İ. Elif Yetkin Özdemir’s research while affiliated with Hacettepe University and other places

This study employed a qualitative research design to describe and analyze self-regulation processes (monitoring and control) of the novice middle school mathematics teachers in terms of teaching activities. The participants consisted of six mathematics teachers with five or less years of teaching experience. The data of the study were mainly collected through the observations of the lessons taught by the teachers and semi-structured interviews conducted with the teachers. The results revealed that the teachers' monitoring and control behaviors were affected by the goals they set. With regard to student-oriented monitoring, they generally focused on the cognitive development of the students. Compared to student-oriented monitoring, teaching-oriented monitoring was rarely observed. The most obvious control behaviors of the teachers were emphasizing the rules and algorithms, and taking responsibility for completing the task in challenging situations. It was also revealed that the teachers did not monitor carefully and systematically, and as a result, the mistakes they made during the teaching process were not noticed. These results highlight the need for pre- and in-service training programs that will aid in the development of monitoring and control skills in novice middle school mathematics teachers.

Teacher knowledge is particularly important in middle school mathematics to enhance the meaningful transition from arithmetic to algebra. Developing a solid understanding of algebra requires teachers to unpack the meaning underlying the basic concepts, make clear and explicit distinctions among concepts, and facilitate students to connect these concepts with their prior knowledge and understandings in arithmetic. This study focused on the content knowledge (i.e., decompose, trim, and bridge) of three middle school mathematics teachers in practice during the introduction of basic algebra concepts (i.e., variable, algebraic expression, equality and equations). Case study was used as research design in this research. Individual interviews and observations regarding the instructions were used to gather data. Results showed that the participating teachers’ conceptions regarding the variable, algebraic expression and equation were rather narrow and it resulted in several constraints when unpacking their meaning in the classroom. While bridging was a commonly observed instructional practice among the participating teachers, the quality of bridging, did not always provide opportunities for a meaningful transition. Trimming, on the other hand, was not observed as a common teaching practice.