History of Mathematics in the Turkish Middle School Mathematics Curriculum and Textbooks

Year 2018, Volume: 47 Issue: 1, 188 - 215, 22.04.2018

Gülçin Tan Şişman , Büşra Kirez

https://doi.org/10.14812/cuefd.361176

Cited By: 8

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to analyze how the
history of mathematics incorporated into Turkish middle school mathematics
curriculum (5^th-8^th grades) and textbooks. The data were
collected through document analysis from the Turkish middle school mathematics
curriculum guide (5^th-8^th grades) and six Turkish middle
school mathematics textbook series approved by the National Board of Education.
According to the results gathered from the math curriculum, only one reference
of the history of mathematics was found in the sixth-grade learning objectives
and a few suggestions acknowledging the use of the history of mathematics in
the learning and teaching process. No trace of the history of mathematics found
in the content and assessment aspects of the curriculum. Further, the total
number of the instances of the history of mathematics found in the six Turkish
middle school mathematics textbooks for 5^th-8^th grade is
only twenty-seven. Most of the references found in the math textbooks were
placed in the introduction part of the topic. Based on the findings, it is
obvious that the history of mathematics was used like a rarely-found appetizer
both in the curriculum and the textbooks.

Keywords

History of Mathematics, Turkish Mathematics Curriculum, Turkish Mathematics Textbooks

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