A CONSTRUCTIVIST MILIEU EXPERIENCE OF PRESERVICE ELEMENTARY MATHEMATICS TEACHERS: WRITING FRACTIONS AS SUM OF UNIT FRACTIONS

In nowadays mathematics teaching, knowing theories and applications related to the design of student-centered activities has gained great importance. Student-centered environments include knowledge of mathematics education theories, as well as the knowledge of how to relate the elements of these theories and matematical knowledge within the design of activity.In the next stage factors related to the preservation of student-centered approaches come into play in the process of the functional implementation of this design to students. It is uncertain whether teacher candidates know and experience these components of student-centered environments. The starting point of this study is to involve teachers candidate with the components of student-centered environments through experiencing a student-centered environment. Experiencing student-centered activities can be used as a way of teaching the design of such environments. The history of mathematics provides a rich resource for designing this experience. The aim of this study is to describe elementary school mathematics teachers candidate the process of applying a problem -which is taken from the history of mathematics- in a student-centered teaching environment.Situation study method was used in the study. Theory of Didactical Situation (TDS) was used in the design and implementation of this activity. The TDS provides effective ways in designing and implementing student-centered environments. The participants of the study are 21 elementary school mathematics teacher candidates (10 girls and 11 boys) selected by purposive sampling method. The data were collected through a camera, voice recorder and A4 sheets distributed to the teacher candidates. The analysis of the implementation is described in accordance with the phases of TDS. One of the finding of this study showed that TDS can be used effectively in teaching student-centered designs. It is thought that such different experiences will provide a lot of awareness about student-centered environment designs that teachers candidate should know.

Keywords

theory of didactical situations, adidactic situations, constructivist approach, pre-service teachers