• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.433-445
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• 2024

This study aims to compare and analyze the educational contents of the material area in the elementary science curriculums of North and South Korea. The research subjects are materials and motion and energy (partial) areas of the revised science curriculum of South Korea in 2022 and materials around us and science in daily life (partial) areas of the nature and education program of North Korea in 2013. This study compared the elements of the educational content of the material domain between North and South Korea according to the grade. Furthermore, the reflection of the material domain goals of North and South Korea at the international level was analyzed using the evaluation framework of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2023 for the material content domains for fourth-grade elementary schools. Four teachers who majored in elementary science education and one expert in science education participated in the analysis. The results are as follows. First, in terms of the properties of matter, the content covered in the curriculum of North and South Korea differed in application period by grade and in the scope and level of content. Second, regarding material change, North Korea did not cover acids and bases but included methods for speeding up dissolution. Third, North Korea reflected the goal of the TIMSS 2023 properties of materials more highly than South Korea. Fourth, similar to the results for the analysis on the properties of materials, North Korea reflected the goal of the TIMSS 2023 for changes of materials more highly than did South Korea. In conclusion, the elements and timing of application of the material contents differed between North and South Korea, and the degree of reflection of goals at the international level was found to be higher for North Korea. In the future, this study hopes that cooperation and research on the development of integrated science and curriculum will occur along with the revitalization of educational exchange between North and South Korea from the perspective of the preparation for unification beyond the ideological conflict between them.

• Education of Primary School Mathematics
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.445-459
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to provide a method to help elementary school students learn ratio-related concepts effectively through visual representations. This study was conducted to identify the differences in the composition of ratio-related concepts between Korean and Singaporean textbooks, reconstruct a unit of proportional expressions and distributions by using visual representations and confirm the differences in performance between an experimental and a comparison group of 6th grade students. While the experimental group mathematics lessons is from the reconstructed textbook, the comparison group lessons is from an existing textbook that does not include any reconstructive representations. A t-test of mean was applied to determine the differences between the experimental and comparison group. Analysis revealed significant differences in the mean between the experimental group and the comparison group, and the intermediate level group showed more improvement compared to the higher and lower level groups. An implication of this study is that the application of visual representations can assist students' understanding of ratio-related concepts.

• School Mathematics
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.277-289
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• 2007

This research aims to look into the mathematically gifted 6th and 7th graders spatial visualization ability of solid figures. The subjects of the research was six male elementary school students in the 6th grade and one male middle school student in the 1th grade receiving special education for the mathematically gifted students supported by the government. The task used in this research was the problems that compares the side lengths and the angle sizes in 4 pictures of its two dimensional representation of a regular icosahedron. The data collected included the activity sheets of the students and in-depth interviews on the problem solving. Data analysis was made based on McGee's theory about spatial visualization ability with referring to Duval's and Del Grande's. According to the results of analysis of subjects' spatial visualization ability, the spatial visualization abilities mainly found in the students' problem-solving process were the ability to visualize a partial configuration of the whole object, the ability to manipulate an object in imagination, the ability to imagine the rotation of a depicted object and the ability to transform a depicted object into a different form. Though most subjects displayed excellent spatial visualization abilities carrying out the tasks in this research, but some of them had a little difficulty in mentally imagining three dimensional objects from its two dimensional representation of a solid figure.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.395-418
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to analyze the influence of mathematical tasks on mathematical communication. Mathematical tasks were classified into four different levels according to cognitive demands, such as memorization, procedure, concept, and exploration. For this study, 24 students were selected from the 5th grade of an elementary school located in Seoul. They were randomly assigned into six groups to control the effects of extraneous variables on the main study. Mathematical tasks for this study were developed on the basis of cognitive demands and then two different tasks were randomly assigned to each group. Before the experiment began, students were trained for effective communication for two months. All the procedures of students' learning were videotaped and transcripted. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were applied to analyze the data. The findings of this study point out that the levels of mathematical tasks were positively correlated to students' participation in mathematical communication, meaning that tasks with higher cognitive demands tend to promote students' active participation in communication with inquiry-based questions. Secondly, the result of this study indicated that the level of students' mathematical justification was influenced by mathematical tasks. That is, the forms of justification changed toward mathematical logic from authorities such as textbooks or teachers according to the levels of tasks. Thirdly, it found out that tasks with higher cognitive demands promoted various negotiation processes. The results of this study implies that cognitively complex tasks should be offered in the classroom to promote students' active mathematical communication, various mathematical tasks and the diverse teaching models should be developed, and teacher education should be enhanced to improve teachers' awareness of mathematical tasks.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.61 no.1
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• pp.109-126
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to explore how well teachers anticipate students to understand and solve equations. For this purpose, a questionnaire of the equal sign was developed, and 20 fourth-grade classes were selected as research participants. Teachers in each class were asked to predict various strategies on how their own students would respond to the questionnaire, and a total of 450 students from the 20 classes solved the questionnaire. As a result of the analysis, the teachers could predict students' computational strategies and relational strategies easily but did not fully understand that some students used both strategies or employed incorrect computational or relational strategies. The students tended to use relational strategies better than the teachers expected. They also employed operational strategies more often than the teachers expected. The teachers predicted that students' strategies would be influenced by the types of the problems such as equation-structure items and equation-solving items, whereas the students were more influenced by the forms of equations in the problems. Based on these results, several implications for the knowledge to which teachers needed to attend were discussed so that elementary school students could enhance the relational understanding of the equal sign.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.419-443
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• 2018

