• Communications of Mathematical Education
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• v.20 no.3 s.27
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• pp.407-423
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• 2006

The reason why creativity becomes the important subject in 21th century is that it does an important role which solves many problems surrounding our whole life in this internationalization, globalization, knowledge-information age. But scholars who formerly researched the creativity-field explain the necessity of creativity with the internal and fundamental reasons. That is, scholars say that creative activities produce originative products and originality itself. And it is the root of which will be able to discover meaning of life and it -creativity - is successive activities that is demanded when individual life want to obtain important value by expressing one's inner world to the outside using creative resource. Recently, with the trends of present age and the educational needs, research about creativity is actively carried out and it draws out the results that creativity can be developed and enhanced through education and training. So, now many researches have focused on how to develop the creativity. Investigating those researches, we found that the recent issues of researches on creativity were changing and now they focused on creative instruction methods and behavioral factors. Especially, they were selected as the subject related to the creative education - creative instructional method and program, atmosphere in classroom, and factors of teacher. It means that the past researches which were a little bit conceptive have been changing to material ones which will be able to enhance creativity and its effect. So, in this research, we have developed the program for CPS(Creativity Problem Solving) and verified its effect.

• School Mathematics
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.355-386
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• 2014

Algebraic generalization of patterns is based on the capability of grasping a structure inherent in several objects with awareness that this structure applies to general cases and ability to use it to provide an algebraic expression. The purpose of this study is to investigate how students generalize patterns using an algebraic object such as parameters and what are difficulties in geometric-arithmetic pattern tasks related to algebraic generalization and to determine whether the students can use parameters meaningfully through pattern generalization tasks that this researcher designed. During performing tasks of pattern generalization we designed, students differentiated parameters from letter 'n' that is used to denote a variable. Also, the students understood the relations between numbers used in several linear equations and algebraically expressed the generalized relation using a letter that was functions as a parameter. Some difficulties have been identified such that the students could not distinguish parameters from variables and could not transfer from arithmetical procedure to algebra in this process. While trying to resolve these difficulties, generic examples helped the students to meaningfully use parameters in pattern generalization.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.419-443
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• 2018

The purpose of this study was to analyze the problem solving strategies of ordinary students, gifted students, pre-service teachers, and in-service teachers with the 'chicken and pig problem,' which has multiple strategies to obtain the solution. For this study, 98 students in the 6th grade elementary schools, 96 gifted students in a gifted institution, 72 pre-service teachers, and 60 in-service teachers were selected. The researcher presented the "chicken and pig" problem and requested them the solution strategies as many as possible for 30 minutes in a free atmosphere. As a result of the study, the gifted students used relatively various and efficient strategies compared to the ordinary students, and there was a difference in the most used strategies among the groups. In addition, the percentage of respondents who suggested four or more strategies was 1% for the ordinary students, 54% for the gifted students, 42% for the pre-service teachers, and 43% for the in-service teachers. As suggestions, the researcher asserted that various kinds of high-quality mathematical problems and solving experiences should be provided to students and teachers and have students develop multi-strategy problems. As a follow-up study, the researcher suggested that multi-strategy mathematical problems should be applied to classroom teaching in a collaborative learning environment and reflected them in teacher training program.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.59 no.2
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• pp.101-112
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• 2020

The purpose of this study is to analyze the structures of teacher's discourse according to the pattern of interaction between teachers and students in the understanding mathematical word problem. The structures of teacher's discourse could be conceptualized as a process in which the teacher starts, develops and organizes the discourse based on prior research. For this purpose, the fourth class(example, a problem of the same type as the example, formative assessment, and final assessment) was extracted from one semester of experienced teachers who have been practicing teaching methods to facilitate student participation for many years. A methodology used to develop a theory based on data collected through classroom observations. Because the purpose of the study is to identify the structures of teacher's discourse to help the problem understanding, observe the teacher's discourse and collect data based on student engagement. Results show that the structure of teacher's discourse, which consults on important aspects of interaction between teachers-students and creates mathematical meanings, helped students understand the mathematics word problem by promoting their engagement in class. Based on the structures of teacher's discourse to understand problems based on the interaction patterns between teachers and students, it can be said that teachers provided specific methodologies on how to communicate with students in order to understand problems in the future.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.17 no.7
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• pp.113-123
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• 2017

