Student teacher parental views of the middle school mathematics project implementations

The aim of this studyis to find out how secondary school mathematics teachers implement mathematics project tasks besides determining the opinions and suggestions of teachers, students and parents about the project tasks. The research was conducted as mixed design. In the study, teacher interview form, student interview form and parent interview form were used together with the questionnaire of secondary school mathematics projects developed by the researcher. Maximum diversity sampling technique, one of the purposeful sampling methods, was used to determine the participants. In this context, 20 mathematics teachers were selected from 12 schools on different physical, socio-cultural and socio-economic conditions in different educational regions in the Central district of a province in Western Black Sea region of Turkey. The interviews were conducted with 16 students who took part in the Mathematics project assigned with the support of those teachers and 6 parents who were determined on a voluntary basis among the parents of these students. Measuring tool data are expressed in frequency and percentage statistics. Interview data were analyzed through content analysis. In the data obtained from the questionnaire applied to the teachers in the research, it was concluded that the teachers considered themselves sufficient in the preparation, implementation and evaluation stages of the mathematics project tasks. According to the measuring tool data, teachers mostly take learning outcomes, student characteristics, and the development of high-level thinking skills in students into consideration, and evaluate the project tasks with the help of scoring key. Parental support and the request of teachers to get help from each other are the issues that teachers tend to neglect. During the interviews with the teachers, it was found that the teachers assigned a project task in order to transfromthe information into product, to supportpermanent learning and to increase the grades of the students. Teachers should pay attention tothe individual characteristics, differences and preferences of students during the project task preparation process, give guidance on student request during the implementation phase, ensure weekly follow-up and feedback of students, and the project task should comply with the predetermined evaluation criteria during the evaluation phase, Among difficulties faced by the teachers during the project process are lack of attention paid to projects by students, teacher-specific problems and lack of parental support in other matters. There are teachers who state that mathematics project tasks do not affect students; on no condition do they meet expectations. On the other hand, there are those teachers who assume that affective effects like interest or love towards mathematics can increase and engagement in mathematics through those projects can help permanent learning besides having positive effects on knowledge and skills. About half of the teachers in favor of mathematics project tasks stated that they could not accomplish the aim of the project task due to the fact that the students took the project task in order to increase their grades. While it is compulsory in all classes, only a few teachers expressed their opinions about students' not showing the same interest in projects at each grade level and they stated that those projects cannot maintain their real value due tostudents' priority of grades. Moreover, very few teachers want to give students projecttasksthat can enable the studentsgain research skills. Teachers suggest that competence in identifying project tasks, use of assessment tools and effective communication with students should be improved. Moreover, project method should be used for students who are really enthusiastic teaching them the scientific method. Extending the class hours, project-based restructuring of the education system and increasing the effects of the projects on grades are also suggested by the teachers. Teachers need time and space for subject determination, project process (planning, monitoring, evaluation process), use of measurement tools, and providing guidance to students. Nearly half of the teachers are in contact with their students during the project assignment process, and they also use scales to evaluate the project tasks. In this study, it was found that the teachers who evaluated themselves positively about the project task process showed some deficiencies in some aspects that they had evaluated positively during the interviews. These aspects include students' difficulty in finding original subjects appropriate for their level, preparation, use and interpretation of assessment tools, providing effective guidance to students in the process, and informing both parents and students about the guidelines by establishing effective communication with parents. Teachers cannot find time and space for project tasks. The fact that the students do not pay enough attention to the project tasks (not delivering on time, not doing enough research, not assigning original assignments, seeking for the easier was, becoming off-topic) is another problem gathered from the student interviews. According to the students interviewed in this study, the reason for taking project task in mathematics course and the purpose of mathematics project tasks is to raise their grades. For this reason, students see projects as a means of increasing their grades. It was concluded that the teacher fail encourage the students sufficiently about the , besides, those tasks did not produce the desired effect. More than half of the students pay attention to the strong content / mastery and formal structure of mathematics project tasks. According to the students, project tasks are evaluated according to the format of the assignment, content, originality of the assignment and timing. While preparing the project task, students have problems like not finding resources, not doing enough research, not being able to manage their time, lack of working environment, supply of materials, indecisiveness in presentation form and being unclear about the assignment. Students assume that project tasks in mathematics have affective effects like increasing interest in that course and academic effects like increasing their grades. The students were in contact with their teachers during the project assignment so that they could get help when they asked., and they got help from teachers, parents, friends, books and the Internet in doing those project tasks.According to the students, it would be most helpful to get help from their teachers and friends while doing the project task. Students suggest that projects should be assigned based on their topics of interest and various different topics should be provided for them. The parents interviewed in this study rated love for Mathematics course and a means of increasing students' grades equally as the reasons for students' taking project tasks in mathematics course. Mathematics projects are mostly expected to increase the student's success and their interest in the lesson, in order of importance. Parents emphasize that project tasks should be done in a suitable study environment and with whole concentratiom from students. Parents further add that students should themselves do the projects that fit for the purpose and they should be careful about the format of the project tasks. It was found that the content of the task and students' elaboration on those tasks are taken into account in assessment, and students mostly complete project taskswithout encountering any problems. Moreover, students cannot comprehend low-frequency concepts, have difficulty deciding the format of the project task and finding data appropriate for the topic of the task. According to the parents, students receive help from family, Internet, teacher and friends while doing mathematics projects in order of importance; however, this order should be friends, teachers, those whom they believe to be more knowledgable than themselves and the family. While teachers and students stated that the most amount of help was obtained from the teachers, parents stated that the most help was taken from the family. This situation can be attributed to poor communication between teachers and parents. While families state that the teacher is the one from whom the most amount of help is received, it is the family from whom the most amount of help should be taken from. This situation, as expressed by parents, can be interpreted as families' support for socialization of students because the students receive help from people other than their families. Parents particularly emphasized c the effect of mathematics project tasks on their students' grades. Almost half of the parents recommend assigning homework from fully-learned topics appropriate for students' level. Though in low frequencies, parents recommend that the assignments should not be graded and that the products of the project tasks should be exhibited in year-end exhibitions to motivate students. Depending on the results of this study, it is recommended that teachers should be given training to raise their skills in planning, implementing and evaluating project tasks and to raise awareness of the main objectives and impacts of the projects; mentoring service should be provided to teachers from successful teachers in this issue or from the universities through cooperation with the universities in the region; class hours should be extended during which teachers can get in touch with students on project tasks in order to reduce the time management problems in implementation of project tasks arising from the rush to cover the curriculum; some of the design and skill workshops should be established for project preparation in order to eliminate the problem of time and space; homework or practice questions sections should be created in student textbooks to encourage students to conduct research and investigation; materials should be made available to teachers on scoring interpretation and how an effective guidance can be provided to students during the process; teachers should be equipped with a list of topics that can guide them during the implementation process besides ideal scoring instruments; project sharing platform should be established in Education Information Network (EIN); learning outcomes that require project preparation and alternative assessment and evaluation methods in teacher education should be integrated into teacher training programs; action research should be conducted to monitor and evaluate the practices (mentoring, in-service training, etc.) that can increase the competence of teachers in planning, implementing and evaluating project tasks; empirical studies should be conducted to allow causality questioning; and studies should be carried out in order to monitor qualified project implementations and their effects.