• 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.

• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.11-19
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• 2016

Investigating students' lived mathematical experiences presents dual challenges for the researcher. On the one hand, we must respect that students' experiences are not directly accessible to us and are likely very different from our own experiences. On the other hand, we might not want to rely upon the students' own characterizations of what constitutes mathematics because these characterizations could be limited to the formal products students learn in school. I suggest a characterization of mathematics as objectified action, which would lead the researcher to focus on students' operations-mental actions organized as objects within structures so that they can be acted upon. Teachers' and researchers' models of these operations and structures can be used as a launching point for understanding students' experiences of mathematics. Teaching experiments and clinical interviews provide a means for the teacher-researcher to infer students' available operations and structures on the basis of their physical activity (including verbalizations) and to begin harmonizing with their mathematical experience.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.75-95
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to evaluate a group activity, reciprocal peer tutoring (RPT), in order to investigate advantages and challenges of RPT in promoting cooperative and collaborative learning environment for EFL University reading instruction. The participants in this study were 89 students taking an English reading course at a Korean university. RPT is a learning strategy whereby learners help each other and learn by teaching. This program was supported by a Vygotskyan perspective which assumes that learners gain mastery and develop cognitive skills through social interaction with more proficient others and their environment. This study relied particularly on participant perceptions through questionnaire survey and Anonymous Online class Report of the course. This study showed various advantages for tutors such as learning through teaching and becoming more autonomous and responsible for their own learning. Non-threatening and highly motivating learning atmosphere are parts of benefits for tutees. Other advantages for tutees included improved level of academic self-confidence, and motivation. This study also revealed several drawbacks associated with the problem of inaccuracy in students' production and students' demand for more direct teacher role. (182 words).

• The Korean Journal of Elementary Counseling
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.57-76
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• 2011

Group counseling in elementary school is very unique in many respects due to the fact that is targets young people from the aspects of realizing educational goals and solving problems. Because it targets children who are undergoing development process, group counseling of the preventive nature is required even more. The reality, however, is that the group counseling in elementary school is carried out during the "left-over" time such as the time allocated for extracurricular activities. Worse yet, if there the homeroom teachers are not willing, then even this is not carried out. Moreover, method used for group counseling is simply re-configuration or modification of the consultation method used for adults regardless of the fact that it is necessary to develop diverse group counseling programs due to the characteristics of the children. To improve these problems, this research paper suggests the basic frame that this type of program needs, and held extensive discussions with sixteen teachers who were pursuing their master's degree for holding group counseling in elementary schools. As a result, consensus was developed that research of demand, contents configuration, organization, operation and evaluation are crucial for developing group counseling program in elementary school. And the results are to be used as important back-up material for the development of new program by holding detailed discussions on the above mentioned five topics. Furthermore, this paper presents the direction for the development of program going forth by evaluating the group counseling program in elementary school conducted in Korea to this day, and mentions the challenges that lie ahead.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.238-247
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• 2017

Objectives: This study was conducted to investigate providers' perspectives on current challenges in implementing a program for prevention and management of childhood obesity and adoption of mobile phone as a potential solution of leveraging multimodal delivery and support in a school setting. Methods: The qualitative data were collected through face-to-face in-depth interviews with 23 elementary-school teachers, 6 pediatricians, and 6 dieticians from community health centers and analyzed using a qualitative research methodology. Results: Current challenges and potential solutions of obesity-prevention and -management program for obesity program for elementary school children were deduced as two themes each. Lack of tailored intervention due to limited recipient motivation, lack of individualized behavioral intervention, and different environmental conditions can be solvable by mobile technology-based personalized intervention which brings about interactive recipient participation, customized behavioral intervention, and ubiquitous accessibility. Lack of sustainable management due to stigmatization, limited interactions between program providers and inconsistent administrative support can be handled by multimodal support based on school setting using mobile platform providing education of health promoting behaviors toward larger scale and interactive networking between program participants, and minimizing administrative burden. Conclusions: Adoption of mobile-based health management program may overcome current limitations of child obesity program such as lack of tailored intervention and sustainable management via personalized intervention and multimodal supports although some concerns such as increased screen time need to be carefully considered in a further study.

