• The Mathematical Education
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.11-20
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• 2000

Compared with other subjects, mathematics has great differences in achievement. In hope of solving this problems, most schools the level-movement learning. Although they say it may have some effect because of its homogeneous group, the level groups still have differences in achievement in their students abilities. So, this study aims to present an appropriate tasks for the advanced intermediate and beginner groups and to help self-directed learning by selecting an appropriate tasks for the students' own level. To achieve thiese goals, a great deal of level tasks were developed and given to the students. After lettins them an select appropriate tasks for their own level and perform self-directed teaming, the tasks were measured carefully for their interest attitude and achievement in learning. Consequently, we tried a new method to improve uniformity and to turn teacher-centered learning into student-centered teaming. The following is the conclusion to this study. First self-directed teaming based on the selection of level tasks has meaningful effects on learning achievement in mathematics, especially for the beginner group. Second though the above method did not improve an interest for mathematics, but was very effective in the improvement of learning attitudes.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.525-548
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• 2010

How to enhance the ability of underachieve students are unsolved problems for mathematics teachers despite of their best efforts to teach them. The purpose of this study is to explore the effectiveness of mathematical journal writing as a method of improving the mathematical attitudes and achievements for underachieve students. Seven students whose performances were below 40% on the final exam in the 1st semester were recruited in order to gather empirical data. Before journal writing procedures, the subjects' characteristics, learning styles and mathematical attitudes were investigated through personal interview and mathematical attitude test. After six-week journal writing, follow-up survey and mathematical attitude test were conducted. The results of this research are as follows: Mathematical journal writing had a positive effect to underachieve students on improving confidence in mathematics and a positive influence on active and effective learning attitude. And mathematical journal writing had an effect on improvement in their mathematics achievement comparing first semester's final exam with second semester's mid-term exam. Finally mathematical journal writing contributes positively to the relationship between students and their teacher.

• Communications of Mathematical Education
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.187-201
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• 2017

The study in this paper, which is part of a bigger study investigating non-cognitive characteristics of Korean students at the 4-12 grade levels, aims to identify the influential characteristics that explain students' decision to give up on mathematics learning. We consider seven non-cognitive student characteristics: value, interest, attitudes, external motivation, internal motivation, learning conation and efficacy. Data were collected from 21,485 Korean students, and were analyzed with a logistic regression method using SPSS. The findings show that efficacy was the most significant indicator of students' decision to give up on mathematics learning in all three grade level bands: elementary (4th-6th), middle (7th-9th) and high (10th-12th). In particular, the causal model analysis shows that students who highly value mathematics tend to have stronger internal and external motivation, which bring about stronger interest and learning conation, which in turn lead to positive attitudes and strong efficacy regarding the learning of mathematics. It was further found that while external motivation was a significant indicator of upper grade level students' decision to give up on mathematics learning, it was only a moderate indicator for lower grade level students. The findings of this study provide useful information about which non-cognitive areas need to be focused on, in what grade levels, to help students stay on track and not fall behind in learning mathematics.

• School Mathematics
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.215-231
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• 2001

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effectiveness of the manipulatives in instruction of mathematics to those who have learning disabilities. Two middle school students who revealed very low achievements in the previous mathematics tests were involved in this study. Unit Cubes were used as the manipulatives, and the researchers utilized this manipulatives to teach the number bases. After a series of instructions utilizing the Unit Cubes, the subjects were interviewed with semi-structured form. In general, the effect of using the manipulatives were positive. Both subjects could understand much better with the Unit Cubes, and revealed affirmative results such as their positive attitudes toward mathematics.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.23-45
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• 2019

The purpose of this research is to analyze the effect of storytelling teaching on the mathematical attitudes of Mathematics underachieved third-grade middle school students. 5 students with lower than 20% of math grades were selected and they were provided 36 hours of the storytelling teaching program in 18 weeks. The participant students took the mathematical attitudes questionnaires both before and after the storytelling teaching classes. As a result of the study, the mean score of the before and after questionnaires was increased, and t-test also had statistically significant results. In particular, the various details of mathematical attitudes revealed the greatest positive change in 'the application of learning technology', followed by 'interest' and 'self-study'. Therefore, we found that the storytelling teaching program has a positive effect on the mathematical attitudes of underachieved students.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.417-439
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• 2016

The purpose of this study is to compare and analyze the effects of teaching based on learning-communities approach to mathematics for 7th grade students. Two classes of 7th graders at two different middle schools in same city were selected as the experimental group and the control group respectively. Students in the experimental group learned mathematics in a learning-community while their counterparts in the control group received the traditional whole-class instruction employed in most schools. The results are as follows. Firstly, there was no statistically significant difference in mathematics achievement between the experimental group and the control group. Secondly, between the two groups, there were statistically significant differences in students' attitudes toward mathematics. Participants enjoyed the learning process itself by asking difficult questions to one another, sharing their ideas freely and figuring problems out for themselves. During these active participations, they displayed more confidence and interest in learning mathematics.

