An Examination of the Effectiveness of Instruction in which Pre-Service Mathematics Teachers Use Technology to Overcome Student Difficulties

Abstract

It is seen that students face certain difficulties when learning the concepts and the relationships between them in the mathematics education that aims at enabling students to learn on the highest level. Identifying and eliminating these difficulties, helping students in the learning process and guiding them are among teachers' tasks. Overcoming the difficulties experienced by students is considered one of the contributions of the technological use to the mathematics education. Yet, the efficient use of information and communication technologies in overcoming student difficulties is possible through bringing teachers and pre-service teachers in basic knowledge and skills. To this end, the effectiveness of the instruction in which pre-service teachers benefit from information and communication technologies to overcome the difficulties regarding a given concept was investigated. The participants were 32 third-year pre-service teachers attending at the elementary mathematics education of a state university. The effectiveness of pre-service teachers' micro-instructions and their opinions on the role and effect of technology in their instructions were analyzed within the framework of specified themes. The instructional plans, observation sheets, self-evaluations, and the inventory of the interviews performed in regard to self-evaluations which affected the change in the process were analyzed with the content analysis. Consequently, the findings obtained in the study showed how the pre-service teachers performed effective instructions and revealed the positive change in their perspectives, possible means that technologies can offer to students in the mathematics education, and their positive contributions to their own learning. As for the components and recommendations of this pre-service educational program, it will be effective in the planning of instructional process in future studies.

Keywords: student difficulties, technological integration, mathematics education, micro-instruction, pre-service teachers