• Research in Mathematical Education
• /
• v.24 no.2
• /
• pp.69-82
• /
• 2021

The purpose of this study is to explore how mathematics educators understand the terms having lexical ambiguity. Five terms with lexical ambiguity, leave, times, high, continuous, and convergent were selected based on literature review and recommendations of college calculus instructors. The participants consisted of four mathematics educators at a large Midwestern university. The qualitative data were collected from open-ended items in the survey. As a result of analysis, I provided participants' sentences with five terms showing their understanding of each term. The data analysis revealed that mathematics educators were not able to separate the meanings of the words such as leave and high when these words are frequently used in daily life, and the meanings in mathematics context are similar with that in daily context. Lexical ambiguity shown by mathematics educators can help mathematics teachers to understand the terms with lexical ambiguity and improve their instructions when those terms should be found in students' conversations.

• The Mathematical Education
• /
• v.41 no.3
• /
• pp.233-256
• /
• 2002

This study investigated school mathematics curriculum of England, newly revised in 1998, focused on the 'number and algebra' domain among three major domains of the English curriculum. On the basis of its understanding, this domain was compared and analyzed with school mathematics curriculum of Korea. In doing so, this study explored its plans and procedures and established a frame of comparison for the curriculums between the two countries. The structure of the National Curriculum in England is composed of programmes of study and attainment targets. The former sets out what should be taught in mathematics at key stages 1, 2, 3, and 4 and provides the basis for planning schemes of work, and the latter sets out the knowledge, skills, and understanding that pupils of different abilities and matures are expected to have by the end of each key stage. Attainment targets are composed of eight levels and an additional level of increasing difficulty. According to the results of the present study, Korea focuses on the formal and systematic mathematical knowledge on the basis of sound understanding of certain mathematical terms or concepts. On the other hand, England tends to deal with numbers more flexibly and naturally through the aquisition of mental methods, calculator use methods, etc, and emphasizes that mathematics be realistic and useful in solving a diverse number of problems confronted in everyday life.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
• /
• v.12 no.1
• /
• pp.34-42
• /
• 2024

This study investigated the academic achievement of science and high school students according to the characteristics of R&E activities in mathematics and science. In addition, based on the survey results, the correlation between R&E activity characteristics and mathematics and science academic achievement was studied through correlation analysis and factor analysis between subjects. There was a difference in academic achievement in mathematics and science according to the characteristics of the R&E activity area, and the experience of R&E activity was found to be closely related to the academic achievement of related subjects. Depending on the area of R&E activity, mathematical and scientific academic achievement was found to be two factors: mathematical logic and natural understanding. Natural understanding factors significantly influenced students' academic achievement in mathematics, physics, and life sciences, and mathematical logic factors significantly influenced the academic achievement of students in chemistry and earth science subjects. In particular, mathematical logic ability was concentrated in excellent physics class students, and natural understanding ability was concentrated in excellent life science class students. Since the characteristics of the R & E activity area greatly influence the academic achievement of mathematics and science, it will significantly contribute to the selection and operation of the R & E activity area of science high school students.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
• /
• v.8 no.2
• /
• pp.273-289
• /
• 2005

This research was implemented to know how mathematics education is performed both in a school and in the private institute based on Skemp' Theory that strongly takes an emphasis on understanding of mathematics principle. On this study, I compare the method of a teacher in a school with in a private institute accompanying the analysis of textbook in teaching. The results are the followings: First, textbooks used in a school and an institute are not helpful for relational understanding of students, and the textbook used in school was more suitable for students than that in institute. Second, in the case of teaching methods, school teacher has focused more relational schema with the students than an private institute institutor, As we said, in school mathematics education is implemented focusing on the understanding of mathematics. According to this, students should to trust public education more than private institute in constructing schema in mathematics learning.

• Research in Mathematical Education
• /
• v.6 no.1
• /
• pp.81-96
• /
• 2002

This article describes a research project that examined the impact of hand-held technology on students' understanding linear equations and graphs in multiple representations. The results indicated that students in the graphing-approach classes were significantly better at the components of interpreting. No significant differences between the graphing-approach and traditional classes were found fur translation, modeling, and algebraic skills. Further, students in the graphing-approach classes showed significant improvements in their attitudes toward mathematics and technology, were less anxious about mathematics, and rated their class as more interesting and valuable.

