The state requires leaders who own intelligence and characters. Indonesia as a developing country is clearly very interested in finding out how to integrate the character values into the learning process in the classroom. Japan becomes a destination because it can provide character education to its students. Research Team of Universitas Negeri Semarang (UNNES) held collaborative research with Prof. Takuya Baba, Ph.D. from Hiroshima University, Japan as the Partner Lecturer. The purpose of this qualitative research was to get input on how elementary school teachers in Japan integrate the character values in learning, especially in math lessons. Its main activities, conducting class observations, interviews, Focus Group Discussion, and triangulation with guidance from the Partner Lecturer. The research site was Miyauchi Elementary School of Hiroshima and at IDEC of Hiroshima University. As a result, the UNNES research team obtained ways to integrate the values of characters in learning, especially in math lessons. The result of this research is expected to be applied at elementary schools in Semarang, Indonesia.
Our society is increasingly dependent on technologies such as in the life sciences and information technologies. The technologies create alternatives and the choice among alternatives is guided by what the individual values. On the other hand, Bishop (1991) pointed out the danger that the general public and students understand that mathematics learning is regarded in many countries as being unreal and value-free, mainly because of the abstract nature of mathematics. This gap between social reality and students' perceptions deprives many students of a willingness and positive attitudes towards problem-solving in mathematics. This chapter proposes a new approach to dealing with social values through problem-solving. Baba (2007, 2009) has named this type of problem "socially open-ended problem" which elicits students' social values by extending a traditional open-ended approach (Shimada 1977). This chapter describes some basic ideas and discusses how the social values are treated while dealing with socially open-ended problems. Keywords Socially open-ended problem • Mathematical models • Social values • Problem-solving 12.1 Historical Background and Research Aim Since the 1980 declaration of the US National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), problem-solving has occupied the core of mathematics education. Some key ideas such as meta-cognition and problem-solving strategies have been developed through research (Schoenfeld 1983). On the other hand, Lesh and Zawojewski (2004) pointed out limitations in the research on strategies and proposed Model-Eliciting Activities (MEA) as a new approach to these limitations. MEA and problem-solving
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