• School Mathematics
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.267-287
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• 2017

Fostering students' positive affect related to mathematics such as attitudes toward mathematics and dispositions toward learning mathematical concepts is one of the major goals of school mathematics programs. In this study, we collected data from students at the 4-1 grade levels to develop an instrument that measures students' affect regarding mathematics learning. To develop the instrument, we first conducted focus group interviews, which we recorded, transcribed, and analyzed. We sorted the results according to seven components of the non-cognitive domain of mathematics learning, which drew from taxonomical constructs of previous research. We then conducted a pilot study in which we administered the instrument as a pretest and a posttest. We chose the final items based on confirmatory factor analysis and a reliability test of the pre and posttest scores. The final instrument contains 24 items, which are classified according to the seven components: interest, attitudes, value, external motivation, internal motivation, learning conation, and efficacy. We anticipate this instrument will be useful for studies that need to measure students' non-cognitive characteristics in relation to learning mathematics.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.251-260
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• 1997

The instructional influences of cooperative learning strategies, which emphasize mutual interdependency of learners, group goal, and individual accountability, upon students' achievement, the attitude toward science instruction and the perception of learning environment were investigated. Before instruction, the prior knowledge test about atoms and molecules, the test of attitudes toward science instruction, and the perception questionnaire of learning environment were administered, and the grade in the previous mathematics course was obtained. These scores were used as covariates. Mid-term examination score was used as blocking variable. For instruction, three different strategies-traditional individual learning, small group learning, and cooperative learning-were used and teaching materials for the units of mole and stoichiometry were also prepared. After instruction, the researcher-made achievement test, the test of attitudes toward science instruction, and the perception questionnaire of learning environment were administered. The perception questionnaire of group activities was also administered to the two treatment groups. In the quantitative subtest, the scores of cooperative learning group and small group learning group were significantly higher than those of traditional individual learning group. However, the cooperative learning group's scores in the achievement test and the qualitative subtest were significantly higher than those of small group learning group and traditional individual learning group. The students in the cooperative learning group were found to have the most positive perception of learning environment but to have similar attitudes toward science instruction. No interaction between the treatment and the level of the previous achievement was found in any of the analyses. In the perception questionnaire of group activities, students in both small group learning group and cooperative learning group exhibited positive perception of group activities. However, students in the cooperative learning group tended to think that their activities were related with their group's success. Educational implications are discussed.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.327-348
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• 2021

This study examines the effects of mathematics learning mentoring activities on mathematical knowledge for teaching (MKT) of pre-service mathematics teachers. We choose six pre-service mathematics teachers in the department of mathematics education at M University. The pre-service mathematics teachers conducted 1:1 mathematics learning mentoring for two hours at a times and twice a week for 15 weeks. The pre-service mathematics teachers submitted the mentor log, which recorded weekly learning and emotional observations. We collected the mentor log and the reflection log of pre-service mathematics teachers and the interviews with pre-service mathematics teachers. Based on the collected data, we analyzed the effects of MKT, the understanding of students, and pre-service mathematics teachers' introspection by mathematics learning mentoring. We obtained conclusions as follows. First, mathematics learning mentoring provides an opportunity for pre-service mathematics teachers to apply the theory of mathematical education to schools. Thus pre-service mathematics teachers express theoretical knowledge as practical knowledge. Second, mathematics learning mentoring helps pre-service mathematics teachers have the ability to understand students and provide opportunities to reflect on their attitudes as learners. Third, mathematics learning mentoring helps advance teaching activities by providing pre-service mathematics teachers with opportunities to reflect on their teaching activities. Finally, mathematics learning mentoring has positively influenced the change in pre-service mathematics teachers' beliefs and teaching intuition.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.45 no.3 s.114
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• pp.295-313
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• 2006

University teacher education programs have sought for ways of how to improve student teaching in order to supply mathematics teachers with practical theory to achieve the goals of the current educational reform in school mathematics. In this context, the purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of student teachers' teaching experience in the after-school mathematics programs and the ways of how to develop the after-school learning programs as an effective site for learning to teach based on the inquiry into student teachers' own teaching experience. For the purpose, data were collected through the interviews with the student teachers who had taught after-school mathematics class. In addition, data were collected through survey, class observation, and seminal meetings with the student teachers in order to supplement the findings from the interview analysis. Data analysis focused on the student teachers' experience with teaching in after-school mathematics classes, that is, what and how they had learned as teachers, what kinds of difficulties they encountered in their teaching and supports that they expect to improve their learning through teaching. The analysis shows that the teaching experience in the after-school programs had positively contributed to their development as future mathematics teachers. Specifically, the after-school programs provide the site for learning through teaching at the early stage of teacher education program. The after-school programs provided the students teachers for the opportunity to participate peripherally in educational practice of school. Through the participation, the student teachers developed positive attitudes toward teaching career and became to have more solid ideas about how to teach mathematics. Based on the analysis, this research provides following suggestions concerning how to improve student teaching. First, it is necessary to provide student teachers to participate into the practice of teaching at the early stage of teacher education programs. Second, it is important to give students teacher opportunity to participate in teaching at peripheral and legitimate positions. Finally, it is necessary to construct mentoring networks to support student teachers to move from a peripheral position toward a center of teaching practice.