The purpose of this study was to analyze the problem solving strategies of ordinary students, gifted students, pre-service teachers, and in-service teachers with the 'chicken and pig problem,' which has multiple strategies to obtain the solution. For this study, 98 students in the 6th grade elementary schools, 96 gifted students in a gifted institution, 72 pre-service teachers, and 60 in-service teachers were selected. The researcher presented the "chicken and pig" problem and requested them the solution strategies as many as possible for 30 minutes in a free atmosphere. As a result of the study, the gifted students used relatively various and efficient strategies compared to the ordinary students, and there was a difference in the most used strategies among the groups. In addition, the percentage of respondents who suggested four or more strategies was 1% for the ordinary students, 54% for the gifted students, 42% for the pre-service teachers, and 43% for the in-service teachers. As suggestions, the researcher asserted that various kinds of high-quality mathematical problems and solving experiences should be provided to students and teachers and have students develop multi-strategy problems. As a follow-up study, the researcher suggested that multi-strategy mathematical problems should be applied to classroom teaching in a collaborative learning environment and reflected them in teacher training program.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.149-158
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• 2014

The rapidly changing 21st-century knowledge and information society is emphasizing converged education that crosses various academic fields. In particular, the society expected the cultivation of the talent who balance scientific creativity and artistic sensitivity by adding arts to the existing converged education revolving around science and technology. However, at present, most STEAM education has been actively conducted with a focus on science and technology, whereas the subject of arts has been regarded or utilized as a supplementary means. Its problem is that the educational characteristics and values of art education have not been effectively utilized in educational terms and this could lead to superficial integrated education. In this respect, this study had the knowledge of various fields, such as science, technology, and mathematics, utilized usefully during the process of experiencing and creating arts. Accordingly, this study designed an education programs as with the case of Nam-Jun Baek who expanded the dominion of arts by creatively utilizing his own time's scientific technologies. In this educational process, the target program was developed in a manner that enables EPL to be utilized essentially as the study's knowledge-based tool and medium. The results of applying this educational program in 5th-grade elementary school students showed that the program has positive effects on the creative attributes of the students.

• Journal of The Korean Association of Information Education
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.33-45
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• 2001

In order to adapt ourselves to the Informationalization Society of twenty-first century, it is required to have ability to find quickly the necessary information and solve the problem of our own. In the field of school, it should be educated to develop learner's ability that can cope with the Informationalization Society. When a learner can study in such direction, he or she will be able to plan the learning of his own as the subject of education, and develop his ability to solve the problem by collecting and examining various information. It is self-leading learning that can make education like this possible. Through computer, especially Web site, self-directed learning can develop can develop the individuality and creativity of learners. They can collect and utilize autonomously information and knowledge. To do such an education, the program that can work out self-directed learning is needed. Therefore the program I want to develop is to reconstruct the 'figure' part of mathematics in elementary school into five steps by utilizing Web site. In the first step is to learn the concept of various shape. This step enable learners to know what figure is and how it can be utilized in our real life. The second step of dot, line and angle makes it possible that learners can consolidate the foundation of the study about figure and recognize the relation between angle and figure. In the third step of plane figure, we can study how to calculate the relation of plane figures and the area of figure with various shapes by cutting and adding them. The fourth step is about congruence and symmetry. Learners can learn to know the figure in congruence, reduction and enlargement and how it is used in our real life. In the fifth step of solid figure, we can learn the relation among the plane figure, solid figure, the body of revolution, corn and pyramid etc. controling the speed of learning on the basis of his ability. In the process of the program, it is also possible to develop learner's ability of self-leading learning by solving the problem by himself. Because this program is progressed on the Web site, it is possible to learn anytime and anywhere. In addition to it, a learner can learn beyond the grade as well as do the perfect learning by controling the pace of learning on the basis of his ability. In the process of the program, it is also possible to develop learner's ability of self-leading learning by solving the problem by himself.