Abstract
Geometry is one of the disciplines children involve within early years of their lives. However, there is not much information about geometry education in Turkish kindergarten classes. The current study aims to examine teachers’ perspectives on teaching geometry in kindergarten classes. The researchers inquired about teachers’ in-class experiences in geometry and asked a series of questions such as “what are the benchmarks in your kindergarten class?”; “what kind of tools and materials you use to teach geometry in your class?”; “what shape do you teach first in your kindergarten class?”; “what do you expect to hear when you asked your students ‘what is square’?”; “how do you teach rectangular?”. The study utilized one of the qualitative research methods, namely phenomenography, to collect the data and analyze the data. The study involved with eight kindergarten teachers who work in different schools in central Kutahya, Turkey. The researchers collected data by conducting face-to-face half-structured interviews. The findings of this phenomenographic research showed that kindergarten teachers have some difficulties in teaching geometry and have lack of knowledge and skills in teaching geometry in kindergarten classes.
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Appendices
Appendix 1
Interview questions:
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1.
What are the kindergarten geometry attainments?
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1.a.
Are these attainments sufficient?
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1.b.
If not, which other geometry attainments can be added?
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1.a.
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2.
What kind of equipment do you use in geometry teaching?
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3.
In what order you teach figures in geometry teaching? Why?
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4.
How do you expect from your students to answer when you ask what a square is?
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5.
How do you teach a rectangle? Tell us about the process.
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6.
Which other attainments in the program do you relate geometry attainments with?
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7.
How do you use three-dimension objects in geometry teaching?
Appendix 2
See Table 1.
Appendix 3
See Table 2.
Appendix 4
See Table 3.
Appendix 5
See Table 4.
Appendix 6
See Table 5.
Appendix 7
See Table 6.
Appendix 8
See Table 7.
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Inan, H.Z., Dogan-Temur, O. Understanding kindergarten teachers’ perspectives of teaching basic geometric shapes: a phenomenographic research. ZDM Mathematics Education 42, 457–468 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-010-0241-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-010-0241-1