Evaluation of elementary teachers ' application process in mathematical problem-solving stages and metacognitive thinking skills

This study analyzes primary and mathematics teachers? application process in mathematical problem solving stages within the framework of metacognitive thinking skills. 1 primary teacher and 1 mathematic teacher were chosen from among teachers working at the primary education level within the scope of a project which was assisted by TUBITAK (#108K330). Lessons which teacher had received pre and post professional development training teachers were videotaped in order to examine their application process in mathematical problem solving stages within the framework of metacognitive thinking skills. Video recordings were transcripted. The process was divided into minutes for one mathematical problem. An attempt was made to determine the stages at which they put an emphasis on the questions they asked. As a conclusion, it was seen that, before receiving training, the teachers were generally aware of the problem solving stages, but that they were inadequate in the application of the stages of making a plan and checking among the problem solving stages and metacognitive thinking skills in the application process. It was seen that, after training, the teachers displayed a dialectical approach by allocating space to moving forward or back between the problem solving stages wihin the framework of metacognitive thinking skills.