• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.263-279
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• 2015

The introduction of real numbers is one of the most difficult steps in the teaching of school mathematics since the mathematical justification of the extension from rational to real numbers requires the completeness property. The author elucidated what questions about real numbers can be unanswered as the "institutional didactic void" in school mathematics defining real numbers as the union of the rational and irrational numbers. The pre-service teachers' explanations on the extension from rational to real numbers and the raison d'$\hat{e}$tre of arbitrary non-recurring decimals showed the superficial and fragmentary understanding of real numbers. Connecting school mathematics to university mathematics via the didactic void, the author discussed how pre-service teachers could break the illusion of transparency about the real number.

• Journal of Elementary Mathematics Education in Korea
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.505-530
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• 2017

Although mathematically gifted students have potential and creative productivity, they might not manifest group level creative synergy. To manifest group creativity among them, the manifestation process should be facilitated and the process losses should be minimized. The purpose of this study is looking for the method to facilitate the manifestation process of group creativity and minimize the process losses of it. To do this, a case study method was adopted. The products and process losses of the manifestation process of group creativity was analysed. In conclusion, the processes and products of group creativity were concretized and the process losses were analysed by social/motivational and cognitive factors. In addition, the justification and agreement were necessary for the manifestation process of group creativity among mathematically gifted students.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.373-388
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• 2013

This paper is to investigate how two elementary school teacher's belief mathematics as educational content, and teaching and learning mathematics as a part of educational methodology, and what the two teachers believe towards gifted children and their education, and what the classes demonstrate and its effects on the sociomathematical norms. To investigate this matter, the study has been conducted with two teachers who have long years of experience in teaching gifted children, but fall into different belief categories. The results of the study show that teacher A falls into the following category: the essentiality of mathematics as 'traditional', teaching mathematics as 'blended', and learning mathematics as 'traditional'. In addition, teacher A views mathematically gifted children as autonomous researchers with low achievement and believes that the teacher is a learning assistant. On the other hand, teacher B falls into the following category: the essentiality of mathematics as 'non-traditional', teaching mathematics as 'non-traditional, and learning mathematics as 'non-traditional.' Also, teacher B views mathematically gifted children as autonomous researchers with high achievement and believes that the teacher is a learning guide. In the teacher A's class for gifted elementary school students, problem solving rule and the answers were considered as important factors and sociomathematical norms that valued difficult arithmetic operation were demonstrated However, in the teacher B's class for gifted elementary school students, sociomathematical norms that valued the process of problem solving, mathematical explanations and justification more than the answers were demonstrated. Based on the results, the implications regarding the education of mathematically gifted students were investigated.