• Journal of Elementary Mathematics Education in Korea
• /
• v.13 no.2
• /
• pp.141-161
• /
• 2009

Mathematical Communication ability can be more developed through sharing thoughts with others. Therefore when we instruct students in math, it is very important for teachers to provide them with opportunity to communicate mathematically. So this study provided open-ended problems in small-group collaborative learning. And we analyzed students' mathematical communication focused on the student's level of understanding. Furthermore, to improve students' mathematical communication ability, this study tries to attract the factors that we should consider the exact date for inserting the open-ended problems into a course of math and the student's level of understanding for selecting suitable open-ended problems.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
• /
• v.10 no.2
• /
• pp.149-171
• /
• 2007

This study is aimed at development of pedagogical content knowledge on fraction in the elementary school mathematics. Elementary students regard fraction as the difficult topic in school mathematics. Furthermore, fraction is the fundamentally important concept in studying mathematics. So it is important to develop the pedagogical content knowledge on fraction. The reason of attention to the pedagogical content knowledge is that improving the quality of teaching is the central focus of a high quality mathematics education. Shulman suggested that various knowledges are required for teacher to improve their classes. Of course, pedagogical content knowledge is the most valuable in teaching mathematics. Pedagogical content knowledge is related to the promotion of students' understanding about the learning. Pedagogical content knowledges are categorized by five factors in this study. These are understanding about curriculum, understanding about students and students' knowledge, understanding about teachers and teachers' knowledge, understanding about the methods, contents, and management of class, and understanding about methods of assessments. I develop the pedagogical content knowledge on fraction according to the these categories. I concentrate on the two types of pedagogical content knowledges in developing. That is, I present knowledges which teachers have to know for teaching fraction effectively and materials which teachers can use during the teaching fraction. Pedagogical content knowledges guarantee teachers as the professionalists. Teachers should not teach only content knowledges but teach various knowledges including the meta-knowledges which have relation to fraction.

• Korean Journal of Mathematics
• /
• v.27 no.3
• /
• pp.743-765
• /
• 2019

Conceptual and procedural knowledge of integration is necessary not only in calculus but also in real analysis, complex analysis, and differential geometry. However, students show not only focused understanding of procedural knowledge but also limited understanding on conceptual knowledge of integration. So they are good at computation but don't recognize link between several concepts. In particular, Riemann sum is helpful in solving applied problem, but students are poor at understanding structure of Riemann sum. In this study, we try to investigate understanding on conceptual and procedural knowledge of integration and to analyze errors. Conducting experimental class of Riemann sum, we investigate the understanding of Riemann sum structure and so present the implications about improvement of integration teaching.

• Research in Mathematical Education
• /
• v.8 no.4
• /
• pp.293-307
• /
• 2004

Psychological and social theories have influenced on making sense of teaching and learning of mathematics. This paper analyzes major influences of such theories - behaviorism cognitivism, and situativity - on mathematics education. Instead of reviewing the theories perse, it intends to explicate how different perspectives have shaped our understanding of mathematics education both in theory and in practice. Given that the current mathematics education reform ideas are theoretically based on the constructivist and the sociocultural perspectives, the main focus is given on cognitivism, situativity, and various coordinations between the two. Exploring about psychological and social theories in the context of mathematics education is expected to enrich our understanding of where we have come from and where we are going.

• Research in Mathematical Education
• /
• v.6 no.1
• /
• pp.1-28
• /
• 2002

This study explored teachers (n = 219) from northern, central, southern and eastern Taiwan concerning their views about children's learning difficulties, mathematical instruction and school mathematics curricular. Results showed that teachers' mathematics knowledge or their instruction methods had no significant influence on their views of children's learning difficulties. Even though teachers indicated that understanding of abstract mathematical concepts was the most prominent difficulty for children, they tended to employ direct instruction rather than constructive and cooperative problem solving in their teaching. However, teachers' views of children's learning difficulties did influence their instructional practice. Results from in-dept interviews revealed that there were some obstacles that prevented teachers from putting constructiveism perspectives of instruction into teaching practice. Further investigation is needed to develop a better understanding of epistemology and teaming psychology as well as to help teachers create constructive learning situations.