The effect of the 5E learning cycle modelon students? mathematical thinking and academic achievements in teaching trigonometry

Today the aim of education is to bring up individuals who know where and how to find knowledge and to use it, who recognize and use their own learning methods effectively, and who benefit from their previous knowledge in order to produce new knowledge. This is only possible through inquisitive individuals who learn how to learn, who benefit from the knowledge they investigate, whose skill of thinking and perception is developed, who are creative and who can use the knowledge creatively, who can comment accurately, who can question, and who can solve problems.The findings of investigations conducted in the field of education show that most people learn better by associating their personal experiences, previous knowledge and beliefs with their new knowledge together with the novelties in the constructivist approach and the development of psychology. In every phase of the 5E learning model which involves all the statements above, students are encouraged to research, to investigate and to form their own concepts. Furthermore, the 5E learning model consists of skills and activities which enhance the curiosity for research, which satisfy the expectations of students and which focus on active research for knowledge and understanding.In this study, the effect of 5E learning cycle model, which is based on the constructivist approach, on the development of the students? mathematical thinking skills, their academic achievement and the retention of their trigonometry knowledge is investigated in the teaching of 10th grade trigonometry. Frequencies, percentages, arithmetic means, standard deviations and t-test for independent samples and ANCOVA were used to analyze the sub-problems of the study.The study was conducted on an equal experimental and control group selected from among 10th grades in an Anatolian High School in the center of Kastamonu in the spring semester of 2009 ? 2010 teaching year. The researcher taught the students in the experimental group the trigonometry course in an environment where the 5E learning model based on the constructivist approach was used. The mathematics teacher taught the students in the control group the trigonometry course in an environment where the activities of official mathematics curriculum were used.In the analysis of open-ended mathematical thinking questions, the SOLO (Structure of the Observed Learning Outcomes) taxonomy was used. Each thinking phase of the SOLO taxonomy consists of the following 5 sub-levels which classify the students? answers to a certain question by its structural complexity:?Pre-structural?Unistructural?Multistructural?Relational?Extended abstractAs a result of the statistical findings of the research, mathematical thinking skills, academic achievement and retention of trigonometry knowledge of the students in the experimental group where the 5E learning cycle model, based on the constructivist approach was used, differed significantly according to those in the control group. Based on these results, it is concluded that the use of 5E in the teaching of trigonometry will affect positively both mathematical thinking development, academic achievement and retention of trigonometry knowledge of the students.Keywords: Mathematics Education and Teaching, Trigonometry Teaching, 5E Learning Cycle Model, Mathematical Thinking