• Education of Primary School Mathematics
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.343-360
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• 2022

In mathematics classes, the verbal explanation may contain diverse mathematical concepts and principles in short sentences. It may also include mathematics symbols and terms that might not be used in everyday life. Therefore, students may need particular listening ability in order to understand and participate in mathematics communication. Unlike general listening, the listening ability for mathematics classes may require student to integrate their mathematical and linguistic knowledge. The aim of this study is to reveal the subdomains of listening ability for mathematics classes in a elementary school. I categorized listening ability for mathematics classes in a elementary school from the literature. The categories of listening ability for mathematics are Interpretive Listening, Evaluative Listening, Hermeneutic Listening, Selective Listening, Pretend Listening, and Ignored Listening. In order to develop a framework for understanding listening ability for mathematics classes, I investigated a hierarchy of 412 South Korean elementary teachers' perception. Through a web-based survey, the teachers were asked to rank order their beliefs about and students' listening ability. Findings show that teachers' perceptions about listening ability for mathematics classes are divergent from current research trends. South Korean elementary teachers perceived Interpretive Listening as the most important listening.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.331-351
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• 2002

It is widely recommended that teachers should actively mediate students' engagement with tools such as manipulative materials. This paper is to help to parse classroom life so that both social and psychological aspects are accounted for and coordinated. Building on the theory of affordances from ecological psychology and the activity theory from sociocultural perspectives, the main strategy of this paper is to view manipulative materials as simultaneously participating in social and psychological activity systems. Within these activity systems it is charted how both mathematical affordances related to the structure of mathematical concepts and ecological affordances related to socially situated classroom practices need to be considered by teachers in effective mediation of mathematical manipulatives. This paper has three major sections. The first section develops a theoretical extension of Gibson's theory of affordances from natural to social environments. The second section introduces mathematical and ecological affordances using empirical data from a grade two elementary school classroom. The third section illustrates the need of coordinating the two affordances as embedded in different activity systems.

• Education of Primary School Mathematics
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.459-475
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• 2022

The equal sign and equivalence are the most basic and core concepts in elementary mathematics, but there has been lack of research on how to teach these concepts with textbooks. Given this, this study analyzed elementary mathematics textbooks in terms of three instructional elements (i.e., emphasizing the meaning of the equal sign as a relational symbol, dealing with an equation as an object for reasoning, and using an equation with a missing value). In particular, this study analyzed 10 different mathematics textbook series that are newly used in 2022 and examined the overall trends and characteristics for teaching the equal sign and equivalence. The results of this study showed that the activities emphasizing the meaning of the equal sign as a relational symbol were most noticeable but the activities dealing with an equation as an object for reasoning or using an equation with a missing value were relatively rare. Based on the results of the analysis, this study provides textbook writers with implications on what to further consider in covering the equal sign and equivalence.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.57 no.4
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• pp.453-475
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• 2018

This study examines how elementary students understand fractions with operations conceptually and how they perform procedures in the division of fractions. We attempted to look into students' understanding about fractions with divisions in regard to mathematical proficiency suggested by National Research Council (2001). Mathematical proficiency is identified as an intertwined and interconnected composition of 5 strands- conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, strategic competence, adaptive reasoning, and productive disposition. We developed an instrument to identify students' understanding of fractions with multiplication and division and conducted the survey in which 149 6th-graders participated. The findings from the data analysis suggested that overall, the 6th-graders seemed not to understand fractions conceptually; in particular, their understanding is limited to a particular model of part-whole fraction. The students showed a tendency to use memorized procedure-invert and multiply in a given problem without connecting the procedure to the concept of the division of fractions. The findings also proposed that on a given problem-solving task that suggested a pathway in order for the students to apply or follow the procedures in a new situation, they performed the computation very fluently when dividing two fractions by multiplying by a reciprocal. In doing so, however, they appeared to unable to connect the procedures with the concepts of fractions with division.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.58 no.2
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• pp.283-298
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• 2019

