the 1st grade. (ⅱ) By being analyzed the mathematics classrooms of the kindergarten and the 1 st grade, it is different the focus of lessons or the teaching strategies. (ⅲ) As a result of analysing the teaching plans in the kindergarten and the survey in the first grade teachers, used instructional materials are manipulative ones. While mainly used materials are puzzles and blocks in kindergarten, a paduk stone, number cards, sankagi are used in 1st grade. (ⅳ) Finally, we propose the direction of articulation between the kindergarten and 1st grade in mathematics education.

• Hwankyungkyoyuk
• /
• v.13 no.1
• /
• pp.65-74
• /
• 2000

Environmentally literated students and adults should be able to use and apply the basic ecological concepts when considering environmental problems and issues. Because ecology forms the foundation of environmental education, a review of the literatures on the degree of students' understanding for ecological concepts can provide useful insights for environmental educators. The purposes of this study were as follows: first, to analyse the parts connected with ecological knowledge of two environmental education books, ‘environments’(middle school) and ‘environmental science’(high school), second, to investigate the level of understanding on ecological concepts by the use of new developed instrument. The 20 most important ecological concepts from Cherrett(1989) and the important ecological concepts' lists from Hungerford and Volk(1990), Ramsey, Hungerford and Volk(1992), Volk(1993) would be recognized and endorsed by most environmental educators as concepts essential to environmental literacy, We referenced these informations and sequenced ecological knowledge as four main categories(communities, populations, ecosystem, man as a component of the nature systems). We have used it as a criterion in the analysis of teaching materials and the development of a new test instrument($\alpha$=0.81). According to the analysed results, the understanding levels for scales and relationships of communities, populations, ecosystem were high but those for individual concepts and differences were low. By the analysis of Korean High School EE book, ‘environmental science’, learning for some concepts(succession, material cycling, niche etc.) has pointed out as one of problems. Environmental educators must pay a careful attention to the concepts that showed high rates of incorrect answer and this work will contribute toward consolidating the basis of EE and help the accomplishment of the ultimate goals in EE.

• School Mathematics
• /
• v.6 no.4
• /
• pp.373-388
• /
• 2004

This paper is to develop teaching procedures of low achievers in mathematics by using mindmaps. For this, we firstly set the teaching process on basis of literature research. And then we choose four subjects who had serious problems of both memory and mathematics achievement. we also choose the several topics of geometry and measure which could be a big burden of memory as stuff for mindmap activities. The results led us to that using mindmap activities in learning and teaching mathematics could effect on that kind of students' mathematical achievement and mathematical attitude as well as retention of mathematical concepts. It implied that we could develop individual programs for students who have different problems in learning mathematics.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.24 no.4
• /
• pp.774-784
• /
• 2004

In the previous study, six factors which could disturb students' problem solving in an everyday context were identified and discussed. In this study, teaching materials to help students overcome those disturbing factors for successful problem solving in an everyday context were developed and applied to twenty-nine grade 10 students, and the effects of teaching materials were analyzed. According to the analysis of the correlation between the performance in everyday context problem solving and the benefit from the teaching materials, it was found that students who received the help from the teaching materials showed better performance with statistical significance. And students noted that teaching materials were helpful for them to solve the physics problems. Analyzing the overall performance of students in solving the everyday context problem, students in the experimental group showed better performance than the control group and this performance difference was larger among low-score students in school science testing. However, these differences were not statistically significant because the sample size was small. And, based on the analysis of interviews with students, it was also found that some students who showed low performance might not receive help from the teaching materials because the materials were too complex to be read easily, or because the basic concepts needed to solve the problem were not understood. Therefore, the results obtained from the interviews will be used to design more effective teaching for problem solving in an everyday context.

• The Mathematical Education
• /
• v.45 no.3 s.114
• /
• pp.319-343
• /
• 2006

The purpose of this study is to investigate how fifth and sixth graders recognize average and to find out suggestions for teaching/learning methods of average by examining which difference there is depending on the way of the word problem presentation. For the this purpose, was conducted experiment study with the way of the world problem presentation set up as experimental treatment. The conclusions drawn from the results obtained in the this study were as follows : First, since students who did not learn the regular course of average had various informal concepts already, it is needed to consider handling more various concepts of average in order to enable students to expand flexible thoughts. Second, compared with fifth and sixth graders showed a wide difference in informal concepts of average depending on the way of the word problem presentation. In expect data with given average, concepts of mean as algorithm, balance point, and mode indicated similar percentage, while in estimate average with given data, the percentage of students who showed the concept of mean was very high at 67.6%. That may be because problems related to mean in the current textbooks are items of 'estimate average with given data', so in types of 'estimate average with given data', students solve questions with mean as algorithm without considering situations of problems. This result suggests that it is necessary to diversify the way of the word problem presentation even in textbooks. Third, as a result of analyzing informal concepts of average, there was significant difference in grades. In addition, the results suggested that there would be difference in the concepts of average depending on gender or attributes of discrete quantity and continuous quantity.

• Research in Mathematical Education
• /
• v.12 no.3
• /
• pp.215-233
• /
• 2008

Deep comprehension of basic mathematical notions and concepts is a basic condition of a successful teaching. Some elements of algebraic thinking belong to the elementary school mathematics. The question "What stays the same and what changes?" link arithmetic problems with algebraic conception of variable. We have studied beliefs and comprehensions of future elementary school mathematics teachers on early algebra. Pre-service teachers from three academic pedagogical colleges deal with mathematical problems from the pre-algebra point of view, with the emphasis on changes and invariants. The idea is that the intensive use of non-formal algebra may help learners to construct a better understanding of fundamental ideas of arithmetic on the strong basis of algebraic thinking. In this article the study concerning arithmetic series is described. Considerable number of pre-service teachers moved from formulas to deep comprehension of the subject. Additionally, there are indications of ability to apply the conception of change and invariance in other mathematical and didactical contexts.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
• /
• v.2 no.1
• /
• pp.167-179
• /
• 1999

The aim of this study is to improve the basic learning ability of those who make poor progress in mathematics and to keep positive and active learning attitudes in class afterward by using problems whith both make them advance their basic learning ability and supplement lack of previous learning in class or after school. supplementary problems were developed by focusing the ability of basic calculation, the comprehension of concepts, principles, and rules by analyzing necessary contents precisely each domain after itemizing learning contents each unit. the results of the study are this: 1) The students who solved the problems, that were developed to improve the basic learning ability and to supplement the earlier learning during their classes or giving homework, made significant progress in their scholastic achievement; more than those who were not involved. 2) Meaningful changes were demonstrated in the motivation for achievement among the domains of learning attitudes before and after the experiment but, not in their interest, the consciousness of purpose, attention, voluntary and efficient learning as shown in their learning habits. In this study, therefore, the problems which were developed to improve the basic learning ability and to supplement the earlier learning by focusing on the competence for basic calculation, and the comprehension of concepts, principles and rules were effective positively only in the area of motivation for achievement. there were no meaningful differences in the other domains.