Effects of activity based teaching grounded on active learning on students? academic skills and learning process

The main aim of this study is to investigate effects of activity based teaching on students? academic skills and their learning process. Participants in this study are consisted of 40 8th grade students selected among all 8th graders who were enrolled in TOKİ elementary school which is located in the city of Adıyaman. Experimental design, with control and experimental groups, was utilized in this study. Data were obtained from various sources. These sources are ?Academic Skill Test? on right triangles, ?Learning Process Evaluation Form?, face to face interviews with participants and researchers observations. These various sources provided opportunity to triangulate obtained data. Data obtained from these sources were analyzed by qualitative data analysis techniques and methods. As a result of the analysis of data it was found that there are clear differences between control and experimental groups, in favor of experimental group, in terms of both academic skills and learning process. In particular, it was observed that students? reasoning abilities in experimental group were relatively increased comparing to students in control group. In addition, it was also observed that some negative attitudes towards mathematics have been changed to positive attitudes among students in experimental group. Based on students? own expressions in the interviews, it can be clearly stated that students may enjoy any mathematics subject if they are taught by using activity based teaching.Key Words: Active Learning, Activity Based Teaching, Right Triangle, Academic Skill Test