The Skills of Prospective Teachers to Design Activities that Connect Mathematics to Different Disciplines

Abstract

Abstract:The aim of this research was to examine the skills of prospective teachers to designmathematics connection activities with different disciplines. In the research it wasasked that prospective teachers design a mathematical activity in which mathematicswas connected with the ability to connect to different disciplines. For this purpose, theresearch was carried out using the case study model. The study group had 19mathematics, 11 physics, and 10 chemistry prospective teachers. The designedactivities were examined according to purpose, cognitive processes and mathematicalcompetence and skills. As a result of the analysis of the obtained data, the concept ofratio-proportion was mostly mentioned in the designed mathematical learningactivities. It was involved also in other mathematical concepts such as derivative,function, proposition and percentage. In the classification of the designed activitiesaccording to the aims, it was found that the consolidation activities were the mostand the difficulties and the misconceptions activities were the least. The 5 groups ofprospective teachers preferred to develop activities for new learning. When theactivities designed by prospective teachers were classified according to the cognitiveprocesses, they were designed to practice, evaluate, consider, apply and produce indescending order. The activities that were developed did not include interpret andcreate activities. According to mathematical competence and skills, problem solving,modeling and different representations activities were mostly involved. Activities forgeneralization, proof and reasoning and technology use were the least developedactivities.