권성룡 Kwon Sungyong
DOI: JANT Vol.20(No.4) 253-266, 2017
The purpose of the study was to investigate the perceptions of Elementary school teachers on mathematics instruction. To do this, 7 test items were developed to obtain data on teacher's perception of mathematics instruction and 73 teachers who take mathematical lesson analysis lectures were selected and conducted a survey. Since the data obtained are all qualitative data, they were analyzed through coding and similar responses were grouped into the same category.
As a result of the survey, several facts were found as follow; First, When teachers thought about 'mathematics', the first words that come to mind were 'calculation', 'difficult', and 'logic'. It is necessary for the teacher to have positive thoughts on mathematics and mathematics learning, and this needs to be stressed enough in teacher education and teacher retraining. Second, the reason why mathematics is an important subject is 'because it is related to the real life', followed by 'because it gives rise to logical thinking ability' and 'because it gives rise to mathematical thinking ability'. These ideas are related to the cultivating mind value and the practical value of mathematics. In order for students to understand the various values of mathematics, teachers must understand the various values of mathematics. Third, the responses for reasons why elementary school students hate mathematics and are hard are because teachers demand 'thinking', 'because they repeat simple calculations', 'children hate complicated things', 'bother', 'Because mathematics itself is difficult', 'the level of curriculum and textbooks is high', and 'the amount of time and activity is too much'. These problems are likely to be improved by the implementation of revised 2015 national curriculum that emphasize core competence and process-based evaluation including mathematical processes. Fourth, the most common reason for failing elementary school mathematics instruction was 'because the process was difficult' and 'because of the results-based evaluation'. In addition, ‘Results-oriented evaluation,’ ‘iterative calculation,’ ‘infused education,’ ‘failure to consider the level difference,’ ‘lack of conceptual and principle-centered education’ were mentioned as a failure factor. Most of these factors can be changed by improving and changing teachers' teaching practice. Fifth, the responses for what does a desirable mathematics instruction look like are 'classroom related to real life', 'easy and fun mathematics lessons', 'class emphasizing understanding of principle', etc. Therefore, it is necessary to deeply deal with the related contents in the training courses for the improvement of the teachers' teaching practice, and it is necessary to support not only the one-time training but also the continuous professional development of teachers.