Evaluation of field education courses in elementary mathematics teacher undergraduate programs in terms of developing special content competencies

The purpose of this research is to examine the harmony between courses of mathematics teaching in Elementary Mathematics Education graduate program at a state university and special content competencies identified by the Ministry of Education in 2008 in Turkey. In addition, the purpose of this research is to examine to what extent special content competencies are developed at courses of mathematics teaching in Elementary Mathematics Education graduate program. For this purpose, the level of compliance between the special content competencies and Computer Based Mathematics Teaching (BDMO) and Special Teaching Methods-I (OOY-I) courses' syllabuses, which were prepared by YÖK and the state university, and the application at the 2017-2018 academic year was investigated. The adaptation level of the applied program was examined according to the teaching process of the instructor and pre-service teachers. And also, pre-service teachers were asked to evaluate the practices in BDMO and OOY-I courses. The participants of the study, which was designed in the case study design, consists of the documents belonging to the BDMO and OOY-I courses, the instructor teaching these courses and 64 pre-service teachers. Within the scope of the research, the level of compliance between the academic program of the courses and the special content competencies was analyzed by document analysis. In order to determine the compatibility of the applied program with the special content competencies, the researcher conducted six-hour observation and then interviewed the instructor. In addition, pre-service teachers were asked to evaluate the related courses. Finally, individual or focus group interviews were carried out volunteer pre-service teachers. The data obtained were examined by document analysis, descriptive analysis and content analysis. As a result of the study, it was seen that mathematics teaching courses reflected about half of the special content competencies of the academic programs prepared by the state university and three-quarters of the special content competencies of the applied programs in the 2017-2018 academic year. For all competency areas, the number of competences reflected in the applied program of the courses is higher than that of the academic program, and all the competencies to be addressed in the courses according to the academic program are included in the application. All competences in the areas of competence in developing mathematics skills, and monitoring, evaluating and improving mathematics teaching are emphasized extra in the applied programs. None of the competences in the content of competence to cooperate with school, family and society has been addressed in mathematics teaching courses. The level of compliance of special content competencies varies according to data sources (instructor and prospective teachers' views, course observation, course content). In addition, mathematics teaching situations planning and organizing competency area competence (to benefit from activities and in-class applications; to benefit from teaching methods and techniques) and performance indicators were proposed. In addition, according to pre-service teachers, learning facilitating and challenging practices in BDMO and OOY-I courses were determined; In order to increase the efficiency, suggestions were made by pre-service teachers.