The effects of a constructive learning approach on learning success in the teaching of identities

The aim of this study is to establish the effects of a constructive learning approach on learning success in the teaching of identities. The study was carried out as an experimental the first research of 5 weeks? time in the city of Diyarbakır, Vali Kurt smail Pasa Primary School during 2006?2007 education year fall semester. A pretest and a posttest were used in this research. To establish how effective the constructive learning approach is in the teaching of identities that are found in the ?Expressions with Letters and Equations?, which is in the mathematics program of primary school eighth grade, a research exemplary was constituted out of 33 students being in the 8E class and 36 students being in the 8D class. In the context of the research in the teaching of identities a study of five weeks was carried out. In the study the methods used were learning based on problems, learning in cooperation and learning via finding strategy. The students in the group were divided into small heterogenic groups. The materials that were prepared for learning the identity were presented to the groups and teaching was provided. The measuring tools (mathematics achievement test and mathematics behavioral measure) were applied once more to determine the permanency of cognitive learning success 4 weeks after the experiment. Qualitative and quantitative data were analyzed by the SPSS package program, frequency, percentage, arithmetic average, standard deviation and for dependent and independent variable the t-test techniques were used. The level of meaning was taken as 0.05. The findings of the study: as a result of the t-test it was established that there were quite meaningful differences between the academic success of the students who were taught by constructive learning methods and the students who were in the control group and were taught by the traditional teaching methods in the teaching of the ?identities? subject. This result indicates that the constructive learning method is more effective in the teaching of mathematics and in order to increase the academic success compared to traditional teaching methods. At the same time, it is realized that the students in the control group were in active learning with concrete materials while ?identities? were taught by the constructive learning method. This also helped the students to effectively keep necessary information in their minds. Even though it is observed that the students in the control group developed themselves better, it is realized that there is no statistical difference among two groups of students. Keywords. Mathematics Education, Constructive Learning, Traditional Teaching, Learning Success, Identities