The Change of Geometric Thinking Habit of Prospective Teachers
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Individuals need to have some geometric habits of minds such as reasoning with the relationship, considering the specific cases and generalizing geometric ideas, exploration and reflection, and investigating invariants as well as content knowledge. In this study, it was aimed to investigate the changes in preservice mathematics teachers' habits of mind through the freshmen year to senior year in a teacher education program. In this direction, the main purpose of this study was to discuss teacher training programs in universities. The participants of this study, which is conducted by longitudinal research method, were 31 preservice teachers who enrolled in a mathematics teacher education undergraduate program in a state university in 2012 - 2016. Data collection tools were four open-ended questions addressing to geometric habits of mind. The data were analyzed via geometric habits of mind's indicators. The results showed that preservice teachers used exploration and reflection, and reasoning with relationship habits more in their senior year in comparison with their freshman year. This result means that context of the courses directed preservice teachers to the habits of exploration and reflection and reasoning with relationship. Yet, preservice teachers need to use other geometric habits of mind to overcome geometry problems.