• School Mathematics
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.403-425
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• 2005

The study aims to get real picture of primary mathematics education based on RME in the Netherlands focusing on number and operations strand by reflecting and analyzing the documents in relation to the primary school mathematics curriculum. In order to attain these purposes, the present paper describes the core goals for mathematics education, Dutch Pluspunt textbook series for the primary school, and a learning-teaching trajectory by TAL project which are determinants of the Dutch primary school mathematics curriculum. Under these reflections on the documents, it is analyzed what is the characteristics of number and operations strand in the Nether-lands as follows: counting numbers, contextualization, positioning, structuring, progressive algoritmization based on levels, estimation and insightful use of a calculator. Finally, discussing Points for improving our primary mathematics curriculum and textbook series development are described.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.1-31
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• 2007

Negative numbers have been one of the most difficult mathematical concepts, and it was only 200 years ago that they were recognized as a real object of mathematics by mathematicians. It was because it took more than 1500 years for human beings to overcome the quantitative notion of numbers and recognize the formality in negative numbers. Understanding negative numbers as formal ones resulted from the Copernican conversion in mathematical way of thinking. we first investigated the historic and the genetic process of the concept of negative numbers. Second, we analyzed the conceptual fields of negative numbers in the aspect of the additive and multiplicative structure. Third, we inquired into the levels of thinking on the concept of negative numbers on the basis of the historical and the psychological analysis in order to understand the formal concept of negative numbers. Fourth, we analyzed Korean mathematics textbooks on the basis of the thinking levels of the concept of negative numbers. Fifth, we investigated and analysed the levels of students' understanding of the concept of negative numbers. Sixth, we analyzed the symbolizing process in the development of mathematical concept. Futhermore, we tried to show a concrete way to teach the formality of the negative numbers concepts on the basis of such theoretical analyses.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.52 no.4
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• pp.497-516
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• 2013

Inspite of many strengthens of storytelling mathematics education, some problems are expected: when math is taught in concrete contexts, students may have trouble to extract concepts, to transfer to noble and abstract contexts, and they may experience inert knowledge problem. Low achieving students are particularly prone to these issues. To solve these problems some suggestions are made by the author. These are analogous encoding and progressive formalism. Using analogous encoding method students can construct concepts and schema more easily and transfer knowledge which shares structural similarity. Progressive formalism is an effective way of introducing concepts progressively moving from concrete contexts to abstract context.

• School Mathematics
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.131-145
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• 2009

This research was designed to investigate the possibility to teach function concept and graph representation of functions in explicit manner toward at elementary level. Eight class-hours instruction was given to four Grade 5(age 11) students, and dynamic geometry software GSP was partially used in the class. Results indicate that the students could conceptualize the function relation, interpret linear function graphs, recognize the meaning of their slopes, and discuss the relationships among linear graphs and real life situation. Results also indicate that GSP helped students to recognize the relation between dots and the linear graph clearly and that GSP-line graph did decisive role for children to understand the meaning of graph representation of function.

• School Mathematics
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.43-58
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• 2003

This study intends to compare the structure of contents and the way of developing concepts in mathematics textbooks of south and those of north Korea. After thorough investigations of the textbooks from south and north Korea, the following three characteristics were identified. First, the mathematics textbooks of south Korea tends to spread out contents across several grades, while those of north Korea have a tendency of centralization in terms of locating contents Second, in the textbooks of South Korea, mathematics concepts are permeated through real world situations, and students gradually acquire those concepts mostly through activities. This is different from the approach of the north Korean textbooks in which various problems play a key role in explaining concepts. Third, the main strategy of introducing contents in the textbooks of south and that of north Korea corresponds to 'guidance' and 'explanation' respectively. Exploratory questions leading to the concepts are more emphasized in the textbooks of south Korea, on the other hand, meaningful explanations play an important role in the textbooks of north Korea.

