• The Mathematical Education
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• v.62 no.3
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• pp.363-380
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• 2023

This study analyzed the difficulties and mathematical modeling knowledge improvement that an elementary school teacher experienced in modifying a mathematics textbook task to a mathematical modeling task. To this end, an elementary school teacher with 10 years of experience participated in teacher-researcher community's repeated discussions and modified the average task in the data and pattern domain of the 5th grade. The results are as followings. First, in the process of task modification, the teacher had difficulties in reflecting reality, setting the appropriate cognitive level of mathematical modeling tasks, and presenting detailed tasks according to the mathematical modeling process. Second, through repeated task modifications, the teacher was able to develop realistic tasks considering the mathematical content knowledge and students' cognitive level, set the cognitive level of the task by adjusting the complexity and openness of the task, and present detailed tasks through thought experiments on students' task-solving process, which shows that teachers' mathematical modeling knowledge, including the concept of mathematical modeling and the characteristics of the mathematical modeling task, has improved. The findings of this study suggest that, in terms of the mathematical modeling teacher education, it is necessary to provide teachers with opportunities to improve their mathematical modeling task development competency through textbook task modification rather than direct provision of mathematical modeling tasks, experience mathematical modeling theory and practice together, and participate in teacher-researcher communities.

• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.167-202
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• 2023

A central problem of mathematics teaching worldwide is probably the insufficient adaptive handling of tasks-especially in computational practice phases and modeling tasks. All students in a classroom must often work on the same tasks. In the process, the high-achieving students are often underchallenged, and the low-achieving ones are overchallenged. This publication uses different modeling of the tennis serve as an example to show a possible solution to the problem and develops and discusses one adaptive task each for middle school, high school, and college using three mathematical models of the tennis serve each time. From model to model within the task, the complexity of the modeling increases, the mathematical or physical demands on the students increase, and the new modeling leads to more realistic results. The proposed models offer the possibility to address heterogeneous learning groups by their arrangement in the surface structure of the so-called parallel adaptive task and to stimulate adaptive mathematics teaching on the instructional topic of mathematical modeling. Models A through C are suitable for middle school instruction, models C through E for high school, and models E through G for college. The models are classified in the specific modeling cycle and its extension by a digital tool model, and individual modeling steps are explained. The advantages of the presented models regarding teaching and learning mathematical modeling are elaborated. In addition, we report our first teaching experiences with the developed parallel adaptive tasks.

• Communications of Mathematical Education
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.59-72
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to understand the characteristics of the mathematical modeling tasks and lesson designs developed by pre-service teachers based on the inherent awareness of mathematical modeling, considering the importance of creating a task to perform mathematical modeling activity and designing a lesson. As a result, the mathematical modeling tasks developed by pre-service teachers mainly presents an appropriate amount of information using real life contexts for the purpose of learning using concepts, and it showed a tendency to develop to the level of cognitive demand that required procedures with connections to understanding, meaning, or concepts. And most of the developed modeling task-based lessons showed a tendency to design warm-up activity, model-eliciting activity, and model-exploration activity. This result is due to the lack of experience of pre-service teachers in creating mathematical modeling tasks. Therefore, it is necessary to continuously provide opportunities for pre-service teachers to learn concepts or create mathematical modeling tasks intended for exploration according to various mathematical contents, thereby actively cultivating their ability to create modeling tasks in the course of training pre-service teachers. Furthermore, it is necessary to strengthen the expertise in mathematical modeling teaching and learning by providing opportunities to actually perform the mathematical modeling-based classes designed by pre-service teachers and to experience the process of reflecting on the lessons.

• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.25-47
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• 2024

Mathematical modeling activities are gaining popularity in K-12 mathematics education curricula worldwide. These activities serve dual purposes by aiding students in making sense of real-world situations intertwined with social justice while acquiring mathematical knowledge. Despite efforts to prepare teacher candidates for instructing in mathematical modeling within a single country, little attention has been given to teacher candidates' approaches to mathematical modeling on a social justice issue from different countries. This article employs an in-depth, small-scale comparative study to examine the approaches of U.S. and Korean teacher candidates in solving a justice-oriented mathematics task. Our findings reveal that, although both U.S. and Korean teacher candidates identified certain variables as key when constructing a mathematical model, Korean teacher candidates formulated a more nuanced model than U.S. candidates by considering diverse variables. However, U.S. teacher candidates exhibited a heightened engagement in linking the task to social justice issues, whereas Korean teacher candidates barely perceived real-world problems in relation to social justice concerns. This study serves as a valuable tool to inform the roles and limitations of teacher education programs, shaped within specific educational contexts.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.283-308
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• 2021

