Evaluation of the views of secondary school mathematics teachers who have STEM education about the availability of STEM-oriented activities

STEM education, which aims to provide versatile thinking and learning by emphasizing the interdisciplinary approach in the fields of Science, Technology, Mathematics and Engineering, is a current education approach that has managed to attract the attention of the world and our country in recent years. It is known that the Ministry of National Education has also some studies about using STEM and integrating it into our education system. Looking at the studies in this area, a study focusing on the views and the evaluations of mathematics teachers who are the practitioners of mathematics which is one of the foundations of STEM education in schools, was not encountered. In this study, it is aimed to evaluate the attitudes of STEM educated secondary school mathematics teachers about STEM education and the usefulness of STEM oriented activities in mathematics courses and acquisitions. In this study, the case study, one of the qualitative research methods, was used. 36 middle school mathematics teachers who have STEM education and are currently working in the 2018/2019 academic year are the participants of the research. The STEM-Usability Form in the middle school mathematics (STEM-Usability Form), which includes the prototype activities used in STEM-focused studies and includes suggestions about the usefulness of these activities in mathematics teaching, was applied to the participants. The data obtained from this section was analyzed with the descriptive statistics method. Semi structured interviews were conducted with 10 of the participants who answered the STEM-usability form. During the selection process for the semi structured interviews, the participants were divided into two groups: Basic Level STEM training (five) and Advanced Level STEM training (five). The semi-structured interview form, which was applied during the interviews, was developed by taking the opinions of the field experts, and the data obtained were evaluated through themes and content analysis after transcription. The findings of the study showed that the STEM training of the participants was effective in raising awareness, but there were disaggrements in the usefulness of the activities in the field of mathematics. According to STEM-Usability Form findings, approximately one third of the participants thought that dynamic activities were not compatible with mathematics gains, while the majority of the participants pointed out the time limit (69%) and lack of materials (67%) in the program for the usability of the activities. The activities carried out with robotic sets were found more interesting by the participants, but the participants frequently referred to the limitations of time (58%) and material knowledge (64%) in terms of usability. Particularly in the questions related to the activities related to the secondary school mathematics subjects, it was observed that the participants were limited to a few topics (Ratio-Proportion, transformation geometry, data analysis), and the questions about how to make the existing activities more compatible with the mathematics field were not adequately answered. While the findings supporting the data form were obtained in semi-structured interviews, it was observed that teachers who had advanced STEM education provided more reflecting mathematical skills with some programming languages (such as Mblock, Scratch). While the results of the study showed that the STEM trainings contributed significantly to the process of raising the awareness of teachers, it was determined that the views of teachers about the usefulness of STEM activities in the field of mathematics were not sufficient. At this point,it was recommended that while providing trainings on STEM education which adopts an interdisciplinary approach, it is important to present the activities expressing enough clear skills for each discipline in the process and to bring the sample activities that will bring together design, technology, science and mathematics not only with robotic sets but also with the materials in the environment. 2019, 120 PAGE Keywoeds: STEM Education, Mathematics Teachers, Opinions