Reflections of Mathematics Student Teachers’ Knowledge Related to the Purposes of the Curriculum on Their Limit Teaching

Abstract

The aim of the study is to examine reflections of the mathematics student teachers' knowledge related to the purposes of the national mathematics curriculum on their limit teaching. The participants were four mathematics student teachers in the final year of their program. The data were obtained from participants' lessons plans, video recordings of their lessons in which they taught the concept of limit, and semi-structured interviews. The reflections of the mathematics student teachers' knowledge related to the purposes of the mathematics curriculum on their limit teaching was composed of under the titles of relating real life with limit concept, relating with different areas, providing mathematical thinking and reasoning, improving ability to communicate, using mathematical language, relating mathematics with art, and using technology effectively.

A Conceptual and Procedural Research on the Hierarchical Structure of Mathematics Emerging in the Minds of University Students: An Example of Limit-Continuity-Integral-Derivative

“…It was noticed that the participants did not have enough conceptual knowledge of the existence of solving derivative and definite integral problems defined with the help of limit and limit concept. This result reports similarity with the results showing the students have learning difficulties in the concepts of limit, continuity, derivative, integral (Baki and Çekmez, 2012;Biber and Argün, 2015;Cornu, 1991;Davis and Vinner, 1986;Hashemi, Abu, Kashefi, Mokhtar and Rahimi, 2015;Kula and Bukova Güzel, 2015;Özkaya, Işık and Konyalıoğlu, 2014;Sağlam and Bülbül, 2012;Szydlik, 2000;Tall and Vinner, 1981;Tangül, Barak and Özdaş, 2015;Williams, 1991) or misconceptions (Akbulut and Işık, 2005;Baştürk and Dönmez, 2011;Bergthold, 1999;Bezuidenhout, 2001;Cornu, 1991;Davis and Vinner, 1986;Dönmez, 2009;Gray and Tall,1991;Jordaan, 2005;Orton, 1983;Szydlik, 2000;Tall and Vinner, 1981;Tall, 1993;Williams,1989Williams, , 1991. As the situation handled in this study for the solutions of relevant concepts originates from the accumulation point, which can be considered as basic, similarly, in the study by Çetin, et al (2012), it was pointed out that the students did not understand this concept at all.…”

The Abstraction Process of Limit Knowledge

“…Some studies (Akbulut & Işık, 2005;Akkoyunlu, Güler, Uğurel, & Alan, 2003;Biber & Argün, 2015;Bukova-Güzel, 2007;Çıldır, 2012;Dönmez & Baştürk, 2010;Kula & Bukova-Güzel, 2015a, 2015bPrzenioslo, 2004;Roh, 2007;Tangül et al, 2015) have investigated how students learn limits and have given room to some teaching studies with the aim of eliminating their difficulties and misconceptions in relation to limit knowledge. As a result of Akbulut and Işık's (2005) study, a new interactive teaching strategy was declared to be influential on teaching limit knowledge.…”

“…Dönmez and Baştürk (2010) declared that current teachertraining programs are insufficient and improper at teaching pre-service teachers how to integrate different strategies. Kula and Bukova-Güzel (2015a) declared that preservice teachers' thoughts about current mathematics programs related to limits are composed under the headings of relating real life to limit knowledge, relating them in different areas, providing mathematical thinking and reasoning, improving the ability to communicate, using mathematical language, relating mathematics with art, and using technology effectively. Kula and Bukova-Güzel (2015b) investigated which special methods pre-service teachers use in mathematics for limits.…”