Difficulties faced by rural mathematics teachers in implementing the mathematics curriculum and their solution approaches

The aim of this research is to examine difficulties that teachers encounter in applying the mathematics curriculum and solution they produce in order to overcome these difficulties. In this purpose, it is aimed to evaluate the objectives, content, learning-teaching and evaluation elements of the mathematics curriculum as well as the difficulties occurred with regard to those elements during Covid-19 period where distance education was applied. The participants of the research consisted of 20 secondary school mathematics teachers working in rural areas in the 2020-2021 academic year. A teacher interview form was used as a data collection tool in the research. The data obtained as a result of individual interviews were subjected to descriptive analysis and analyzed under 5 themes (family, socio-cultural environment, education system-school, economic, student) that emerged as a result of the analysis. Difficulties experienced in the distance education process were evaluated with separate sub-themes (active participation, regular participation, technological issues, class participation, time). The findings were summarized by including direct quotations, compared with the relevant literature, discussed and suggestions were presented. According to the results of the research, important difficulties were identified in almost every element related to the implementation of the curriculum. The most problematic item was content. For the content, the existence of serious difficulties such as unaccomplished acquisitions or insufficient time allocation for those acquisition are to be underlined. In the pandemic, the major difficulty was experienced in the participation of students in the courses. In this process, students' participation in the course decreased, and this situation was primarily attributed to the economic factors in rural areas.