• Education of Primary School Mathematics
• /
• v.5 no.2
• /
• pp.163-172
• /
• 2001

Recently, higher discussions are made up on the culture of mathematics classrooms. These discussions are mostly about desirable culture and reform of culture in mathematics education. This paper is to offer a view point of seeing the culture of mathematics classroom. We need to look straightly our classroom as well as to reform the culture of mathematice classroom. This paper recommend sociomathematical norms to analyze and reform classroom culture. A elementary mathematics classroom was analyzed to understand our own culture of mathematics classroom.

• Education of Primary School Mathematics
• /
• v.10 no.2
• /
• pp.151-161
• /
• 2007

There were a lot of attempt to reform mathematics education. These may include reforms of teaching and learning methods, development of mathematics curriculum and textbooks, materials and resources for teaching. But the most important thing is reform of teaching and learning method. The teaching and learning in mathematics is related with culture of mathematics classroom. Thus the culture of mathematics classroom plays a critical role in the learning of mathematics. Although there is consensus what desirable culture of mathematics classroom is, the role of teachers is important to make desirable culture of mathematics classroom. So, this paper suggested the role of teachers in reforming the culture of mathematics classroom. Avoiding from routine and technical teaching, the teachers should play active role in constructing mathematical understanding of students.

• Research in Mathematical Education
• /
• v.12 no.3
• /
• pp.167-177
• /
• 2008

The students' beliefs about mathematics teaching-learning come from the social activities in mathematics classrooms; and the mathematics classroom culture to a large extent decides the social activities in mathematics classrooms. So, the students' beliefs about mathematics teaching-learning are decided indirectly by the mathematics classroom culture mainly. The students' beliefs about mathematics teaching-learning react to the social activities in mathematics classrooms, and the social activities in mathematics classrooms react to the mathematics classroom culture. Therefore, the students' beliefs about mathematics teaching-learning react indirectly to the mathematics classroom culture. So, the relationships between the students' beliefs about mathematics teaching-learning and the mathematics classroom culture are dialectic, and the social activities in mathematics classrooms are the medium. In addition, the relationships have some inspirations to the current mathematics curriculum reform in the mainland China.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
• /
• v.34 no.2
• /
• pp.238-251
• /
• 2015

This study, based on literature review and theoretical discussion, reinterprets the learning environment instruments from cultural perspectives and suggests the applicability of learning environment instruments for understanding science classroom cultures. To do this, the existing learning environment instruments are first investigated and compared in terms of their features and utilizations appeared in previous studies. The learning environment instruments are then reinterpreted in the light of culture. Finally, we suggest the possibilities to use the learning environment instruments to understand science classroom cultures. The results of this study can be summarized as follows. First, the learning environment instruments, by interpreting them culturally, could be interpreted in cultural ways and used as the alternative ways to explore science classroom cultures. Second, the learning environment instruments, such as WIHIC and CLEQ, could be interpreted both along the dimension of phenomena in classrooms and the dimension of students' psychology in order to investigate science classroom cultures. Third, the instrument items could be interpreted culturally in different ways according to the description types of instrument items. Thus, when learning environment instruments are used in culture research, the description types should be sufficiently taken into account. Based on the results of this study, educational implications are discussed in terms of exploring classroom cultures and of culture research.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
• /
• v.14 no.3
• /
• pp.283-304
• /
• 2004

This study is to make strides toward an enriched understanding of changing a prevailing teacher-centered mathematics classroom culture to a student-centered culture by analyzing six reform-oriented classrooms of three elementary school teachers throughout a year This study provided a detailed description of important classroom episodes to explore how the participants in each class established a reform-oriented mathematics microculture. Despite the exemplary form of student-centered instruction, the content and qualities of the teaching practices are somewhat different in the extent to which students' ideas become the center of mathematical discourse and activity. Given the similarities in terms of general social norms and the differences in terms of socio-mathematical norms and mathematical practice, this study addresses some crucial issues on understanding the culture of elementary mathematics classroom in transition.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
• /
• v.11 no.2
• /
• pp.273-289
• /
• 2001

