• Journal of Elementary Mathematics Education in Korea
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.115-140
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• 2009

Freudenthal has advocated the mathematisation theory. Mathematisation is an activity which endow the reality with order, through organizing phenomena. According to mathematisation theory, the departure of children's learning of mathematics is not ready-made formal mathematics, but reality which contains mathematical germination. In the first place, children mathematise reality through informal method, secondly this resulting reality is mathematised by new tool. Through survey, it turns out that area unit of Korea's seventh elementary mathematics textbook is not correspond to mathematisation theory. In that textbook, the area formular is hastily presented without sufficient real context, and the relational understanding of area concept is overwhelmed by the practice of the area formular. In this thesis, first of all, I will reconstruct area unit of seventh elementary textbook according to Freudenthal's mathematisation theory. Next, I will perform teaching experiment which is ruled by new lesson design. Lastly, I analysed the effects of teaching experiment. Through this study, I obtained the following results and suggestions. First, the mathematisation was effective on the understanding of area concept. Secondly, in both experimental and comparative class, rich-insight children more successfully achieved than poor-insight ones in the task which asked testee comparison of area from a view of number of unit square. This result show the importance of insight in mathematics education. Thirdly, in the task which asked testee computing area of figures given on lattice, experimental class handled more diverse informal strategy than comparative class. Fourthly, both experimental and comparative class showed low achievement in the task which asked testee computing area of figures by the use of Cavalieri's principle. Fifthly, Experiment class successfully achieved in the area computing task which resulting value was fraction or decimal fraction. Presently, Korea's seventh elementary mathematics textbook is excluding the area computing task which resulting value is fraction or decimal fraction. By the aid of this research, I suggest that we might progressively consider the introduction that case. Sixthly, both experimental and comparative class easily understood the relation between area and perimeter of plane figures. This result show that area and perimeter concept are integratively lessoned.

• School Mathematics
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.245-266
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• 2011

In this study, we surveyed on the 3rd and 4th grade teachers' perception and teaching practices towards open-ended question in the elementary mathematics textbook in the revised 7th curriculum. According to the result, teachers understood the purpose of open-ended question in general, but they recognized some problems in terms of open-ended question itself, difficulties found when they dealt with open-ended question in their classes, teacher's guide and teacher training. This research suggests ways of improvement of open-ended question on the basis of the survey results.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.49 no.4
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• pp.437-462
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• 2010

The purpose of this research is to analyze the textbook contents about the natural number concepts in the Korean National Elementary Mathematics Curriculum. Understanding a concept of natural number is crucial in school mathematics curriculum planning, since elementary students start their basic learning with natural number system. The concepts of natural number have various meaning from the perspectives of pedagogical research, and the philosophy of mathematics. The natural number concepts in the elementary math curriculum consist of four aspects; counting numbers, cardinal numbers, ordinal numbers, and measuring numbers. Two research questions are addressed; (1) How are the natural number concepts focusing on counting, cardinal, ordinal, measuring numbers are covered in the national math curriculum? ; (2) What suggestions can be made to enhance the teaching and learning about the natural number concepts? Findings reveal that (1) the national mathematics curriculum properly reflects four aspects of natural number concepts, as the curriculum covers 50% of the cardinal number system; (2) In the aspect of the counting number, we hope to add the meaning about 'one, two, three, ......, and so on' in the Korean Mathematics curriculum. In the ordinal number, we want to be rich the related meaning in a set. Further suggestions are made for future research to include them ensuing number in the curriculum.

• East Asian mathematical journal
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.109-133
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• 2012

In this research, I selected a Singapore elementary mathematics textbook which substantially reflects Singapore curriculum, and compared it with Korean one to understand how they differ in the contents system of the curriculum focused on the contents of the geometry and measurement strand, and analyzed their common points and different points intensively with textbooks for sixth-grade students. Also, I translated a chapter of the textbook, 'Mathematics in Action'. That chapter was about circumference and the area of the circle which is related to the shapes part. Then, I taught it to the experimental group to compare their achievement and the change of reaction to studying the shape-related parts with those of the control group. The results are the followings. First, when we analyze the contents of shape-related part of the textbooks for sixth-grade students of both countries, Singaporean textbook contains more contents that are introduced for the first time, which implies that it is more desirable to teach new concepts of shapes when students are in their higher grades. Second, as for the way they develop the activity of each chapter, Korean textbook sticks to a uniform way, while the Singapore textbook uses various ways for different subjects and grades. In addition, when they organize the contents of the textbook, they emphasize the importance of student's activity and lead students with various methods by suggesting several questions and situations.

