Pre-School Teachers’ Applications Related to Early- Childhood Mathematics: A Qualitative Look at Activity Plans

The purpose of the current study is to evaluate how pre-school teachers approached the early childhood mathematics in the activity plans they implemented. In order to determine the extent to which the teachers included mathematics activities, the case study design, one of the qualitative research methods, was used. The participants of the study were determined by using snowball sampling method. The lesson plans for one week of 20 pre-school teachers working in public and private kindergartens in the city of Ankara were analyzed within the context of the study. In the current study document analysis was employed and the collected data were subjected to content analysis. All the activities sent by the 20 teachers were included in the analysis. In this connection, totally 171 activity plans and 1 music project were examined. In the activities, learning outcomes and indicators directly or indirectly supporting mathematical processes were examined, their inclusion in the learning process and the children’s participation levels were investigated. At the end of these investigations, it was found that two teachers did not include any learning outcomes and indicators supporting mathematical efficiency in any of the five activities they implemented throughout a week. Moreover, it was observed that in 78 of the activities, learning outcomes and indicators directly related to the standards of NCTM (American National Council of Teachers of Mathematics), in 74 of the activities, learning outcomes and indicators indirectly supporting mathematical skills were included and in the remaining 19 activities, no learning outcomes or indicators directly or indirectly supporting mathematical skills were included. When the children’s participation level in activities was examined, it was found that 143 of them were on the non-participation rung and only 28 of them were on the participation rung.