• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.99-115
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• 2022

This study examined difficulties middle school students have in learning mathematics and proposed a flipped classroom consisting of Khan Academy activities, small-group problem solving, and mathematical modeling to help improve their learning. A mixed-method approach was used to identify difficulties students have in learning mathematics, explore how the flipped classroom helped them reduce the learning difficulties identified, and examine if there were differences in students' mathematics achievement and their affective characteristics after participating in the flipped classroom. Qualitative analyses showed that students had difficulties in understanding mathematical concepts and finding effective ways to learn as well as negative views towards learning mathematics. This study also found that each activity of the flipped classroom had a different impact on student learning. Before class, the Khan Academy activities were most likely to help students understand mathematical concepts. In class, small-group problem solving activities were most helpful for students who had trouble finding effective learning methods and environments. Mathematical modeling activities were most likely effective in changing students' negative views towards mathematics. A quantitative analysis showed that the flipped classroom not only significantly improved the students' mathematics achievement, but also positively affected their confidence and motivation and how much they valued learning mathematics.

• Educational Technology International
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.273-305
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• 2016

The EBS teaching coaching program, '선생님이 달라졌어요' broadcasted about 30 dramatic teaching improvement cases. The TV program has gained great attention and been used widely as a good example for making some meaningful improvements in teaching. However, there has not been an attempt to research and gather the series beyond the individual coaching examples for the viewers (mainly teachers) to obtain more comprehensive educational insights of the results. This study, therefore, reviews the program and conveys how the overall coaching actually took place, examines changes in classrooms, and discusses the implications the results with theoretical foundations. The researcher selected 12 teachers' coaching cases among 30 ones. Then the reviewers reviewed the program with the 6 categories. According to the results, the coaching took place 6-8 months for each individual teacher. The common difficulty teachers shared was a big gap between teachers' effort for teaching versus 'students problematic behaviors' in class. The overall direction for the coaching solution was 'to improve the relationship with students' first rather than to mainly focus on teaching the content. Students changed and actively participated in the learning process when teachers improved their relationships with the students. The researcher discussed how building good relationships with students greatly affects the improvement in teaching with the 'Needs Hierarchy' and 'Brain Science' theories.

• Educational Technology International
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.17-37
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• 2008

This study is to examine different views of teachers, students, parents and experts on existing mathematics textbook and ideas and alternatives for developing new textbooks. We interviewed deeply with 18 teachers, 18 students, 9 parents, and 4 experts and analyzed two analysis frame categories; Strengths and weaknesses of current textbooks and directions of mathematics textbooks that will be revised. We found that among teacher, student, parent and expert, there are some differences of meaning about mathematics textbooks, based on interview questions. The directions of new textbooks are as follows. First, 'the definitions of mathematics textbook concepts' shared and sympathized by teachers, students, parents, and experts should be considered in developing the textbooks. Second, the textbooks should be much usable in classrooms and be matched to the goals of mathematics subjects. Third, the contents and levels of difficulty of the textbooks should be based on the specific objectives and the analysis of curriculum and its contents. Fourth, understanding students should be presupposed as the external side of contents and the textbooks themselves should be associated with the image of joyful and fun mathematics. Fifth, the mathematics textbooks should reflect real daily life to their contents and be linked to other subjects.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.328-336
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• 2007

In this research we conducted a survey on the actual status of the 7th National Earth Science I & II curriculum to explore ways of revising the next Earth Science curriculum for better education. Of the 180 Earth Science teachers, 60% responded to the survey. The domains of the survey consist of (1) the necessity of Earth Science I & II curriculum revision, (2) educational goals, (3) content coverage, (4) level of difficulty and students' interest for Earth Science content, and (5) ways to overcome the crisis of Earth Science education. Majority of the respondents demanded the revision of Earth Science I, II curriculum because of overlapping and repetition of contents among 10th grade science and Earth Science I and overcrowded Earth Science II contents. Based on the survey results, recommendations on how to improve Earth Science I, II curriculum and how to adjust Earth Science contents are suggested. In addition to curriculum improvement, systematic supports are required for Earth science not to be excluded and turned down by the student and the scholastic aptitude test for university admission.

• Journal of The Korean Association of Information Education
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.243-254
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• 2016

This study has produced a checker of the shortest path search problem with a total of 19 questions as a web-based computer evaluation based on the 'TRAFFIC' questions of PISA 2012. It is because the computer has been settled as an indispensable and significant instrument in the process of solving the problems of everyday life and as a media that is underlying in assessment. Therefore, information gifted students should be able to solve the problem using the computer and give clear enough commands to the computer so that it can perform the procedure. In addition, since it is the age that the computational thinking is affecting every sectors, it should give students new educational stimuli. The relationship between the rate of correct answers and the time took to solve the problem through the shortest route search process showed a significant correlation the variable that affected the problem solving as the difficulty of the question rises due to the increase of nodes and edges turned out to be the node than the edge. It was revealed that information gifted students went through algorithmic thinking in the process of solving the shortest route search problem. And It could be confirmed cognitive characteristics of the information gifted students such as 'ability streamlining' and 'information structure memory'.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.573-584
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• 2015