• Educational Technology International
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.17-37
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• 2008

This study is to examine different views of teachers, students, parents and experts on existing mathematics textbook and ideas and alternatives for developing new textbooks. We interviewed deeply with 18 teachers, 18 students, 9 parents, and 4 experts and analyzed two analysis frame categories; Strengths and weaknesses of current textbooks and directions of mathematics textbooks that will be revised. We found that among teacher, student, parent and expert, there are some differences of meaning about mathematics textbooks, based on interview questions. The directions of new textbooks are as follows. First, 'the definitions of mathematics textbook concepts' shared and sympathized by teachers, students, parents, and experts should be considered in developing the textbooks. Second, the textbooks should be much usable in classrooms and be matched to the goals of mathematics subjects. Third, the contents and levels of difficulty of the textbooks should be based on the specific objectives and the analysis of curriculum and its contents. Fourth, understanding students should be presupposed as the external side of contents and the textbooks themselves should be associated with the image of joyful and fun mathematics. Fifth, the mathematics textbooks should reflect real daily life to their contents and be linked to other subjects.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.257-271
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• 2001

This study investigated the new revised Mathematics curriculums of elementary schools in Korea and Japan at the end of the 20th century. The comparison was made especially with revising direction, purposes, and contents of elementary school mathematics curriculum in both countries. I began by comparing and confirming the ratio of instruction hours of Mathematics to the total instruction hours of all the subjects at as whole. This comparison was done of the elementary and middle school mathematics. The next part of the study was to compare in detail the purposes of revised mathematics in elementary and middle schools of both countries. Particular attentions was paid to the important revised points of Japanese elementary school Mathematics. Finally, I concluded by comparing the contents of elementary school Mathematics of the two countries. New mathematic text books in both countries having been published by revised curriculum, puts the future task in comparing, in detail, the concrete contents of each textbook.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.465-482
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to explore how pre-service elementary school teachers participate in a course specifically designed to help them learn how to analyze instruction in terms of the levels of cognitive demand of mathematical tasks. This paper describes what prospective teachers learned while reading the cases of "implementing standards-based mathematics instruction", analyzing all tasks of one unit in one elementary mathematics textbook, observing master teachers' mathematics instruction as well as their colleagues during the practicum period, and developing their own cases on the basis of the design and implementation of instruction focused on mathematical tasks. This paper includes various reflections of the prospective teachers.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.747-764
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• 2017

Problems in mathematics textbooks are very important because there is a high reliance on textbooks in elementary school mathematics classes and there is a strong belief that mathematics is to find the solution to problems. Considering this importance, we analyzed problems in elementary mathematics textbooks quantitatively and qualitatively. Concretely, problems of addition and subtraction with carry on in the range of two digit numbers in the mathematics textbooks from the 1st to the 2015 national revised curriculum were analyzed. As a result, the problems in each textbook were found to reveal important features of the textbook reflecting changes in curriculum and educational background. And the problem of textbooks has changed in the direction of enhancing students' reasoning, communication, and problem solving ability. Based on these results, we suggested several implications for dealing with problems in elementary mathematics textbooks.

• Education of Primary School Mathematics
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.25-35
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• 2010

The purpose of this research was to analyze questioning types of the Korean Elementary Mathematics Textbook in grade 3 and suggest the direction of questioning strategies for enhancing creativity in mathematics lessons. For the research, the researcher analyzed questioning types of the 3rd grade mathematics textbook and the changes of the questions compared with the questions in the previous textbooks. The author suggested the following recommendations. First, the questioning strategies of the revised mathematics textbook tends more to enhance students' creativity than the previous ones did. Second, teachers need to know the students' level of mathematics before starting their mathematics lessons because teachers can provide more effective differentiated questioning to the students. Third, students can response tuned to their level of mathematics if they meet with open-ended questions. It is desirable to develop good open-ended questions to fit students' abilities. Last, teachers should provide opportunities for students to share their own mathematical thinking. In risk-free environment, students can willingly participate at debating over mathematics proofs and refutation. Teachers should make efforts to make the classroom norm or culture free to debate among students, which leads to enhancement of students' creativity or mathematical creativity.

• Journal of Elementary Mathematics Education in Korea
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.143-158
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• 2015

This research was conducted with focus groups interviews targeted at elementary teacher to analyze perceptions on storytelling based mathematics textbooks. As a result, elementary school teacher recognizes the introduction of storytelling as a major change in the revised textbooks. In addition, a change in the appearance of the revised textbook, the role of the Materials package, a change of assessment items, and increased exploration activity and the experience turned out to be having a significant impact on actual classroom as much as the introduction of storytelling.