• East Asian mathematical journal
• /
• v.27 no.2
• /
• pp.117-139
• /
• 2011

This study aimed to examine what effects the lessons based on some mathematical tools have on the students' interest and problem solving ability. For this study, 2 classes of 5th graders who go to an elementary school were chosen and divided into an applied class and a comparative class. The applied class were taught through the lesson plans based on the mathematical tools and reorganized worksheets, and the comparative class were taught through the regular lesson plans based on the text. After conducting the lessons, examinations were implemented to check out the students' interest level and problem solving ability in the procedure of before-exam, during-exam, and after-exam.

• The Mathematical Education
• /
• v.50 no.2
• /
• pp.149-164
• /
• 2011

The purpose of this study was to analyze the perception of elementary school teachers about situation-contextual problem and to show efforts on order to enable students to improve their problem solving ability and thinking skills. In this research, two hundred elementary school teachers in Seoul were surveyed and three elementary school teachers were interviewed to determine their perception and the status about situation-contextual problem. As a result, most of teachers replied that situation-contextual problem would be useful and applicable to improve students' problem solving and creative thinking skill.

• Research in Mathematical Education
• /
• v.9 no.1 s.21
• /
• pp.25-45
• /
• 2005

Background Phenomenography suggests that more variation is associated with wider ways of experiencing phenomena. In the discipline of mathematics, broadening the 'lived space' of mathematics learning might enhance students' ability to solve mathematics problems Aims The aim of the present study is to: 1. enhance secondary school students' capabilities for dealing with mathematical problems; and 2. examine if students' conception of mathematics can thereby be broadened. Sample 410 Secondary 1 students from ten schools participated in the study and the reference group consisted of 275 Secondary 1 students. Methods The students were provided with non-routine problems in their normal mathematics classes for one academic year. Their attitudes toward mathematics, their conceptions of mathematics, and their problem-solving performance were measured both at the beginning and at the end of the year. Results and conclusions Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that the problem-solving performance of students receiving non-routine problems improved more than that of other students, but the effect depended on the level of use of the non-routine problems and the academic standards of the students. Thus, use of non-routine mathematical problems that appropriately fits students' ability levels can induce changes in their lived space of mathematics learning and broaden their conceptions of mathematics and of mathematics learning.

• School Mathematics
• /
• v.1 no.2
• /
• pp.617-636
• /
• 1999

This study was executed with the intention of guiding ‘open education’ toward a desirable school innovation. The basic two directions of curriculum reconstruction essential for implementing ‘open education’ are one toward intra-subject (within a subject) and inter-subject (among subjects). This study showed an example of intra-subject curriculum reconstruction with a problem solving area included in elementary mathematics curriculum. In the curriculum, diverse strategies to enhance ability to solve problems are included at each grade level. In every elementary math textbook, those strategies are suggested in two chapters called ‘diverse problem solving’, in which problems only dealing with several strategies are introduced. Through this method, students begin to learn problem solving strategies not as something related to mathematical knowledge or contents but only as a skill or method for solving problems. Therefore, problems of ‘diverse problem solving’ chapter should not be dealt with separatedly but while students are learning the mathematical contents connected to those problems. Namely, students must have a chance to solve those problems while learning the contents related to the problem content(subject). By this reasoning, in the name of curriculum reconstruction toward intra-subject, this study showed such case with two ‘diverse problem solving’ chapters of the 4th grade second semester's math textbook.

• Journal of Elementary Mathematics Education in Korea
• /
• v.16 no.2
• /
• pp.203-225
• /
• 2012

The purpose of this study is to suggest a program for improvement of the mathematical creativity of mathematical gifted children in the elementary gifted class and to examine the effect of developed program. Gifted education program is developed through analyzing relevant literatures and materials. This program is based on the operation bingo game related to the area of number and operation, which accounts for the largest portion in the elementary mathematics. According to this direction, the mathematically gifted educational program has been developed. According to the results which examine the effectiveness of the creative problem solving by the developed program, students' performance ability has been gradually improved by feeding back and monitoring their problem solving process continuously.

