Abstract:

The Turkish education system is often criticized because of its inadequacy to produce citizens capableof independent learning and thoughtfuland creative problem solving.Literature indicates reform movements focused on teaching and learning in mathematics classrooms. The major trend is the change from traditional classrooms tha aim at students acquiring proficiency in reproducing exiting solutions to problems to classrooms that maintain intructional goals of helping students construct meaningful insights of mathematical concepts and promote higler-level thinking skills. The progression in the field of mathematics education in developing theories and reseacrh-based evidence about how to teach mathematics to develop students” thinking skills is a result of research projects that engage teachers in learning to teach mathematics. The instructional changes that are designed to create classrooms that foster students” development of thinking skills require redefined roles and new instructional strategies for mathematics teachers, changesamong students will not occur. Implementation of thinking skills programs is a difficult process.teachers actively resist new programs that they do not understand. Also, they tend to avoid practices that are not familiar. It has been hypothesized that fundamental change in teaching practice may be started by changes in teachers” knowledge. Teachers” beliefs dealing explicitly with mathematics pedagogy and a research-based model of children’s mathematical understanding have been found to influence teachers” thinking about teaching and learning mathematics. The aim of this study was to determine elementary teachers” theoretical orientations, attitudes and behaviors and the amount of responsibility they were willing to take in teaching thinking.Also,through cooperation with the teeachers, preparation and evaluation of a support program for developing thinking skills to be used by in service and pre-service math teachers was intended.

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