Secondary school mathematics teachers' views about mind games vocational development program and investigation of the activities they developed

The first aim of the study is to examine the opinions of teachers about the professional development program of mind games. The second aim is to develop a mathematics lesson plan enriched with mind games and to examine these plans at the end of the education of primary school mathematics teachers who are included in the professional development program of mind games. A case study, which is a qualitative research design, was used in the research. The participants of the study are four primary school mathematics teachers working in public schools in the 2021-2022 academic year. Purposive sampling method was used to determine the participants. During the research process, an mind games professional development program was organized for teachers, and at the end of the program, each teacher developed a mathematics lesson plan enriched with mind games. The data of the research were obtained through semi-structured interview forms, mind games evaluation form, lesson plans evaluation form, document review, audio recording and observation. It was analyzed in depth using the descriptive analysis method. As a result of the research, primary school mathematics teachers evaluated the professional development program of mind games positively, stated that the education provided was sufficient and there were positive changes in mathematics teaching knowledge. At the end of the mind games professional development program, it was concluded that the teachers were capable of designing a mathematics lesson plan including activities enriched with mind games, they could establish a relationship between the achievement of mathematics lessons and mind games, and they could adapt the mind game they chose in accordance with the educational environment and materials. In addition, with this study, sample mathematics lesson plans containing mind game activities suitable for the secondary school mathematics curriculum were presented to the teachers. Various suggestions were made to teachers, researchers and curriculum developers regarding the professional development studies of mind games.