Abstracts - Earli

were asked to fill a questionnaire, inquiring about the various induction agents’ and components’roles in their induction, their job satisfaction and their commitment to continue teaching. Resultsshowed a significant positive relationship between the interns’ job satisfaction and their perceptionof the contribution of the various induction components and agents. School principals’involvement, and the initial orientation the intern receives, were found to predict job satisfaction(b=**26.), (b* 43. =). It is recommended to make clear to the principals the immense importanceof interns’ initial orientation, and their own role in the interns’ induction.The evaluation of reconstructed elementary curriculum by primary teachersIsa Korkmaz, Selcuk University, TurkeyIn 2005-2006 the reconstructed elementary curriculum (1-5 grades) began to be implemented inthe Turkish elementary schools. The aim of this study is to indicate the perceptions of the primaryteachers about new curriculum after the first year of implementation. In order to collect data, aform consisted of five open-ended questions related to the reconstructed curriculums of courses(Reading and Writing, Turkish Language, Knowledge of Life, Mathematics, Social Studies, andScience Education) was developed to examine the teachers’ perceptions about the new curriculum.The teachers’ view for each course were divided into three subdivision; a, advantage of eachcourse of the new curriculum; b, disadvantages of each course of the new curriculum; and c,suggestions of the teachers to improve the new curriculum for each course. The questionnaire wasemployed to 250 primary teachers. Results indicate that in general most of the primary teachershave positive attitudes about the new curriculum. However, the implementation of the newcurriculum have some difficulties because some schools do not have enough sources, someclassrooms are so crowded, parents do not have enough information about the new curriculum, andprimary teachers do not know exactly how to evaluate students’ activities.How concept-based instruction facilitates students’ mathematical understandingNobuyuki Fujimura, Nagoya University, JapanInternational studies such as PISA2003 have revealed that East Asian students are good atmathematics, especially at applying procedural knowledge. However, students of some Asiancountries, such as Japan, are not so good at verbally explaining their solutions to problems whichrequire conceptual understanding. This study examined the effects of concept-based instruction onstudents’ conceptual understanding and on their discourse styles in classrooms. Two classes ofJapanese 9th graders (n=81) learned mathematics in either a concept-based style or a standard stylefor one year. In the case of concept-based instruction, students always engaged in mathematicsproblems which allow for multiple solutions. After they solved each problem individually, theydiscussed various solution strategies to the problem in a classroom. In the case of standardprocedure-based instruction, students engaged in relatively many problems and a teacher oftenexplained one solution strategy to each problem by using the students’ own words. The results ofpre- and post-tests revealed that students in the concept-based class improved their performance onconceptual understanding problems significantly more than those in the standard class. The formerstudents also expressed their ways of thinking by their own words more often than the latterstudents on the posttest. Moreover, a longitudinal analysis of discourse processes in each classshowed that students’ constructive explanations composed of everyday words increased in theconcept-based class and stayed higher than those in the procedure-based class.– 236 –