• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
• /
• 제26권3호
• /
• pp.403-420
• /
• 2016

Some of the critical changes in the revised 2015 Korean Mathematics curriculum were that direct proportion and inverse proportion were moved from elementary school to middle school and that supplementary content related to correlation was included. These decisions were based on comparative studies of international curriculum. Therefore in this study, we selected countries for comparison; United States, England, France, Finland, Australia, Japan, Singapore, China and Taiwan. We looked into the timing and scope for direct/inverse proportion and correlation in curricula of these countries. Along with this, we established four criteria; vertical sequence, horizontal sequence, external connection, and internal connection for an analysis framework. Then we compared and analysed the direct/inverse proportion and correlation in each curriculum. As a result, in most of these curricula, the direct/inverse proportions are introduced at middle school or are introduced at elementary school and then developed further at middle school. Most of curriculums on direct/inverse proportion and correlation match the four criteria. Correlation is introduced in high school mathematics in all counties except Finland and it is dealt in diverse context introducing related concepts, for example, correlation coefficient, regression straight line, and least square. We suggested that it is necessary to refer these international trends for the next revision of curriculum.

• Communications of Mathematical Education
• /
• 제24권1호
• /
• pp.235-257
• /
• 2010

Contemporary belief is that the creative talented can create new knowledge and lead national development, so lots of countries in the world have interest in Gifted Education. As we well know, U.S.A., England, Russia, Germany, Australia, Israel, and Singapore enforce related laws in Gifted Education to offer Gifted Classes, and our government has also created an Improvement Act in January, 2000 and Enforcement Ordinance for Gifted Improvement Act was also announced in April, 2002. Through this initiation Gifted Education can be possible. Enforcement Ordinance was revised in October, 2008. The main purpose of this revision was to expand the opportunity of Gifted Education to students with special education needs. One of these programs is, the opportunity of Gifted Education to be offered to lots of the Gifted by establishing Special Classes at each school. Also, it is important that the quality of Gifted Education should be combined with the expansion of opportunity for the Gifted. Social opinion is that it will be reckless only to expand the opportunity for the Gifted Education, therefore, assessment on the Teaching and Learning Program for the Gifted is indispensible. In this study, 3 middle schools were selected for the Teaching and Learning Programs in mathematics. Each 1st Grade was reviewed and analyzed through comparative tables between Regular and Gifted Education Programs. Also reviewed was the content of what should be taught, and programs were evaluated on assessment standards which were revised and modified from the present teaching and learning programs in mathematics. Below, research issues were set up to assess the formation of content areas and appropriateness for Teaching and Learning Programs for the Gifted in mathematics. A. Is the formation of special class content areas complying with the 7th national curriculum? 1. Which content areas of regular curriculum is applied in this program? 2. Among Enrichment and Selection in Curriculum for the Gifted, which one is applied in this programs? 3. Are the content areas organized and performed properly? B. Are the Programs for the Gifted appropriate? 1. Are the Educational goals of the Programs aligned with that of Gifted Education in mathematics? 2. Does the content of each program reflect characteristics of mathematical Gifted students and express their mathematical talents? 3. Are Teaching and Learning models and methods diverse enough to express their talents? 4. Can the assessment on each program reflect the Learning goals and content, and enhance Gifted students' thinking ability? The conclusions are as follows: First, the best contents to be taught to the mathematical Gifted were found to be the Numeration, Arithmetic, Geometry, Measurement, Probability, Statistics, Letter and Expression. Also, Enrichment area and Selection area within the curriculum for the Gifted were offered in many ways so that their Giftedness could be fully enhanced. Second, the educational goals of Teaching and Learning Programs for the mathematical Gifted students were in accordance with the directions of mathematical education and philosophy. Also, it reflected that their research ability was successful in reaching the educational goals of improving creativity, thinking ability, problem-solving ability, all of which are required in the set curriculum. In order to accomplish the goals, visualization, symbolization, phasing and exploring strategies were used effectively. Many different of lecturing types, cooperative learning, discovery learning were applied to accomplish the Teaching and Learning model goals. For Teaching and Learning activities, various strategies and models were used to express the students' talents. These activities included experiments, exploration, application, estimation, guess, discussion (conjecture and refutation) reconsideration and so on. There were no mention to the students about evaluation and paper exams. While the program activities were being performed, educational goals and assessment methods were reflected, that is, products, performance assessment, and portfolio were mainly used rather than just paper assessment.

• East Asian mathematical journal
• /
• 제33권2호
• /
• pp.235-255
• /
• 2017

This study focuses on the teaching of fraction related to curriculum, introducing time of fraction, the meaning of fractions in textbook, material of teaching of fraction concept, teaching model of introducing time of fraction concept, special cases of teaching fraction and common points of representation of fraction among Korea, New Zealand and Singapore. For this study, Korea's mathematics textbooks(3-1, 3-2, 4-1, 5-1, 6-1) and New National Curriculum Mathematics(3, 4, 5. 6. 7)of New Zealand and New Syllabus Primary Mathematics(2B, 3B, 4A, 4B, 5A, 6A)of Singapore were selected for comparison and analysis. As a results we will suggest a reference to the development of mathematical curriculum, teaching fraction and improving the quality of the textbook through a method of comparative analysis of Korea, New Zealand and Singapore.