• School Mathematics
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.487-506
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• 2007

The aims of this study is figure out the characteristics of justification patterns and mathematical representation which are derived from 14 mathematically gifted middle school students in the process of solving the spatial tasks on Archimedean solid. This study shows that mathematically gifted students apply different types of justification such as empirical, or deductive justification and partial or whole justification. It would be necessary to pay attention to the value of informal justification, by comparing the response of student who understood the entire transformation process and provided a reasonable explanation considering all component factors although presenting informal justification and that of student who showed formalization process based on partial analysis. Visual representation plays an valuable role in finding out the Idea of solving the problem and grasping the entire structure of the problem. We found that gifted students tried to create elaborated symbols by consolidating mathematical concepts into symbolic re-presentations and modifying them while gradually developing symbolic representations. This study on justification patterns and mathematical representation of mathematically gifted students dealing with spatial geometry tasks provided an opportunity for understanding their the characteristics of spacial geometrical thinking and expending their thinking.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.18 no.9
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• pp.1239-1247
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• 1993

Mathematical morphology based on the set theory has been applied to various areas in image processing. In this study, we propose a new pyramid structure for binary images based on the morphological operations. We use a specific class of structuring elements to shrink or expand images, and prove that the whole operations are separable to construct the pyramid. Through a simulation study, we show that the pyramid can be used as a progressive image coding.

• The KIPS Transactions:PartD
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• v.8D no.4
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• pp.421-426
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• 2001

A formal development method is used to develop software rigorously and systematically. In a formal development method, we specify system by a formal specification language and gradually develop the system more concretely until we can implement the system. VDM is one of formal specification languages. VDM uses mathematical data structures such as sets, sequences, and maps to specify the system, but most programming languages do not have such data structures. Therefore, these data structures should be converted. We can convert mathematical data structures in VDM to a linked list, a data structure in a programming language. In this article, we propose a method to convert a set, a sequence, and a map in VDM to a linked list in a programming language and prove the correctness of this conversion mathematically.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.387-402
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• 2003

Realistic Mathematics Education (RME) focuses on guided reinvention through which students explore experientially realistic context problems to develop informal problem solving strategies and solutions. This research applied this philosophy of RME to design a differential equation course at a university level. In particular, the course encouraged the students of the course to use numerical methods to solve differential equations. In this context, the purpose of this research was to describe the developmental process in which the students constructed and reinvented Euler algorithm in the class. For the purpose, this paper will present the didactical principle of RME and describe the process of developmental research to investigate the inferential process of students in solving the first order differential equation numerically. Finally, the qualitative analysis of the students' reasoning and use of symbols reveals how the students reinvent Euler algorithm under the didactical principle of guided reinvention. In this research, it has been found that the students developed deep understanding of Euler algorithm in the class. Moreover, it has been shown that the experience of doing mathematics in the course had a positive impact on students' mathematical belief and attitude. These findings imply that the didactical principle of RME can be applied to design university mathematical courses and in general, provide a perspective on how to reform mathematics curriculum at a university level.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.49 no.2
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• pp.175-198
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• 2010

To understand natural or social phenomena, we need various information, knowledge, and thought skills. In this context, mathematics and sciences provide us with excellent tools for that purpose. This explains the reasons why there is always significant emphasis on mathematics and sciences in school education; some of the general goals in school education today are to illustrate physical phenomena with mathematical tools based on scientific consideration, to encourage students understand the mathematical concepts implied in the phenomena, and provide them with ability to apply what they learned to the real world problems. For the mentioned goals, we extract six fundamental principles for the integrated mathematics and science education (IMSE) from literature review and suggest a instructional design model. This model forms a fundamental of a case study we performed to which the IMSE was applied and tested to collect insights for design and practice. The case study was done for 10 students (2 female students, 8 male ones) at a coeducational high school in Seoul, the first semester 2009. Educational tools including graphic calculator(Voyage200) and motion detector (CBR) were utilized in the class. The analysis result for the class show that the students have successfully developed various mathematical concepts including the rate of change, the instantaneous rate of change, and derivatives based on the physical concepts like velocity, accelerate, etc. In the class, they described the physical phenomena with mathematical expressions and understood the motion of objects based on the idea of derivatives. From this result, we conclude that the IMSE builds integrated knowledge for the students in a positive way.