The effect of lesson study to the behaviours of mathematics teachers intended to promote the metacognitions of the students in the problem solving environment

The aim of the study is to investigate the effect of lesson study, applied with middle school mathematics teachers, to promote students' metacognitions in the problem solving environment. The related literature illustrated that the only way for teachers to activate students' metacognitions and to get good results in terms of students' achievement is to establish a well designed problem solving environment. As a result of this implication the researcher designed a guidance and used it with two different groups seperately during lesson study. This lesson study work took 13 weeks. Four mathematics teachers, working at middle schools in Kırşehir city center, participated this research. Observation charts and interviews, developed by the researcher, used as data collection tools. The acquired data were analyzed by using quantitative and qualitative data analysis methods. Thereby, the problem of the research is tried to be solved by observing the teachers' situation and interviewing with the teachers, in the period of monitoring-evaluation, and also before, during and after lesson study cycles. In conclusion, it is determined that the lesson study has positive effects on the behaviours of mathematics teachers, activating the students' metacognitions, in the problem solving environment. However, during the research sessions, it is confirmed that the teachers did not permit of the ability to estimate and did not give chances to the students for evaluating the correctness of the processes for solutions while applying the designed plans. Moreover, it is observed that the teachers did not rank much of the behavior taken place in looking back step and none of the behavior is stated in the problem posing activities, during the processes.