This study aims to analyze statistical tasks in Korean and Singaporean textbooks with the mathematical modeling perspective and compare the learning contents and experiences of students from both countries. I analyzed mathematical modeling tasks in the textbooks based on five aspects: (1) the mathematical modeling process, (2) the data type, (3) the expression type, (4) the context, and (5) the mathematical activity. The results of this study show that Korean and Singaporean textbooks provide the highest percentage of the "working-with-mathematics" task, the highest percentage of the "matching task," and the highest percentage of the "picture" task. The real-world context and mathematical activities used in Korean and Singaporean textbooks differed in percentage. This study provides implications for the development of textbook tasks to support future mathematical modeling activities. This includes providing a balanced experience in mathematical modeling processes and presenting tasks in various forms of expression to raise students' cognitive level and expand the opportunity to experience meaningful mathematizing. In addition, it is necessary to present a contextually realistic task for students' interest in mathematical modeling activities or motivation for learning.

• East Asian mathematical journal
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.173-201
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• 2020

Mathematical modeling has been emphasized because it offers important opportunities for students to both apply their learning of mathematics to a situation and to explore the mathematics involved in the context of the situation. However, unlike its importance, mathematical modeling has not been grounded in typical mathematics classes because teachers do not have enough understanding of mathematical modeling and they are skeptical to implement it in their lessons. The current study analyzed the data, such as video recordings, slides, and surveys for teachers, collected in four lessons of teacher education in terms of mathematical modeling. The study reported different kinds of tasks that are authentic with regards to mathematical modeling. Furthermore, in teacher education, teachers' identities have separated a mode as learners and a mode as teachers and conflicts and intentional transition were observed. Analysis of the surveys shows what teachers think about mathematical modeling with their understanding of it. In teacher education, teachers achieved different kinds of modeling tasks and experience them which are helpful to enact mathematical modeling in their lessons. However, teacher education also needs to specifically offer what to do and how to do it for their lessons.

• Journal of Elementary Mathematics Education in Korea
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.93-117
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• 2019

Considering precedent studies in which research subjects are mainly confined to secondary school students or higher grade students of elementary schools, we can notice that there has been implicit agreement that instruction of mathematical modeling is quite difficult to lower grade students of elementary schools. Compared to this tendency, this study aims to examine the possibility of instruction of mathematical modeling for all of school ages, and more specifically, the applicability of mathematical modeling tasks to lower graders. To do this, we developed a mathematical modeling task proper to cognitive characteristics of lower graders and applied this task to the second graders. Based on the research results by lesson observation and the teacher's reflection, some didactical suggestions were induced for teaching the lower grade elementary school students mathematical modeling.

• East Asian mathematical journal
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.147-172
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• 2020

The purpose of this study is to provide to understand correctly for teachers and pre-service teachers who have the wrong conception of mathematical modeling. We present the differences modeling problems and general application problems to identify between general application and modeling problems. We propose the entire process from modeling tasks development to solve the problems of mathematical modeling. Additionally, the entire process of the possible solutions was concluded for the presented modeling problems. We proposed what students and teachers should perform at each stage of each phase of the modeling cycle. The concrete tasks were suggested for teachers and students at each phase of modeling cycles, with the specific role of the teacher in the overall process for students' modeling activities.

• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.241-251
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• 2024

Mathematics educators have examined mathematical modeling, where students tackle authentic real-life problems and develop problem-solving strategies with a sense of agency. However, few empirical studies have been conducted to illuminate the developmental process of teachers' competencies in mathematical modeling, particularly for elementary school teachers. Scholars have noted that elementary mathematics teachers can effectively teach mathematical modeling by designing tasks that consider students' abilities and preferences. In this vein, this review paper introduces a study conducted by Jung (2023), which examines the developmental process of an elementary school mathematics teacher's competencies in mathematical modeling and how she overcame related challenges.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.57 no.4
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• pp.371-391
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to analyze manifestation examples and effects of group creativity in mathematical modeling and to discuss teaching and learning methods for group creativity. The following two points were examined from the theoretical background. First, we examined the possibility of group activity in mathematical modeling. Second, we examined the meaning and characteristics of group creativity. Six students in the second grade of high school participated in this study in two groups of three each. Mathematical modeling task was "What are your own strategies to prevent or cope with blackouts?". Unit of analysis was the observed types of interaction at each stage of mathematical modeling. Especially, it was confirmed that group creativity can be developed through repetitive occurrences of mutually complementary, conflict-based, metacognitive interactions. The conclusion is as follows. First, examples of mutually complementary interaction, conflict-based interaction, and metacognitive interaction were observed in the real-world inquiry and the factor-finding stage, the simplification stage, and the mathematical model derivation stage, respectively. And the positive effect of group creativity on mathematical modeling were confirmed. Second, example of non interaction was observed, and it was confirmed that there were limitations on students' interaction object and interaction participation, and teacher's failure on appropriate intervention. Third, as teaching learning methods for group creativity, we proposed students' role play and teachers' questioning in the direction of promoting interaction.