Inquiry has been consistently emphasized in science education as a crucial element for learning. Although many researchers came to agree on the importance of scientific inquiry, authentic inquiry activities are hard to be actualized in an educational context. Therefore it is required to critically examine what teachers have difficulty in teaching inquiry. In this article, we looked into inquiry-based science activities in a small group setting where pre-service science teachers faced dilemmas between cognition and practice of inquiry. A case study was conducted on eight undergraduate students who are majoring in science education. The participants attended a weekly science program for middle school students in low SES as teaching assistants and mentors, and took full care of his/her mentees during open-inquiry activities. The results were drawn by analyzing participants' personal and group interviews, participant observations, self-reports, and others. The pre-service teachers viewed the knowledge and procedure of science as an essential factor in inquiry activities along with student's spontaneous attitude. However, in the process of performing inquiry, they faced several dilemmas between ideal cognition and real activities. The aspects of dilemmas could be summarized in three pairs of opposing concepts: 'diverging inquiry or converging science', 'interest-centered inquiry or learning-centered inquiry', and 'student as the subject or student with the insufficient expertise.' We discussed ways of resolving dilemmas and alternative perspectives on scientific inquiry.

• Communications of Mathematical Education
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.475-502
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• 2010

In this paper, the ability to use mathematical representations in solving math problem was analyzed according to student assessment levels using 113 first-year high school students, and the characteristics of their representation usage according to student assessment levels were also examined. For this purpose, problems were presented that could be solved using various mathematical representations, and the students were asked to solve them using a maximum of three different methods. Also, based on the comparative analysis results of a paper evaluation, six students were selected and interviewed, and the reasons for their representation usage differences were analyzed according to their student assessment levels. The results of the analysis show that over 50% of high ranking students used two or more representations in all questions to solve problems, but with middle ranking students, there were deviations depending on the difficulty of the questions. Low ranking students failed to use representation in diverse ways when solving problems. As for characteristics of symbol usage, high ranking students preferred using formulas and used mathematical representations efficiently while solving problems. In contrast, middle and low ranking students mostly used tables or pictures. Even when using the same representations, high ranking students' representations were expressed in a more structurally refined manner than those by middle and low ranking students.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.21 no.7
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• pp.427-439
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• 2021

This study surveyed the recognition on the Korean education for specific purposes targeting student-teachers majoring Korean language education in a Cyber University located in Seoul. 50 among 57 students taking the class participated in this survey. The participants were the students-teachers interested in Korean education for the mission purposes and took the class during the second term in 2020. At the end of the term they participated in this survey. 6 items were objective and 4 items were narrative. Among the narrative ones, one was excluded from analysis. The objective items were investigated by descriptive statics and the narrative items were analyzed with qualitative approach. As a result, most of the participants preferred the combined textbooks with others such as the ones for general and mission purposes rather than the bibles only. They had positive opinions on using the bibles, but proposed that the bibles themselves are not the best choice for improving communicative competence and the text combination is the better choice because of the difficulty of the bibles, the lack of teachers' competence, and the learners' needs. However, while taking this class, they became to be aware of the possibilities of the bibles as textbooks, to possess the concern about the mission areas, to consider the possibilities of application and the educational methods in it, and to reflect the ways for self development. This study suggested several points as follows: the development of diverse textbooks according to situations and learners, two directions of teacher education and the cooperative works, and the necessities of the related departments and classes with mission purposes.

• Journal of the Korea Society for Simulation
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.27-39
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• 2023

This study aimed to develop SSTPBL (Student-led Simulation with Team and Problem-Based Learning), whichcombines TBL and PBL with a student-led method to strengthen knowledge application, nursing diagnosis ability, and collaboration ability among the core competencies of nurses. Then, SSTPBL was applied to nursing students, and the results were assessed. The data was collected from September 15, 2022, to December 21, 2022, with structured questionnaires and focus group interviews with 51 fourth-year nursing students at a university in A City. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS version 25.0 and topic analysis. As a results, it was effective in simulation experience satisfaction(t = 3.51, p < .01), vSim experience satisfaction(t = 3.50, p < .01), preparation as a prospective nurse(t = 3.73, p < .01), learning self-efficacy(t = 3.87, p < .01), collaborative self-efficacy (t = 4.30, p < .01), problem-solving ability(t = 5.26, p < .01), educational satisfaction(t = 3.54, p < .01), digital health equity(t = 2.18, p < .05). Through the qualitative data's topic analysis, six main topics were derived. The main topics were 'similar to clinical practice', 'difficulty in immersion', 'learning through others', 'learning through self-reflection', 'improving confidence through new experiences' and 'new teaching methods'. Based on the results of this study, it is expected that SSTPBL can be used in various ways as a new training method for prospective nurses in the face of growing clinical practice restrictions after the pandemic.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.63 no.1
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• pp.1-18
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• 2024

This study aims to analyze low-performing high school students' difficulties in constructed response (CR) mathematics assessments and explore ways to use writing activities to support student learning. The participants took CR assessments, engaged in guided writing activities across 15 lessons, and provided responses to our interviews. The study identified 20 types of student difficulties, which were sorted into two main categories: "mathematical difficulties" and "CR difficulties." The difficult nature of mathematics as a school subject included a lack of understanding of mathematical concepts, students' difficulty with mathematical symbols and notations, and struggles with word problems. Challenges specific to CR assessments included students' difficulties arising from the testing conditions unlike those of multiple-choice items, and included issues related to constructing appropriate responses and psychological barriers. To address these challenges in CR assessments, the study conducted guided writing activities as an intervention, through which six themes were identified: (1) internalization of mathematical concepts, (2) mathematical thinking through relational understanding, (3) diverse problem-solving methods, (4) use of mathematical symbols, (5) reflective thinking, and (6) strategies to overcome psychological barriers.