An Investigation of Model Creation Skills to Proof of Prospective Mathematics Teachers about the Sum of Successive Odd Numbers

Abstract

This study aims to look into secondary education prospective mathematics teachers’ model creation skills regarding proof of the rule providing the sum of successive odd numbers. The study takes case study method, a qualitative research approach, as the basis to reflect the current situation, and focus group discussions were held in classroom environment to collect data. The study was conducted on twenty prospective math teachers studying pedagogical formation. Focus group discussions held with twenty prospective teachers selected on voluntary basis voluntarily were recorded, put on paper and analyzed descriptively. According to the results derived from the study, it is observed that the prospective teachers used verbal, algebraic and formal models as three model types during the proof of the rule providing the sum of successive odd numbers and created six different proofs along with these models.