• School Mathematics
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.139-154
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• 2008

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate how sixth grade elementary school students react to the types of letters use, what levels of understanding letters students are in and what difficulties are in understanding letters, and to raise issues about instructional methods of algebra. A descriptive study through pencil-and- paper tests was conducted. The test instruments consisted of 18 questions with 6 types of letters use. According to the results of testing, students' types of letter use and the levels of understanding letters were classified. The conclusions from the results of this study were as follows: First, the higher the types of letters use, the more sixth grade elementary school students had low scores on the types. Therefore, teaching methodologies of letters and expressions in the classroom need to encourage for students to improve their ability of using and understanding letter. Second, approximately 40% of students were categorized in level 3. Accordingly it is necessary to have a program of teaching and learning to improve their understanding levels of letters. Third, approximately 15% of students were categorized in level 0. In order to develop understanding of letters, it is important that students use letter evaluated and letter used as an object. Fourth, students had the difficulties in understanding letters. It is informative for teachers to understand these students' difficulties and thinking processes. Finally, we must treat the different uses of letters and introduce them successively according to the student's understanding levels of letters.

• School Mathematics
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.373-399
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• 2001

The function is a basic and key concept to understand mathematical problems. However, many students have difficulties to expand the knowledge to other related concepts and to transfer the knowledge to real world problems. The reasons for the problem may be that the concept of function is taught by simplified and abstracted formula without fully understanding of the reasoning process. Also, the examples for the concepts are artificial and not related to students' experiences. Situated learning theory provides great implications to solve these problems. So, this study was designed to teach the concept of function more meaningful to students by appling situated learning theory. Thirty-eight middle school students were participated in this study. Students were provided the instruction designed according to the principles of situated learning theory. Then, they were asked to complete attitude survey questionnair and a performance assessment task. The result showed that the instruction based on situated learning theory was useful to Promote students' understanding and motivation for learning. More implications of the study was provided in the paper.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.439-452
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• 1998

In this Study, I concerned the learning-teaching of the use of letters in algebra. Our Study can be summarized as follows; First, I tried to establish the theoretical Foundation necessary for the learning-teaching of the use of letters in literal expressions. Second, I made a course of study that leads to the understanding of the meaning and the use f literals in algebraic expressions. Third, Based on this course of study, I held classes on First-grade students in middle school and I carried on an investigation their understanding of the meaning and the use of literals in algebraic expressions. Finally, I made an analysis of findings in this investigation and identified student's a better understanding of the meaning and the use of literals in algebraic expressions.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.46 no.2 s.117
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• pp.207-226
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to design and develop the processes of tasks and assessment rubrics of open-ended tasks, and those for the 5th graders of elementary school mathematics. 7 tasks were finally developed, and 'problem understanding', 'problem solving process', 'communication' were selected as the criteria for assessment rubrics. The result was that the ability of mathematical power covering problem understanding ability, problem solving ability and mathematical communication ability was low. Specifically, problem understanding ability was the highest, problem solving ability was middle, and mathematical communication ability was the lowest.

• East Asian mathematical journal
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.119-139
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• 2023

Most of calculus and real analysis are concerned with the study on continuous functions. Because of self-sustaining concept caused by everyday language, continuity has difficulties. This kind of viewpoint is strengthened with that teacher explains continuity by graph drawn ceaselessly and so finally confused with mathematics concept which is continuity and connection. Thus such a concept image of continuity becomes to include components which create conflicts. Therefore, we try to analyze understanding of continuity on university students by using the concept image as an analytic tool. We survey centering on problems which create conflicts with concept definition and image. And we investigate that difference of definition in continuous function which handles in calculus and analysis exists and so try to present various results on university students' understanding of continuity concept.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.29-34
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• 2010

The QR method is one of the most common methods for calculating the eigenvalues of a square matrix, however its understanding would require complicated and sophisticated mathematical logics. In this article, we present a simple way to understand QR method only with a minimal mathematical knowledge. A deflation technique is introduced, and its combination with the power iteration leads to extracting all the eigenvectors. The orthogonal iteration is then shown to be compatible with the combination of deflation and power iteration. The connection of QR method to orthogonal iteration is then briefly reviewed. Our presentation is unique and easy to understand among many accounts for the QR method by introducing the orthogonal iteration in terms of deflation and power iteration.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.13-19
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• 2002

In this experiment we emphasized the cooperative small group learning and the members of my group worked together to succeed and communicate their mathematics ideas freely. The researcher(teacher) became an observer and facilitator of small group interaction, paying attention to the ongoing learning process, Sometimes the researcher suggested some investigation approach(or discovery)being written by computer software or papers. In this experiment we provided 6 activities as follows : (1) changing the conditions in given problem. (2) operating the meaningful heuristics with the problem sets. (3) creating the problem situations related to understanding (4) creating the Modeling situations. (5) creating the problem related to combinatorial thinking in real world. (6) posing some real problem from real world. we could observed several conjectures First, Attitude and chility to interpret the problem setting is highly important to pose the problem effectively. Second, Generating the understanding can be a great tool to pose the problem effectively. Third, Sometimes inquiry approach represented by software or programmed book could be some motivation to enhance the posing activities. Forth, The various posing activities relate to one concept could give the students some opportunity to be adaptable and flexible in the their approach to unfamiliar problem sets.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.50 no.1
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• pp.119-128
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• 2011

In this paper, we studied into a qualitative research to see mathematical understanding of preschool and kindergarten's teachers such as feeling attitude, parents' concern, difficulty of math teaching in kindergarten field, teacher's role, type of feed back, beauty of math, relationship of real life, and self philosophy of math education. We selected 10 teachers whose career was 7~10 years. Because this research way is qualitative, we can new aspect that teacher want to break their ignorance for math. Moreover, they would like to learn about math practicality, application, and beauty from art in professional training. Therefore we assert that fusion math lecture would support in the professional training for teacher, preschool or kindergarten's president training, and remuneration training.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.43-64
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to analyze the progress of children's abstraction and to investigate how elementary students understand through mathematical modeling approach in the sixth grader's learning of surface area. Each small group showed their own level on abstraction in mathematical modeling progress. The participants showed improvements in understanding regarding to surface area context.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.187-200
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• 2013

This study, as part of the research on mathematics teacher knowledge analyzed the differences in understanding and familiarity on geometric knowledge of middle-high school teachers. Through this study, survey was carried out using a questionnaire and examination for 80 middle-high school teachers. As the result, differences between familiarities about believing in knowing about the proposition, and actually understanding why the proposition is established, was big. These results can provide us implications on the education of teachers and pre-service teachers of middle-high school.