Investigation of Mathematics Teachers’ Processes of Creating and Implementing Activities for Mathematical Modeling

The purpose of this research is to determine the competencies of secondary mathematics teachers to create activities for mathematical modeling and to apply them in the classroom environment. The research was carried out with 5 mathematics teachers working at a high school in Zonguldak. This research used a qualitative research method is a case study. A semi-structured interview form and a semi-structured observation form were used as a data collection tool. At the beginning of the research process, a 4-week training process was conducted by the researcher. During this training period, the teachers were informed about the mathematical modeling method, the characteristics of the modeling activities, the creation of the activities and the implementation processes. Teachers were asked to design an activity taking into account the design principles of modeling activities. In addition, they were asked to apply their own designed or ready-made activities in their classes. In order to determine teachers’ application competencies and the difficulties encountered, the implementation processes of the teachers in their chosen classes were observed and the processes were recorded with a video camera. Immediately after the application of the teachers, interviews were conducted with the teachers to determine the opinions of the teachers at the end of the process. While content analysis was used in the analysis of the data obtained from the interviews with the teachers about the mathematical modeling method, descriptive analysis was used in the analysis of the data obtained from observations made to determine the teachers’ ability to apply the modeling activities. Teachers were severely challenged in the process of creating and none of them were able to create activities. In the observations of the implementation of the modeling activities of the teachers, it was found that most of the teachers did not pay enough attention to follow up the mathematical modeling steps in the modeling activities