• The Mathematical Education
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.265-289
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• 2001

The elementary and middle school curriculum in Korea has been modified periodically to reach today's 7th national curriculum. Although the intent of each new curriculum was to improve education, lack of proper preparation for teachers and students has not made the new curriculums as effective as it could be. Goodlad et al.(1979) suggested that curriculum should encompass all practices including not only knowledge but all the elements of the curriculum and experiences of the student and teachers. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the actual practices of the current curriculum with focus on the use of instructional media in mathematics teaching and learning. A nationwide curriculum survey was carried out with the Goodlad's curriculum inquiry model as the framework. The result shows that elementary and secondary mathematics teachers used textbook manual (for teachers) and practice books most frequently for their class preparation. In addition to these, mathematics teachers also used manipulatives, visual aids, computers, internet, and calculators in a decreasing order. In general, many mathematics teachers did not use much instructional media in their classes and said that there are not enough effective instructional media to use. However, the teachers have positive attitude toward the educational media that they have used. In this study, we analyzed the survey data regarding educational tools, their use and effects to support the development of a new curriculum model in mathematics for a knowledge-based society.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.89-109
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• 2020

This study aims to improve teacher education by analyzing the causes and backgrounds of which pre-service mathematics teachers experience learning difficulties on the topic of discrete mathematics. To this end, we conducted a questionnaire and an evaluation on the topic of discrete mathematics, and the obtained data were analyzed. The results show that (1) pre-service mathematics teachers need to share their perceptions of the need for discrete mathematics education; (2) a review of the adequacy of the discrete mathematical content and its credits are required; (3) the causes of their learning difficulties need to be looked at from a different perspective than the learning factors. And two implications were obtained. First, it is necessary to study the systematicity and sequence of content elements of discrete mathematics in the aspect of its continuity of curriculum of secondary school and university. Second, it is required consideration for adjusting the ratio of discrete mathematics to secondary teachers' employment examination.

• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.203-233
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• 2023

Recent international reform movements call for attention on modeling in mathematics classrooms. However, definitions and enactment principles are unclear in policy documents. In this case study, we investigated United States high-school mathematics teachers' experiences in a professional development program focused on modeling and its enactment in schools. Our findings share teachers' experiences around their discovery of different conceptualizations, appreciations, and conflicts as they envisioned incorporating modeling into classrooms. These experiences show how professional development can be designed to engage teachers with forms of modeling, and that those experiences can inspire them to consider modeling as an imperative feature of a mathematics program.

• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.33-51
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• 2007

The present study explores mathematics teachers' understanding of division by zero and their approaches to explaining the impossibility of division by zero. This study analyzes Chinese and Korean middle school mathematics teachers' responses to the teaching task of explaining the impossibility of dividing 7 by zero, and examples of teachers' reasoned explanations for their answers are presented. The findings from this study suggest that most Korean teachers offer multiple types of mathematical explanations for justifying the impossibility of division by zero, while Chinese teachers' explanations were more uniform and based less on mathematical ideas than those of their Korean counterparts. Another finding from this study is that teachers' particular conceptions of zero were strongly associated with their justifications for the impossibility of division by zero, and the influence of the teachers' conceptions of zero was revealed as a barrier in composing a well-reasoned explanation for the impossibility of division by zero. One of the practical implications of this study is those teachers' basic attitudes toward always attempting to give explanations for mathematical facts or mathematical concepts do not seem to be derived solely from their sufficient knowledge of the facts or concepts of mathematics.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.275-290
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• 2014

This study aims to examine how secondary mathematics teachers perceive and how they use constructed-response assessment in their mathematics classrooms. For this purpose, we conducted a survey in Seoul, Inchun, and Gyeonggi-do; 189 teachers participated in the survey. Results from the data analysis suggest as follows: a) the secondary mathematics teachers participated in the survey seem to consider the primary goals of assessment through constructed-response items as evaluating student achievement and the development of students' thinking and creativity; b) the teachers perceive that constructed-response assessment would promote students' mathematical thinking and problem solving skills; c) in general, constructed-response items were included in both performance assessment(less than 20 percent) and paper-and-pencil test(20 to 40 percent); and d) constructed-response items were primarily used as a part of regular examination, rather than as an independent assessment.