Given that the culture of the mathematics classroom has been perceived as an important topic in mathematics education research, this paper deals with the construct of sociomathematical norms which can be used as an analytical tool in understanding classroom mathematical culture. This paper first reviews the theoretical foundations of the construct such as symbolic interactionism and ethnomethodology, and describes the actual classroom contexts in which social and sociomathematical norms were originally identified. This paper then provides a critical analysis of the previous studies with regard to sociomathematical norms. Whereas such studies analyze how sociomathematical norms become constituted and stabilized in the specific classroom contexts, they tend to briefly document sociomathematical norms mainly as a precursor to the detailed analysis of classroom mathematical practice. This paper reveals that the trend stems from the following two facts. First, the construct of sociomathematical norms evolved out of a classroom teaching experiment in which Cobb and his colleagues attempted to account for students' conceptual loaming as it occurred in the social context of an inquiry mathematics classroom. Second, the researchers' main role was to design instructional devices and sequences of specific mathematical content and to support the classroom teacher to foster students' mathematical learning using those sequences Given the limitations in terms of the utility of sociomathematical norms, this paper suggests the possibility of positioning the sociomathematical norms construct as more centrally reflecting the quality of students' mathematical engagement in collective classroom processes and predicting their conceptual teaming opportunities. This notion reflects the fact that the construct of sociomathematical norms is intended to capture the essence of the mathematical microculture established in a classroom community rather than its general social structure. The notion also allows us to see a teacher as promoting sociomathematical norms to the extent that she or he attends to concordance between the social processes of the classroom, and the characteristically mathematical ways of engaging. In this way, the construct of sociomathematical norms include, but in no ways needs to be limited to, teacher's mediation of mathematics discussions.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.23 no.4
• /
• pp.331-340
• /
• 2003

This paper presents a case study of the student's culture as a component of conceptual ecology that affects discussions and discourses in the science classroom. The present study was conducted using a naturalistic approach, mainly through observing a science class of a middle school in Seoul, Korea, and through semistructured interviews. The case showed that the science classroom culture can be identified in four aspects: (1) knowledge; (2) the teacher; (3) classmates; and (4) self. These cultural aspects were strongly related to each other and functioned as constraints in discussions and discourses of the science classroom. For successful discussions and discourses, it is necessary to consider students' cultural aspects: epistemological views on knowledge, the teacher-student and student-student relationships, and the role of self in the discussions and discourses.

• Education of Primary School Mathematics
• /
• v.4 no.2
• /
• pp.105-110
• /
• 2000

This paper is discussing about the culture of mathematics classroom for problem solving. The mathematics classroom which we have to aim at is where every students make proper belief and attitude about mathematics, and also can express their own idea and make question freely. In that classroom, the students can meet with various problem solving methods and communicate with other students, and then elaborate their own method.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
• /
• v.8 no.3
• /
• pp.343-356
• /
• 2005

The purpose of this study is to search whether mathematical beliefs have changed when new social norms are formed in math classroom through research using survey papers about mathematical beliefs and math class video photographing. In addition, it would search for social norms of mathematical classroom which affects to students' mathematical beliefs by analyzing culture of mathematical classroom. The result was that the class focusing only general social norms wasn't enough to change students' mathematical beliefs. And as we have examined sociomathematical norms of math classroom through analyzing culture of mathematics classroom, it has affected students' mathematical beliefs.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.35 no.3
• /
• pp.499-508
• /
• 2015

The purposes of this study are to investigate elementary students' perception of science classroom through an analysis of students' answer to an open-ended question and to suggest a framework for the analysis of science classroom culture, as the first step to develop an analysis tool for qualitative exploration of science classroom culture. We analyzed 571 responses and developed an analysis framework with six categories (i.e. major factors; power structure of a classroom community; focused domains of the science classroom; student concerns; atmosphere of science classroom; participation form). The details of the six categories can be summarized as follows: (1) major factors were revealed to be practical work, fun, teacher, community and others; (2) the power structure of classroom community was in the order of peer students, teacher, and individual student himself/herself; (3) the focused domains of the science classroom perceived by students were more about affective and behavioral domains than cognitive one; (4) major student concerns were teachers' teaching, having practical work, and the understanding of and the sharing of knowledge and opinions (5) science classroom atmosphere was noisy and pranky but fun and interesting; (6) the students participation forms were to be total participation or voluntary participation or cooperative practice. Through this study, not only suggesting the framework, but we could also get implications for the cultural aspects of science classroom based on the results of data analysis in this study.