• Education of Primary School Mathematics
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.151-161
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• 2007

There were a lot of attempt to reform mathematics education. These may include reforms of teaching and learning methods, development of mathematics curriculum and textbooks, materials and resources for teaching. But the most important thing is reform of teaching and learning method. The teaching and learning in mathematics is related with culture of mathematics classroom. Thus the culture of mathematics classroom plays a critical role in the learning of mathematics. Although there is consensus what desirable culture of mathematics classroom is, the role of teachers is important to make desirable culture of mathematics classroom. So, this paper suggested the role of teachers in reforming the culture of mathematics classroom. Avoiding from routine and technical teaching, the teachers should play active role in constructing mathematical understanding of students.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.238-251
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• 2015

This study, based on literature review and theoretical discussion, reinterprets the learning environment instruments from cultural perspectives and suggests the applicability of learning environment instruments for understanding science classroom cultures. To do this, the existing learning environment instruments are first investigated and compared in terms of their features and utilizations appeared in previous studies. The learning environment instruments are then reinterpreted in the light of culture. Finally, we suggest the possibilities to use the learning environment instruments to understand science classroom cultures. The results of this study can be summarized as follows. First, the learning environment instruments, by interpreting them culturally, could be interpreted in cultural ways and used as the alternative ways to explore science classroom cultures. Second, the learning environment instruments, such as WIHIC and CLEQ, could be interpreted both along the dimension of phenomena in classrooms and the dimension of students' psychology in order to investigate science classroom cultures. Third, the instrument items could be interpreted culturally in different ways according to the description types of instrument items. Thus, when learning environment instruments are used in culture research, the description types should be sufficiently taken into account. Based on the results of this study, educational implications are discussed in terms of exploring classroom cultures and of culture research.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.283-304
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• 2004

This study is to make strides toward an enriched understanding of changing a prevailing teacher-centered mathematics classroom culture to a student-centered culture by analyzing six reform-oriented classrooms of three elementary school teachers throughout a year This study provided a detailed description of important classroom episodes to explore how the participants in each class established a reform-oriented mathematics microculture. Despite the exemplary form of student-centered instruction, the content and qualities of the teaching practices are somewhat different in the extent to which students' ideas become the center of mathematical discourse and activity. Given the similarities in terms of general social norms and the differences in terms of socio-mathematical norms and mathematical practice, this study addresses some crucial issues on understanding the culture of elementary mathematics classroom in transition.

• School Mathematics
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.415-433
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• 2002

The mathematics education community is seeking to change a teacher-centered class-room culture to a student-centered culture. However, the real transition is not easy, even for teachers who are eager and willing to teach differently. The challenge for teachers is to use the social structure of the classrooms to nurture students' development toward mathematical ways of thinking and communicating as well as their under-standing of mathematical concepts and processes. By introducing an elementary teacher's teaching practice and professional develop-ment along with her classroom episodes, this paper is to make strides toward an enriched understanding of the culture of the elementary mathematics classrooms in which students may have a lot of opportunities to develop conceptual under standing and math-ematical disposition. This paper first provides a detailed description of the classroom flow in terms of general social norms and sociomathematical norms in order to explore how the teacher and the students have established such a student-centered math-ematics microculture. This paper then analyzes the teacher's teaching approach and professional development.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.127-152
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• 2007

Recently, the number of students to choose to study in Australia has been increasing significantly. The purpose of this study is to examine how Korean primary school children perceive their own English language learning and cultural adaptation in Australia. A questionnaire survey was conducted with 34 Korean children aged 8-13 who were attending primary schools in Brisbane, Queensland. The study results show that they made diverse efforts to learn English language and culture in Australia, such as making English-speaking friends, watching TV/video/DVD, reading English books, and studying with a foreign tutor. Their English listening and writing abilities were thought to be improved most, followed by speaking, reading and cultural understanding after studying in Australia. The subjects were mostly satisfied with their study and life in Australia but they had difficulties with communicating in English, homesickness, foods, weather, insects, and discrimination. In particular, they had problems with understanding classes conducted all in English and participating in the classroom activities due to their low level of English ability and understanding of Australian classroom culture. The findings of this study have pedagogical implications for educators both in Australia and Korea.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.273-289
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• 2001

