Examining the games designed by secondary school mathematics teachers with the Scratch program in line with the teacher and student views: Reflections from algebra

This study aims to examine the games related to algebraic expressions designed by secondary school mathematics teachers through the Scratch programming tool in line with the teacher and student opinions. The study was conducted with three mathematics teachers working in a province in the Western Black Sea Region. In this study, the case study method based on a qualitative approach was used. The mathematics teachers were given a six-week game designing course with a scratch program. Following this instruction, the levels of the pedagogical themes that the teachers take into account in designing games related to algebraic expressions with the Scratch program and the levels of the design games' compatibility with the programming concepts were examined. Besides, the students' opinions about the games were gathered. As the data collection tool, the Pedagogical Rubrics revised by Li et al. (2013) was used to determine the levels of pedagogical themes in games; and the Scratch Projects Evaluation Criteria Rubrics based on the programming concepts prepared by Denner, Werner, and Ortiz (2012) was used to determine the compatibility levels of the games according to programming concepts. A form comprising five questions was also prepared for collecting student opinions. The designed games were examined within the scope of pedagogical themes, and programming dimension, and games were scored by teachers according to these themes and dimension. Kappa coefficients were calculated for the reliability of scoring between rubrics. The content analysis was used to analyze data about student opinions. At the end of the study, it was found that the games designed by teachers generally received sufficient scores in the problem solving and level themes, enough sufficient in the theme of strategy, and insufficient in the theme of connection. In games, mistakes were observed that would cause students to think only of the symbol "n" as a variable. It was also found that the problem types used by teachers in the games they designed were generally questions of the familiarization type. It was concluded that teachers achieved high scores in the theme of active learning. It has been determined that the compatibility levels of the games designed by the teachers according to programming concepts are lower than expected. Considering student opinions about the designed games, it was observed that students generally found the games funny, interesting, and visually appealing. Keywords: Scratch, Digital game design, Algebra, Teaching mathematics