This research is designed to review the systems thinking and STEAM theory while ascertaining the effects of the classroom application of the STEAM programs based on systems thinking appropriate for studying climate change. The systems thinking based STEAM program has been developed by researchers and experts, who had participated in expert meetings in a continued manner. The program was applied to science classes over the course of eight weeks. Therefore, the application effects of the systems thinking based STEAM program were analyzed in students' systems thinking, STEAM semantics survey, and students' academic achievement. The findings are as follows. First, the test group has shown a statistically meaningful difference in the systems thinking analysis compared to the control group in the four subcategories of 'Systems Analysis', 'Personal Mastery', 'Shared Vision' and 'Team Learning' except for 'Mental Model'. Second, in the pre- and post-knowledge tests, the independent sample t-test results in the areas of science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics show statistically meaningful differences compared to the control group. Third, in the academic performance test regarding climate change, the test group displayed higher achievement than the control group. In conclusion, the system-based STEAM program is considered appropriate to enhance amalgamative thinking skills based on systems thinking. In addition, the program is expected to improve creative thinking and problem-solving abilities by offering new ideas based on climate change science.

• Communications of Mathematical Education
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.693-734
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• 2011

The purpose of this research is to analyze the pedagogical content knowledge on the natural number concepts of Korean Elementary School Teachers. Shulman(1986b) had developed a tool in order to understand teachers' knowledge, as he defined three types of knowledge in teaching ; Subject Matter Knowledge, Curricular Knowledge, and Pedagogical Content Knowledge. Pang(2002) defined two types of elements including in the ways of teaching ; individual element, and sociocultural element. Two research questions are addressed; (1) What is the pedagogical content knowledge of Natural number Concepts for Korean Elementary School Teachers? ; (2) What factors are included in the pedagogical content knowledge of Natural number Concepts for Korean Elementary School Teachers? Findings reveal that (1) the Korean Elementary School Teachers had three types of the pedagogical content knowledge on the natural number concepts; (2) Teacher Factors were more included than Social-Cultural Factors in the pedagogical content knowledge on the natural number concepts of the Korean Elementary School Teachers. Further suggestions were made for future researches to include (1) a comparative study on teachers between ordinary teachers and those who majored mathematics education in the graduate school. (2) an analysis on the classroom activities about the natural number concepts.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.344-364
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• 2021

The study explored how two elementary school teachers perceived computational thinking, reflected them into curriculum revision, and taught them in the classroom during longitudinal professional developed program (PDP) for nine months. Computational thinking is a new direction in educational policy-making including science education; therefore we planned to investigate participating teachers' perception of computational thinking to provide their fundamental understandings. Nine meetings, lasting about two hours each, were held with the participating teachers and they developed 11 lesson plans for one unit each, as they formed new understandings about computational thinking. Data were collected through PDP program while two teachers started perceiving computational thinking, revising their curriculum, and implementing it into their class for nine months. The results were as follows; first, elementary school teachers' perception of computational thinking was that the definition of scientific literacy as the purpose of science education was extended, i.e., it refers to scientific literacy to prepare students to be creative problem solvers. Second, STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) lessons were divided into two stages; concept formation stage where scientific thinking is emphasized, and concept application, where computational thinking is emphasized. Thirdly, computational thinking is a cognitive thinking process, and ICT (informational and communications technology) is a functional tool. Fourth, computational thinking components appear repeatedly and may not be sequential. Finally, STEAM education can be improved by utilizing computational thinking. Based on this study, we imply that STEAM education can be activated by computational thinking when teachers are equipped with competencies of understanding and implementing computational thinking within the systematic PDPs, which is very essential for newly policies.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.200-211
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• 2006

The purpose of this study was to analyze Korean middle school student achievement in environmental science based on the TIMSS 2003 (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study), a student comparison of 46 participating nations. Korea ranked the fourth with a mean score of 554 in environmental science. However, all 3 environment science topics assessed in TIMSS are not included in the Korean science curriculum through 8th grade, even though they are included in most other participating nations' curricula. The average percent correct of items was analyzed according to the main topic, the item type and the cognitive domain. Items that showed differences between the average percent correct of Korea and the international average as well as differences between the average percent correct of boys and girls were further analyzed. Results revealed that Korean students performed better than the international average, especially in 'use and conservation of natural resources', multiple-choice items, and items requiring 'factual knowledge'. Also, male students demonstrated significantly higher achievement than female students. On the other hand, Korean students showed relatively lower achievement in constructed-response items, items that contained content they had not learned in science lessons and items requiring descriptions of the uses and effect of science and technology. Moreover, Korean student lacked understanding about acid rain, global warming, and ozone layer destruction. Korean female students showed relatively lower environmental conceptions and lower performance on items requiring data analysis than Korean male students. On the basis of these results, this study suggested that topics of environmental science be included in the science curriculum and taught in the science classroom to help middle school students more fully comprehend environmental issues.