• Communications of Mathematical Education
• /
• v.21 no.1 s.29
• /
• pp.33-50
• /
• 2007

In this study, we made a survey for gifted students of science education center for gifted youth in a university to find their viewpoints about giftedness, need of gifted education, attribution. Using the results of the survey, we interviewed mathematical gifted student, parents, teachers to find their viewpoints about giftedness, need of gifted education, attribution. From this, we found the followings: First, Parents and teachers selected intellectual ability as a most important factor of giftedness. On the other hand, gifted students selected creativity as it. Second, gifted students show different communication ability depending on the education place. Third, mathematical gifted students attributed their problem solving ability to interior cause. On the other hand, parents and teachers of gifted students attributed students' problem solving ability to exterior cause.

• The Mathematical Education
• /
• v.45 no.3 s.114
• /
• pp.345-365
• /
• 2006

This study, to effectively teach the concepts, principles and problem solving ability of the 2nd graders' learning of numbers and operations, offers realistic problem situation and focuses on the learning based on 'mathematization', one of the most important principles of RME (Realistic Mathematics Education) which is the mathematics education trend of Netherlands influenced by Freudenthal's theory. The instruction is applied to forty-one students of the 2nd grader for six weeks in twelve series in an elementary school, located in Seoul. To investigate the effects of the mathematising experience instruction for improving mathematical abilities, the group takes tests before and after the instruction. Also the qualitative analysis on the students' mathematising aspects through students' output at the instruction process is taken into account to evaluate the instruction's effects. The result shows that the mathematising experience instruction for improving mathematical abilities is proved to improve students' understanding of mathematical concepts and principles and their problem solving ability in learning numbers and operations after carrying out this instruction. Also the result indicates that students' mathematising aspects are mostly horizontal and vertical mathematization.

• Education of Primary School Mathematics
• /
• v.12 no.1
• /
• pp.1-20
• /
• 2009

The purposes of this study are to analyze elementary school student's intuitive thinking in the process of mathematical problem solving and to analyze elementary school student's errors of intuitive thinking in the process of mathematical problem solving. According to these purposes, the research questions can be set up as followings. (1) How is the state of illumination of the elementary school student's intuitive thinking in the process of mathematical problem solving? (2) What are origins of errors by elementary school student's intuitive thinking in the process of mathematical problem solving? In this study, Bogdan & Biklen's qualitative research method were used. The subjects in this study were 4 students who were attending the elementary school. The data in this study were 'Intuitine Thinking Test', records of observation and interview. In the interview, the discourses were recorded by sound and video recording. These were later transcribed and analyzed in detail. The findings of this study were as follows: First, If Elementary school student Knows the algorithm of problem, they rely on solving by algorithm rather than solving by intuitive thinking. Second, their problem solving ability by intuitive model are low. What is more they solve the problem by Intuitive model, their Self- Evidence is low. Third, in the process of solving the problem, intuitive thinking can complement logical thinking. Last, in the concept of probability and problem of probability, they are led into cognitive conflict cause of subjective interpretation.

• The Mathematical Education
• /
• v.45 no.3 s.114
• /
• pp.263-273
• /
• 2006

The purpose of this paper is to research the factors and the effects of immediacy in mathematics teaching and learning and mathematical problem solving. The factors of immediacy are visualization, functional fixedness and representatives. In special, students can apprehend immediately the clues and solution using the visual representation because of its properties of finiteness and concreteness. But the errors sometimes originate from visual representation which come from limitation of the visual representation. It suggests that students have to know conceptual meaning of the visual representation when they use the visual representation. And this phenomenon is the same in functional fixedness and representatives which are the factors of immediacy The methods which overcome the errors of immediacy is that problem solvers notice the limitation of the factors of immediacy and develop the meta-cognitive ability. And it means we have to emphasize the logic and the intuition in mathematical teaching and learning. Clearly, we can't solve all mathematical problems using only either the logic or the intuition.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
• /
• v.15 no.4
• /
• pp.699-718
• /
• 2012

The purpose of mathematics eduction is to develop the ability of thinking mathematically. It informs method to solve problem through mathematical thinking that teach mathematical ability. Errors in the problem solving can be thought as those in the mathematical thinking. Therefore analysis and classification of mathematics errors is important to teach mathematics. This study researches the preceding studies on mathematics errors and presents the characteristic of them with analyzed models. The results achieved by analysis of the process of problem solving are as follows : ▸ Students feel much harder to solve words problems rather than multiple-choice problems. ▸ The length of sentence make some differences of understanding of the words problems. Students easy to understand short sentence problems than long sentence problems. ▸ If students feel difficulties on the pre-learned mathematical content, they feel the same difficulties on the words problems based on the pre-learned mathematics content.