Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
ECER 2025, Belgrade, Sırbistan, 8 - 12 Eylül 2025, ss.1-2, (Özet Bildiri)
Mathematics is an accumulation of human endeavors shaped by the contributions of every civilization and still evolving (Jardine, 2007). Ancient papyri, manuscripts, or handbooks reveal the role of mathematics in society (Fauvel, 1991). Through written historical sources, teachers and students can witness the diverse applications of mathematics in daily life and explore mathematics from different cultures (Fauvel, 1991; Jardine, 2007). To make the most of these opportunities and utilize them in teaching practices, it is crucial for pre-service teachers to take a history of mathematics course during their undergraduate education (Fleener et al., 2002). Within this course, pre-service teachers learn how mathematical concepts were developed, how mathematics was shaped by the conditions of their time, and their applications in daily life.
Teachers and pre-service teachers may encounter various challenges when integrating the history of mathematics into their lesson planning processes, such as uncertainty about accurate information or a lack of resources (Sözen-Özdoğan et al., 2020). This could be due to the access to published, soft-copy, or online documents about the history of mathematics resources in the relevant country.
Artificial Intelligence in education (AIEd) can be very beneficial for the professional development of pre-service teachers. AI integrated online learning platforms make materials accessible to learners from anywhere in the world according to their needs (Chen et al., 2020). Recent review research has implied that there is a need for empirical studies in higher education representing applications or practices of AI in education (Marengo et al., 2024). One of the classroom integrated AI tools is chatbots (Marengo et al., 2024) and their benefits for the learning of pre-service teachers are empirically supported (Essel et al., 2022).
The research has been developing in recent years, but there is still a need to understand the integration of artificial intelligence tools, not only chatbots, with teacher training courses. One of them could be the history of mathematics course due to the requirement of various resources. Pre-service teachers can enrich their teaching materials and make students’ learning processes more dynamic by utilizing AI-based tools while preparing lesson plans. They can create more personalized, adaptable, and effective learning experiences by integrating AI tools into traditional instructional design processes (Ruiz-Rojas et al., 2023). For example, AI technologies can be used to create data visualizations related to the history of mathematics based on the needs of the classroom or the context, which may not be available online. Timelines that include the lives of famous mathematicians, the mathematical developments of their eras, and their cultural contexts can be designed quickly and effectively using AI. In this way, students can better grasp not only mathematical concepts but also their historical and sociocultural contexts. Additionally, AI can also be used to create interactive content in lesson plans. For instance, historical mathematical problems can be solved with a virtual “historical mathematics advisor.” Through such AI-powered tools, students can experience how a mathematical problem was solved in the past and compare the methods used in that period with contemporary approaches. These are conjectured practices for a pre-service teacher, but they may not be realistic within the real classroom design. Therefore, this study aims to address the following research question:
How do pre-service mathematics teachers integrate the history of mathematics, artificial intelligence tools, and mathematics education curricula into the activities?
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used
The research design of this study is the instrumental case study. In an instrumental case study, the main objective is to gain a broader understanding and explore the problem by analyzing the case (Stake, 2005). The case of this study is the practices/experiences of pre-service mathematics teachers in integrating the history of mathematics, AI tools, and mathematics education curricula into activities. The participants are freshmen pre-service mathematics teachers who took the History of Mathematics course at a university in Ankara, Turkiye. Throughout ten weeks of this course, participants were asked to design an activity based on the content of that week. Thus, the number of activities in each week is not equal. In more detail, the content of each week and the number of activities submitted are listed as follows: Week1, W1- Ancient Egypt Mathematics (46 activities), W2- Mesopotamia Mathematics (47 activities), W3- Greek Mathematics I (44 activities), W4- Greek Mathematics II (38 activities), W5- East Asian Mathematics (41 activities), W6- Indian Mathematics (41 activities), W7- Islamic Mathematics (42 activities), W8- the Renaissance of Mathematics (42 activities), W9- Modern Mathematics 1700-1900 (46 activities), and W10- Contemporary Mathematics 1900-present (33 activities).
The participants were expected to integrate three key elements while preparing the activities: the period or civilization of that week in the History of Mathematics course, the learning outcomes/objectives in mathematics curricula, and artificial intelligence tools. Thus, data sources are the activities that participants submitted throughout ten weeks. In data analysis, six steps of the qualitative research analysis offered by Creswell (2013) were followed. The first step involved organizing and preparing the data by categorizing it. Then, all the data was reviewed to gain a general understanding. The third step focused on coding the data by identifying key segments and categorizing them. These codes were then used to generate descriptions and themes for analysis. The findings were represented through tables and figures. Finally, an interpretation of the results was made by comparing findings with existing literature and drawing conclusions.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings
It was observed that pre-service mathematics teachers primarily used chatbots (e.g., ChatGPT and Gemini) while preparing their activities. In addition, they utilized some AI tools to prepare visuals and videos (e.g., Canva, DALL-E, NightCafe, and InVideo AI). Furthermore, some participants classified non-AI tools as artificial intelligence tools (e.g., Kahoot, Wordwall, and GeoGebra). This result might have stemmed from the fact that participants relied on incorrect sources and lacked sufficient knowledge of artificial intelligence. In addition, the participants were free to work on any mathematics subject from the curricula. It was seen that pre-service mathematics teachers tended to select objectives from numbers and geometry. Lastly, the majority of participants interpreted the integration of the relevant period or civilization in the History of Mathematics course as simply selecting a topic and incorporating it into their activities. A more comprehensive approach was expected, but given that the participants are first-year pre-service teachers, they may have approached the historical aspect in a more superficial way within their activities. In addition, their limited exposure to the history of mathematics during their own mathematics education, where it was not given significant emphasis, may have influenced this approach.