• Journal of Elementary Mathematics Education in Korea
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.131-148
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• 2016

Mathematical formal justification may be seen as a bridge towards the proof. By requiring the mathematically gifted students to prove the generalized patterned task rather than the implementation of deductive justification, may present challenges for the students. So the research questions are as follow: (1) What are the difficulties the mathematically gifted elementary students may encounter when formal justification were to be shifted into a generalized form from the given patterned challenges? (2) How should the teacher guide the mathematically gifted elementary students' process of transition to formal justification? The conclusions are as follow: (1) In order to implement a formal justification, the recognition of and attitude to justifying took an imperative role. (2) The students will be able to recall previously learned deductive experiment and the procedural steps of that experiment, if the mathematically gifted students possess adequate amount of attitude previously mentioned as the 'mathematical attitude to justify'. In addition, we developed the process of questioning to guide the elementary gifted students to formal justification.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.460-479
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• 2021

The crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant changes in education systems worldwide, including in Korea. Due to COVID-19's social distancing policies, the education system was suddenly switched to distance learning, resulting in many problems in primary schools without preparation. The purpose of this study was to investigate a teacher's awareness of science education techniques, responses to issues in science classes, including inquiry activities, advantages and disadvantages, and roles after experiencing distance learning. Survey and focus interviews were conducted for primary school teachers who had previously participated in distance learning, such as online content classes and real-time interactive classes. The study findings showed three conclusions: 1) Primary school teachers conducted one-way and interactive lectures in online classes. It is vital to improve a teacher's digital literacy to improve other teaching methods such as investigation and discussion in online classes. 2) Primary school teachers acknowledged the challenges of field feedback, inquiry item preparations, and safety in inquiry activities of science classes, by providing individual experimental packages and videos and using online discussion and feedback among teacher - student and student - student interactions. 3) Primary school teachers recognized that various types of classes using IT devices and individualized learning were possible as advantages of distance learning. As for disadvantages, it was acknowledged that inquiry activities, cooperative learning, immediate feedback, and interaction among students were challenging. Furthermore, learning gaps were wider in distance learning.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.588-599
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• 2016

This study aims to provide suggestions for improving national curriculum monitoring system. To achieve this goal, we analyzed the Korean national curriculum monitoring system in terms of actual problems and challenges faced by school teachers, and drew criteria for analyzing overseas curriculum monitoring system. Based on the criteria, we investigated the Australian and Singaporean national curriculum monitoring system. We especially carried out interviews with school teachers, principals, officials in Ministry of Education, and tried to identify the actual condition of curriculum monitoring system beyond superficial investigation of them. The results of this study provide four suggestions such as integrated way of monitoring, multi-way open system, and substantial approach into monitoring operation which will lead into meeting with the purpose of the monitoring system of national curriculum.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.513-528
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• 2014

The landscape of Christian higher education is changing. Students once spent most of their time in a traditional classroom with a professor, but now they take online and hybrid courses (face to face and online). Some students complete their entire degree in a fully online program. Nearly every type of college in the United States offers online courses. Online learning has clearly moved from a fad to a fixture, and nowhere is that more apparent than at one of the largest universities in the country. As the demand for online course and programs increase, teachers and administrators in Christian universities and colleges face new challenges. Even though some teachers and administrators still believe online education is inferior to traditional face-to-face learning, we found no statistically significant differences in standard measures of learning outcomes between students in the traditional classes and students in the hybrid-online format classes. In this situation, since online education will develop continuously, Christian universities should utilize it variously through complete understanding and research about it predicting the future of online education style.

• Korean Journal of Childcare and Education
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.71-95
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• 2014

The paper explored the limitations of anecdotal records in kindergarten and presented the challenges toward authentic records. The data was collected from 7 teachers working at private kindergartens through focus group interviews (FGI) and individual follow-up interviews. The participants' conversation in the FGI and their responses in the individual interviews were analyzed according to the principles of thematic coding. The participants described the barriers from recording a child anecdote in private kindergarten and at the same time their voices implied the possibilities to overcome the difficulties. All descriptions of the participants were converged on the 3 themes with rhetoric of "from A to B". For becoming anecdotal records in kindergarten, in summary, the records at the present should be changed 1) "from formal and faithless documentation to fluent resources of children's development", 2) "from disconnectedness between the records and curriculum to recursive circulation for improving pedagogical realities", and 3) "from canned documentation written by a struggling teacher to meaningful writing produced by a teacher like researcher".