Abstract:

One of the innovations in education may be to move teaching to out-of-school learning environments. As soon as we leave the classroom door, every place where teaching takes place can be defined as an out-of-school learning environment. This study aimed to reveal the opinions of middle school preservice mathematics teachers about out-of-school learning environments. The participants of the study were 65 middle school preservice mathematics teachers. Phenomenology research design, which is one of the qualitative research methods, was used in the research. In the process of collecting the data obtained in the research, a structured interview form was used. Content analysis was used in the analysis of the obtained data. It was found that about half of the preservice teachers participating in the study did not have knowledge before university education and did not participate in any out-of-school learning activities. The majority of the participants stated that they found teaching in out-of-school learning environments enjoyable and that they would benefit from out-of-school learning environments when they would become teachers. In addition, almost all of the preservice teachers stated that they found teaching mathematics outside of school beneficial and that these environments would positively affect students' attitudes towards the lesson. Based on these results, it has been suggested to include more out-of-school learning environments in mathematics education.

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