Examination of the Activities about Enciphering Done with Fifth Grade Students and Their Views about the Activities

Author : Muhammet Şahal -- Ahmet Şükrü Özdemir
Number of pages : 1-21

Abstract

Mathematics is defined as intangible form of real life. It is assumed as a difficult course by students due to its discrete structure and other different factors. In order to deal with such considerations, it is believed that to utilize activities in the course, which are attractive for students and enable them to be active through learning process and motivate them. Middle school students are eager to learn with games, physical activities and dealing with problems about daily life context. One of such kind of activities are enciphering ones. Throughout history, human have been wondering about hidden things and hiding information from others is always seemed as interesting. It is known that enciphering was used for military purposes in the time of the Spartans and the Roman Empire. Colossus, which was invented by Turing, helped to decipher the codes developed by Nazi armies and gave rise to finish the Second World War in shorter time. That’s why, the victory was dedicated to mathematicians. Enciphering was not only crucial in the past, but also it is even more important in recent time. In this study, it was investigated that whether activities about enciphering is appropriate for fifth grade students or not. In addition, revealing the students’ views about the activities was another goal in the study. In order to reach the goals, activities developed by Mathematical Enhancement Programme (1995) were used after translating into Turkish. Then students’ views about the activities were gathered and it was asked them to produce similar activities that they had done. Case study, which is type of qualitative research methodology, was used in the study. Participants of the study are 30 fifth grade students. It was reached that majority of the students were accomplished the activities successfully but they couldn’t do deciphered ones. They also produced similar enciphering activities. Besides it was also found that enciphering activities attracted students’ attentions, increased their motivations and interests to the course and made the course enjoyable for them.

Keywords

Enciphering; deciphered mathematics; mathematics education; motivation

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