The Awareness of Prospective Mathematics Teachers on the Mathematics Curriculum

Abstract

This research aims to examine the pre-service mathematics teachers' awareness of the special aims, application principles, and learning areas of the mathematics course curriculum. In this study, which was conducted with 30 primary school mathematics teacher candidates selected by convenience sampling technique, the case study design, one of the qualitative research approaches, was preferred. The data of the research were collected with an opinion form that included three open-ended questions questioning the specific aims, application principles, and learning areas of the mathematics curriculum. Descriptive analysis was used in the analysis of the obtained data. As a result of the research, it was seen that the participant teacher candidates mostly emphasized the items related to the use of mathematics in daily life within the scope of the program's special objectives. It can be said that the candidates mostly care about taking into account the individual differences of students in mathematics teaching, the use of materials, and the principle from concrete to abstract in mathematics education. In addition, it has been determined that all participants have knowledge of the learning areas in the secondary school mathematics curriculum and at which grade levels these learning areas are taught. As a result, it can be said that the awareness of the teacher candidates who will be the implementers of the training programs is high.