Among the measurement attributes included in the elementary school mathematics curriculum, perimeter, area, volume and surface area are intensively covered in fifth and sixth graders. However, not much is known about the level of student performance and difficulties in this area. The purpose of this study is to examine the understanding and performance of sixth-grade elementary school students on some ideas of measurement and ultimately to give some suggestions for teaching measurement and the development of mathematics textbooks. For this, diagnosis questions were developed in relation to the following parts: measurement of perimeter and area of plane figure, measurement of surface area and volume of solid figure, and the relationships between perimeter and area, and the relationships between surface area and volume. The performances of 95 sixth graders were analyzed for this study. The results showed children's low performance in the measurement area, especially measurement of perimeter and surface area, and relationship of the measurement concepts. Finally, we proposed the introduction order of the measurement concepts and what should be put more emphasis on teaching measurement. Specifically, it suggested that we consider placing a less demanding concept first, such as the area and volume, and dealing more heavily with burdensome tasks such as the perimeter and surface area.

• Communications of Mathematical Education
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.85-101
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to investigate how elementary school students understand and use the number line relating number concept and what is the main problem in the learning process. For the efficient achievement of this purpose, we investigated how the number line metaphor is related to the number concept and considered the role of the number line on Freudenthal's number concept teaching theory. The test conducted to find the degree of understanding and difficulty on using the number line by actual elementary school students consisted of two questions ; to find appropriate number corresponding to the given number on the number line and to identify contents of chapters about the use of number line on each grade. It was found that many students couldn't solve the problem represented by the number line though they could solve the problem represented by other ways such as number track and pictures. The only difference between the two problems was the way of representation, and they had same contents and structure. This study tried to figure out the meaning of this phenomenon. Also, by using various teaching-learning method (number track, pictures, empty number line, and double number line etc.), this study was aimed to provide the way to help learning 'related number concept' and to solve the difficulty on understanding the number line.

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

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.265-274
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• 2003

To learn number system is a basic thing in school mathematics. In this paper, we analyze how number system is introduced in the 7th national curriculum and text books according to it. We found that the method of introducing number system is quite different from the former curriculum and former text books. There are many negative effects on the transition when compared with those of United States of America. There are many gaps between elementary school mathematics and middle school mathematics about levels and skills to deal with numbers. It is desirable to distinguish the negative sign from subtraction and to keep the concepts of commutativity and associativity of operations from the beginning. We also suggest to change the introducing timing and extension methods of number system in 7th grade mathematics.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.37-51
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• 2013

'Sentence posing' is newly given in the third through sixth grade mathematics textbooks of the revised 2007 curriculum to confirm students' understanding on mathematical concepts of definitions. In this paper, we discuss the role of the sentence posing in the third grade mathematics textbooks on the basis of the problems occurred in third graders' sentence posing activities. Overall, it turned out that the role of the sentence posing was somewhat restrictive. Hence the sentence posing needs to be applied to check whether students can properly use the definitions in real life situations. In addition, it is necessary to employ the present role of the sentence posing to confirm students' understanding on mathematical concepts of definitions selectively according to the concepts of definitions.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.183-201
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• 2005

Illustrations and letters are two components of school textbooks. In the case of low grades of elementary school, textbook's illustrations play an important role in learning because many parts of curriculums(lessons) are represented by the visual forms through illustrations. So elementary mathematics textbook's illustrations have to make clear mathematical concepts and principles by visual simplification and bring out of the interest and motivation of elementary school students' learning. In this paper, we analysed the external and content aspects of textbook's illustrations, focusing on the textbook of the second grade. We investigated number, kindness, size, ratio, and clearness of illustrations in regard to external aspects. On the aspects of content, we analysed the role of illustrations and the degree of agreement with contents. Also we classified types of error in the textbook's illustrations and presented examples of errors which was found.