Given that the culture of the mathematics classroom has been perceived as an important topic in mathematics education research, this paper deals with the construct of sociomathematical norms which can be used as an analytical tool in understanding classroom mathematical culture. This paper first reviews the theoretical foundations of the construct such as symbolic interactionism and ethnomethodology, and describes the actual classroom contexts in which social and sociomathematical norms were originally identified. This paper then provides a critical analysis of the previous studies with regard to sociomathematical norms. Whereas such studies analyze how sociomathematical norms become constituted and stabilized in the specific classroom contexts, they tend to briefly document sociomathematical norms mainly as a precursor to the detailed analysis of classroom mathematical practice. This paper reveals that the trend stems from the following two facts. First, the construct of sociomathematical norms evolved out of a classroom teaching experiment in which Cobb and his colleagues attempted to account for students' conceptual loaming as it occurred in the social context of an inquiry mathematics classroom. Second, the researchers' main role was to design instructional devices and sequences of specific mathematical content and to support the classroom teacher to foster students' mathematical learning using those sequences Given the limitations in terms of the utility of sociomathematical norms, this paper suggests the possibility of positioning the sociomathematical norms construct as more centrally reflecting the quality of students' mathematical engagement in collective classroom processes and predicting their conceptual teaming opportunities. This notion reflects the fact that the construct of sociomathematical norms is intended to capture the essence of the mathematical microculture established in a classroom community rather than its general social structure. The notion also allows us to see a teacher as promoting sociomathematical norms to the extent that she or he attends to concordance between the social processes of the classroom, and the characteristically mathematical ways of engaging. In this way, the construct of sociomathematical norms include, but in no ways needs to be limited to, teacher's mediation of mathematics discussions.

• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.255-278
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• 2021

Proof serves a critical role in mathematical practices as well as in fostering student's mathematical understanding. However, the research literature accumulates results that there are not many opportunities available for students to engage with proving-related activities and that students' understanding about proof is not promising. This unpromising state of instruction of proof calls for a novel approach to address the aforementioned issues. This study investigated an instruction of proof to explore a pedagogy to teach how to prove. The teacher utilized the way of problem posing to make proving a routine part of everyday lesson and changed the classroom culture to support student proving. The study identified the teacher's support for student proving, the key pedagogical changes that embraced proving as part of everyday lesson, and what changes the teacher made to cultivate the classroom culture to be better suited for establishing a supportive community for student proving. The results indicate that problem posing has a potential to embrace proof into everyday lesson.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.499-508
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• 2015

The purposes of this study are to investigate elementary students' perception of science classroom through an analysis of students' answer to an open-ended question and to suggest a framework for the analysis of science classroom culture, as the first step to develop an analysis tool for qualitative exploration of science classroom culture. We analyzed 571 responses and developed an analysis framework with six categories (i.e. major factors; power structure of a classroom community; focused domains of the science classroom; student concerns; atmosphere of science classroom; participation form). The details of the six categories can be summarized as follows: (1) major factors were revealed to be practical work, fun, teacher, community and others; (2) the power structure of classroom community was in the order of peer students, teacher, and individual student himself/herself; (3) the focused domains of the science classroom perceived by students were more about affective and behavioral domains than cognitive one; (4) major student concerns were teachers' teaching, having practical work, and the understanding of and the sharing of knowledge and opinions (5) science classroom atmosphere was noisy and pranky but fun and interesting; (6) the students participation forms were to be total participation or voluntary participation or cooperative practice. Through this study, not only suggesting the framework, but we could also get implications for the cultural aspects of science classroom based on the results of data analysis in this study.

• Korean Journal of Childcare and Education
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.171-196
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• 2013

The purpose of this study was to examine the characteristics of classroom culture in a toddler class of 2 year olds. Data was collected through 16 sessions of non-participatory observations and teacher interviews of toddlers in H daycare center. Collected data was carefully read and categorized accordingly to fit the theme of this qualitative study. Data analysis yielded four conclusions regarding the toddlers' classroom culture: behavior to advance together as a group, communicating through body language, complete reliance and responses towards the instructor, and a dichotomy between disintegration and integration. The result of this study suggests a need for instructor's proper guidance and establishing an appropriate childcare environment, as well as a reconsideration regarding toddlers as a host of the classroom culture, to increase the understanding of toddler's interactions in classrooms and social trends.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.597-625
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• 2013

This study explored how teachers and students in different countries discursively interact to build 'Classroom Science Knowledge' (CSK) - the knowledge generated situatedly in the context of the science classroom. Data came from publicly released $8^{th}$ grade science classroom videos of five nations who participated in the Third TIMSS (Trend in International Mathematics and Science Study) video study. A total of ten video-recorded science lessons and their verbatim transcripts were selected and analyzed using a framework developed by the researchers of the study. It was revealed that a range of discourse modes were utilized and these modes were often sequentially connected to build CSK in the science classrooms. Although dominant discourse modes and their sequences varied among different lessons or different countries, the study identified three salient patterns of science classroom discourse: teacher-guided negotiation and the sequences of exploring - building on the shared and retrieving - elaborating. These patterns were found to be different from the discursive features commonly witnessed in the community of professional scientists and interpreted as implying the existence of unique epistemic cultures shared in science classrooms of different countries. Further studies are suggested to reveal detailed characteristics of these epistemic cultures of science classrooms, as well as to confirm whether any cultural traits inherently shape the differences in science classroom discourse among different nations.