• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.67-83
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• 2008

Promoting students' mathematics understanding is an important research theme in mathematics education. According to general theories of learning, mathematics understanding is close to active learning or significant learning. Thus, if a teacher wants to promote his/her students' mathematics understanding, he/she should pay attention to the students so that the students' thinking is in active situation. In the first part of this paper, some mathematics teachers' ideas about paying attention to their students in Chinese high school are given by questionnaire and interview. In the second part of this paper, we give some teaching episodes about how experienced mathematics teachers promote their students' mathematics understanding based on paying attention on them.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.379-392
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• 2013

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of animation-based instruction on elementary students' level of understanding and interest on a plant's structure and function, using "Magic School Bus(Joanna Cole, Bruce Degen, 1986)". The understanding and interest measurements were administered to 99 fifth grade students at a elementary school located in Seoul. The study examined the changes in understanding and interest through pre-test and post-test of the two groups. Intensive interviews were conducted to find factors that enhance understanding and interest. Three key findings were revealed from the results. First, the animation-based instruction enhanced the level of understanding in the experimental group compared to the control group. Second, animation-based instruction made high-achieving students enhance their interest in topic component and attitude component. And, animation-based instruction did not led low-achieving students to increase their interest in the topic component and attitude component. We suggest that animation-based instruction positively influences students' understanding, but its effects on students' interest are dependent on their conceptual understanding of the topic.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.141-151
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• 2014

This study is to explain understanding types about the concept of a 'Region' in the 3rd grade high school students(39) through open-ended questionnaires and describe the pedagogical utilizations for this. Students' understanding types about the concept of a 'Region' are compared and then determined through two meaning agreement and association between meaning of students' understanding which is collected through open-ended questionnaires and meaning of a 'Region' which is described in high school curriculum. The results are as in the following. First, Students' understanding types about the concept of a 'Region' were divided into four categories: full, partial, ambiguous, and converted understanding. Second, The degree of right meaning agreement and association existing between two meanings is rising steadily by converted, ambiguous, partial, and full understanding. For this reason, This result can make sure the understanding degree about the concept of a 'Region' is different depending on the students. Third, Students' partial understanding, ambiguous understanding and converted understanding on region concept could be judged as misconception not fully corresponded to region concept in the curriculum explanation. Fourth, Teachers can achieve conceptual change through this misconception as a subject matter of educational dialogue for meaning change.

• 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.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.437-451
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• 1995

Middle and high school students' conceptual understanding about stoichiometry, gas laws, and diffusion was compared with essay type test and multiple choice test. Whereas achievement of high school students was higher in stoichiometry, that of middle school students who were expected to go to high schools was higher in gas laws and diffusion. When students' achievement was compared to that of American college students, Korean students' achievement was higher in stoichiometry and was similar in gas laws. These results indicate that algorithmic problem solving is more emphasized than conceptual understanding in high schools and that quantitative aspects focused in chemistry education are not helpful in concept understanding. Nevertheless relatively smaller difference between concept understanding and algorithmic problem solving for high school students in this study seems to be from concept learning in middle schools.

• Communications of Mathematical Education
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• v.15
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• pp.281-286
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• 2003

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate how and to what extent 'representations' affect the students' understanding and the growth of understanding in a technology [GSP]-based collegiate mathematics classroom. There are three themes related as frames of the study along with this purpose, which are mentioned in the first chapter and extended in the second chapter: technology in mathematics education; images on computer screen - visualization and representation; understanding and growth of understanding. Three research questions guided this study: 1) How do students present each component of representations when they study 'transformations' in a technology [GSP]-based classroom? If there is any difference between the first and second presentation for each component, how are they different?; 2) How and to what extent do representations affect the students' understanding and the growth of understanding in a technology [GSP]-based classroom?; What types of benefits and obstacles are there when students study 'transformations' in a technology [GSP]-based classroom?

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.32 no.9
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• pp.1417-1426
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• 2012

The purpose of this study was to analyze elementary school students' understanding of the human body by drawing the human organism. Data was gathered by open questionnaires of drawing for human body. The open questionnaire was taken with 530 elementary school students from 3rd to 6th grade. The results were as following: First, elementary school students show the highest understanding of the skeletal system, the digestive systems, the respiratory systems, the circulating system and the muscular system respectively. Second, elementary school students' understanding of the human body improved as the grade goes up. Third, it seems that elementary school students have had their own knowledge about the human body through environmental surroundings before learning about the human body.

• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.175-188
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• 2022

Measurement has been an important part of mathematics content students must learn through their schooling. Many studies suggest students' weak measurement learning, particularly related to length measurement, on the part of lower grade students. This difficulty has been attributed to mathematics curriculum as well as instruction. Building on a view of teaching as an interactive activity, this paper explores how a first grade teacher interacted with her students in small groups in a length measurement lesson to promote conceptual understanding as well as procedural fluency. I found that even though the teacher supported students to explain and justify what they understood, the ways the teacher interacted with students were not effective to promote students' understanding. Even though this finding is based on an analysis of a single mathematics lesson, it provides an example of challenges in promoting students' understanding through interaction with students in the context of teaching length measurement.

• Hwankyungkyoyuk
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.59-65
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• 2008

The purpose of this study was to development the Animals-Understanding Program in city park with zoo for elementary school students, futhermore this study evaluated changes of elementary school students' attitude toward animals. The Animals-Understanding Program was consisted of 10 units which are as follows: structure and history of Dalseong Park, preparation before out-door learning, out-door learning in Dalseong Park 1 2, basic understanding of animals 1 2 3, male and female of animals, vertebrates and invertebrates, relationship between animals and human. According to the results of this study, the Animals-Understanding Program has an effect on students' attitude toward animals. More specifically, students' attitude toward antiutilization was not affected, their attitude toward knowledge about animals, psychological aspects of animals, and empathy for animals were definitely showing the effect.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.27 no.8
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• pp.677-692
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• 2007

In this study, university students were provided with repeated opportunities to represent their ideas graphically, and to examined via their drawings the extent to which they could visualize macroscopic phenomena microscopically. These drawings provided insight into the students' basic understanding of solution chemistry, revealing three conceptual models: the Undifferentiated Symbolic Model, the Particulate Model, and the Symbolic Ionic Model. Generally speaking, students who had poor conceptual understanding tended to exhibit the Undifferentiated Symbolic Model, whereas students with deeper understanding tended to employ the Symbolic Ionic Model. Students' conceptual comprehension was predictable from their graphical representations, which better elucidated what they actually comprehended about the phenomena, as opposed to their ambiguous verbal descriptions alone. The results of this study demonstrated a lack of development in university students' conceptions of solutions. Their weakness in understanding at the molecular-level became more obvious when they were asked to represent their ideas in drawings. Few students exhibited expert knowledge, and several common misconceptions were found, which indicated typical difficulties students have perceiving common phenomena at the molecular level. The findings of this study illustrate how eliciting graphical representations can be used to assess students' conceptual understandings.