• School Mathematics
• /
• 제19권2호
• /
• pp.229-248
• /
• 2017

This study investigated the factors that should be considered when teaching proportional expression and proportional distribution through literature review. Based on these results, we analyzed and compared Korean and foreign mathematics textbooks on proportional expression and proportional distribution longitudinally and horizontally to search for desirable methods of organizing the unit of proportional expression and proportional distribution in mathematics textbooks. For longitudinal analysis, we took the mathematics textbooks according to the national curriculum since the 5th one. For horizontal analysis, we selected the mathematics textbooks of Japan, Singapore, and China. In each textbook, the contents and the order in relation to proportional expression and proportional distribution, the definitions of terminology, and the contexts and the visual representations for introducing related concepts are selected as the analysis framework. The results of analysis revealed many characteristics and the differences in ways of dealing contents about proportional expression and proportional distribution. Based on these results, we suggested some implications for writing the unit of proportional expression and proportional distribution in elementary mathematics textbooks.

• East Asian mathematical journal
• /
• 제28권2호
• /
• pp.109-133
• /
• 2012

In this research, I selected a Singapore elementary mathematics textbook which substantially reflects Singapore curriculum, and compared it with Korean one to understand how they differ in the contents system of the curriculum focused on the contents of the geometry and measurement strand, and analyzed their common points and different points intensively with textbooks for sixth-grade students. Also, I translated a chapter of the textbook, 'Mathematics in Action'. That chapter was about circumference and the area of the circle which is related to the shapes part. Then, I taught it to the experimental group to compare their achievement and the change of reaction to studying the shape-related parts with those of the control group. The results are the followings. First, when we analyze the contents of shape-related part of the textbooks for sixth-grade students of both countries, Singaporean textbook contains more contents that are introduced for the first time, which implies that it is more desirable to teach new concepts of shapes when students are in their higher grades. Second, as for the way they develop the activity of each chapter, Korean textbook sticks to a uniform way, while the Singapore textbook uses various ways for different subjects and grades. In addition, when they organize the contents of the textbook, they emphasize the importance of student's activity and lead students with various methods by suggesting several questions and situations.

• Communications of Mathematical Education
• /
• 제38권2호
• /
• pp.121-144
• /
• 2024

This study analyzes how the academic achievement of students in Korea changes as they transition from 4th grade of elementary school to 2nd grade of middle school, considering that the 4th graders in the previous TIMSS cycle become 2nd graders in the next cycle. In particular, this study selects and compares the eight main countries in the TIMSS math evaluation (Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, USA, UK, Australia, and Russia) to analyze the trend of change in academic achievement of Korean students according to school grade transition. The trend of change in academic achievement of students was analyzed not only overall but also by content area (number, geometry and measurement, data representation (data and probability/data and probability), gender, and regional scale. The analysis focused on the average score and the proportion of students by achievement level. The results of the study are as follows. First, there was no significant change in the average score of Korean students' academic achievement as the school grade transitioned, but the achievement gap widened in terms of the proportion by achievement level. Second, there were differences in students' academic achievement by content area according to school grade transition, and the pattern differed depending on the evaluation cycle. Third, there was a significant gap in students' math academic achievement depending on gender and regional scale of school location. This study reveals that the achievement gap among students in our country widens as they transition between school levels. The gap is found to vary in terms of achievement level, math content area, student gender, and school location. To alleviate these disparities, more substantial research and support are proposed in addition to policy implementation by the government or provincial offices of education.

• Journal of Elementary Mathematics Education in Korea
• /
• 제22권2호
• /
• pp.183-198
• /
• 2018

In this paper, I theoretically considered joining and separating activities and revisited the textbooks from 7 countries and Korean mathematics textbooks from 5th revised curriculum to 2015 revised curriculum to find implication for the treatment of 0 in the joining and separating activities. The 'joining' has definition and properties similar to addition, but the 'separating'is difficult to define and is not considered to have properties similar to subtraction. In the sense of computation, joining and separating can be seen as' part-part-to-whole' situations, but are just part of the addition and subtraction situations. The analysis of textbooks from 7 counties showed that Singapore and Malaysia textbooks already studied zero and then included it in joining and separating activities, but other countries did not include it as joining and separating activities. The textbooks of South Korea have consistently suggested not to include zero, but teacher's guide has shown that there is a little consistency in the treatment of zero. As a conclusion, I suggested that it was necessary to propose a proper context of the situation in order to introduce joining and separating without including 0 in terms of student level and to propose that a more consistent presentation of zero handling in the teaching in the teacher's guide.

• Journal of the International Relations & Interdisciplinary Education
• /
• 제4권1호
• /
• pp.85-111
• /
• 2024

Since the release of the 2000 PISA results, Finland's education has consistently been regarded as a competitor or benchmark for South Korea's educational system. However, recent indicators of division, opposition, and discontent within our educational sphere suggest a considerable departure from Finland's ethos of happiness in education. Against this backdrop, this study aims to analyze the trends in Finnish education-related research appearing in Korean academic journals. Utilizing network text analysis, we examined 160 papers indexed in RISS with titles containing "Finland" and "education". Key findings are as follows. Firstly, research on Finnish education has been steadily increasing, albeit showing recent signs of decline. Secondly, the majority of research topics were micro-level, with literature review-based methodologies predominating. Thirdly, a minority of researchers accounted for one-third of the total research output. Fourthly, countries compared with Finland predominantly included neoliberal states such as Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Singapore. Fifthly, research themes and subjects primarily focused on primary and secondary education, particularly in domains such as mathematics and science, influenced by PISA. Future research on Finnish education should transcend localized and fragmented areas of inquiry, undertaking comprehensive investigations into the processes and history of Finland's happiness-oriented education. Such endeavors are essential for deriving insights crucial for our learning. Particularly, consideration should be given to moving beyond literature-based methodologies, fostering international collaborative discussions facilitated online, and linking the Finnish education community with educators, parents, students, local councils, and governmental stakeholders to collectively discuss and research.