To take its due place in the world of education, Turkey has been through serious reform initiatives in the curriculums of various school subjects since 2003. The new Turkish elementary school curriculum was prepared considering the research studies conducted in Turkey and in other countries, as well as the educational systems of developed countries and previous experiences with mathematics education in Turkey. This study attempts to provide a perspective on the nature of the instructional tasks in the new elementary school mathematics curriculum. In particular, our focus is to explore the level of cognitive demands (LCD) in the algebra tasks provided in the national elementary mathematics curriculum guidebook. This curriculum document is a major resource for administrators, stakeholders, textbook publishers and ultimately for teachers. For every learning objective, it provides sample tasks to be used in mathematics instructions. In this study, our purpose is to explore the LCD of each of these tasks by utilizing a framework developed by Smith and Stein (Math Teach Middle School 3:344-350, 1998). The framework classifies mathematical tasks according to the level of demands: lower-level and higher-level demands. While the lower-level demands are related to memorization and procedures without connections, the higher-level demands are related to procedures with connections and doing mathematics. The findings revealed that 60% of algebra tasks for each grade level required higher LCD and a great majority of the remaining tasks were at the level of procedures without connections. The findings of the study particularly inform curriculum developers about issues regarding the quality of the tasks given in the curriculum guide and provide possible suggestions to improve the implementation of the curriculum change process.
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Öz: Matematiğin gerçek hayatla ilişkilendirilmesi son yıllarda önemle üzerinde durulan bir konu olarak dikkat çekmektedir. Yapılan çalışmaların birçoğu bu tür ilişkilendirmelerin önemli olduğunu vurgularken, çok az bir kısmı öğretmenlerin ve öğretmen adaylarının matematiği gerçek hayatla neden ve nasıl ilişkilendirdiğini incelemektedir. Bu çalışmanın katılımcılarını, orta ölçekli bir devlet üniversitesinde matematik öğretmenliği bölümünde öğrenim görmekte olan ve 2015-2016 bahar döneminde Özel Öğretim Yöntemleri-II dersini alan üçüncü sınıf matematik öğretmeni adayları oluşturmaktadır. 57 ortaokul matematik öğretmeni adayından kazanımlar doğrultusunda gerçek hayat ilişkilendirmeleri kurmaları ve nedenlerini açıklamaları istenmiştir. Verilerin analizi aşamasında Gainsburg (2008) ve Lee'nin (2012) gerçek hayat ilişkilendirmelerine yönelik kodları kullanılmıştır. Sonuçlar, gerçek hayat ilişkilendirme çalışmalarıyla öğretmen adaylarının üstü kapalı olarak değil açıkça ilişkilendirmeler yapabildiğini, matematiğin gerçek hayatla ilişkisini kavrayabildiğini ve ilişkilendirmelerin öğrenciler açısından yararını fark edebildiğini göstermektedir.Abstract: In recent years, it has been drawn attention to the real life connections with mathematics as an important topic. Although the majority of the studies in the literature point that building the real life connection is vital, only some of them examine how and why teachers and prospective teachers build this connection. The participants of this study were the third-year prospective mathematics teachers who were studying in the department of mathematics teaching at a medium-sized state university and who take the Special Teaching Methods-II course in spring 2015-2016. 57 prospective secondary mathematics teachers were asked to establish real life connections in the direction of objectives from the teaching program, and to explain their reasons. The codes obtained from the study of Gainsburg (2008) and Lee (2012) were used for the data analysis. The findings indicated that prospective teachers were able to make explicit connections between mathematics and real life, understand the relation of mathematics to real life, and appreciate the use of building connections for the students.
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