• Journal of Engineering Education Research
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.9-17
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to analyze elementary and secondary school teachers' recognition about engineering education in elementary and secondary school. For this, we surveyed elementary and secondary school teachers. The result of this study is as follow. First, most teachers perceived that engineering positively affect national competitiveness and development. They also found that engineering education helps student to select natural science and engineering field career. Moreover, they perceived that engineering contents are not applied in elementary and secondary schools curriculums, hence it does not stimulate interest in engineering. Therefore, they perceived that if engineering education contents are systematically applied in formal curriculum, it will have a positive effect on current engineering education. Second, most teachers perceived that roles of engineering education are to make students learn creative design and problem solving process and inform about the engineering field career. They perceived that the best grade to start engineering education is 4~6 grade in elementary school and the best way to apply engineering education is through distributing engineering education contents to related subjects. They also perceived that technology subject has the most relation to engineering education and science subjects; mathematics subject follow after.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.45 no.1 s.112
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• pp.105-121
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• 2006

The purpose of this study is to investigate preservice secondary mathematics teachers' knowledge about graphical representation and provide implications for better mathematics teaching and learning in our schools. For this purpose, sixty-three preservice teachers were selected and given diverse graphical representation problems of y=1, y=x, x=0, $x^2+y^2=1$. All preservice teachers completed two types of questionnaires. First type is about constructing the graphs of the above each equation, and the second one is to make them find the appropriate graphs from given examples of the each equation. The results indicated that all the participant pre service teachers were unable to construct graphs in terms of various dimensions and various direction of coordinate axis. All of the participants represented the graph of each equation on only two-dimensional coordinate system. In addition, some preservice teachers believed that the axis of coordinates have to be x-axis on horizontal line and y-axis on vertical line. From this study, it is implicated that pre service teacher education program needs to provide the experience of representing the graphs of equation in terms of various dimensions and various direction of coordinate axis so as to develop their future students the flexibility and creativity in mathematical thinking especially in the area of space perception.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.537-560
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• 2017

This study aims to investigate secondary mathematics teachers' beliefs about graphing calculator use in mathematics classrooms. For the purpose, we adopted a research instrument that was developed by Brown et. al(2007) and surveyed 32 mathematics teachers about their beliefs about graphing calculator use and teaching practice with calculators in their mathematics instruction. The data analysis suggested that the teachers rarely used calculators in their instruction and they have not had opportunities to use calculators in learning and teaching mathematics. Also, results suggested that the many teachers showed "Crutch beliefs"about the use of calculators in mathematics instruction.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.11-29
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• 1998

The purpose of this thesis was to improve the plans and methods of teaching and learning activities and contribute to developing teachers` quality and reeducating them by investigating teachers' attitudes toward teaching and learning have a significant effect on the students' attitudes toward mathematics and the students' ability development at mathematics. The inventory was composed of 56 items : three main areas and eight sub-areas. Added seven background factors were sex, by whom was established (is it a public or nongovernmental \ulcorner), teaching career, age, what kind of school (is it general or vacational high school or middle school\ulcorner), region, college. For this analysis of materials used SAS program. And analysis of variance was applied on the seven background factors. All subjects in this study were 341 secondary school mathematics teachers in pusan city and Kyungsangnam-do were surveyed by the questionnaire of Likert type to which the respondents' seven background elements were added. Main results this study were as follows : 1. The overall attitude of the measured secondary school mathematics teachers tends to be positive but a little indifferent. Also attitude toward the students was a little more positive than the other attitudes. 2. There were significant differences (1%) among the sub-level areas except three of them. (r = 0.17~0.60) 3. There were significant differences (5%) by the result of Multiple comparison test among the schools in learning and teaching. So the teachers working at middle schools and general high schools were more positive than those working at vocational high schools. 4. The result of comparison among region was that teachers working in towns and cities were more positive than those working in the country. But there was no significant difference between the teachers working in large cities and those working in other region. 5. There was no significant difference in the overall attitudes toward teaching and learnig among the sex, by whom was established(is it public or nongovernmental\ulcorner), teaching career, age, college. The study left much deficiency to be desired and has to be followed by a continuing study to make it better. For the following study, it is necessary to examine the validity and reliability of the measuring tools more thoroughly and investigate the attitudes with sufficient samples all over the country.

• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.79-97
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• 2013

This paper reports findings from a survey of senior secondary school students' epistemological conceptions of mathematics with the adaption of the instrument of the "Conceptions of Mathematics" - Inventory in China. The survey included a sample of 414 Grade 10 students, 441 Grade 11 students, and 400 Grade 12 students from three provinces. Descriptive statistics, one-way ANOVA, and T-test were employed to analyze data in this study. It was found that senior secondary school students mainly focused on objectivity and reality of mathematics, without highlighting the characteristics of sociality, subjectivity, and creativity of mathematics. In addition, besides gender differences, differences were identified among students from different grades, different areas, taught by teachers with different teaching experience and experience in using reformed curriculum.