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Abstract: In the late 70's, in reaction to both "New Math" movement in the United States and "mechanistic mathematics education" approach to mathematics education in Netherland, Realistic Mathematics Education (RME) has been introduced by Freudenthal and his colleagues. In this educational approach, Freudenthal considered mathematics as a human activity. Based on this approach, education should give students the opportunity to re-invent mathematics by doing appropriate activities. Recently, the National curriculum of Islamic Republic of Iran has been developed by the Ministry of Education to provide educational policies. In this document, an implicit emphasis on so called “realistic” aspect of the program can be seen in the mathematics curriculum framework section. In this paper, I first, introduce the different aspects of RME, and then this educational approach has been traced in the newly written mathematics textbooks in Iran.    

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This study is to explain the criteria and indicators of the ideal form of school mathematics curriculum in Iran. For this purpose, the national documents of the education system in Iran and related research findings to school mathematics curriculum were examined. The Akker’s ten-component model for the curriculum was adapted as the framework for this study. In order to ensure the balance and effectiveness of the curriculum, in this framework, each of the components address a specific question. By answering them, criteria for the components of the school mathematics curriculum were presented. The research method of the study was document analysis and qualitative content analysis in the form of inferential. To validate the presented criteria, a number of mathematics educators and curriculum specialists participated in this study. Finally, for each of the components introduced in the framework, the criteria and indicators of the ideal form of mathematics curriculum were determined.

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Following the latest mathematics curriculum reform of the first cycle of elementary education in Iran and the experience of about a decade of implementation of this program, the aim of the present study was comparing the intended implementation of this program with the implemented mathematics curriculum. The framework used in this study is Akker's 10-element model, which considers the various components in the curriculum. Identifying the characteristics of the implemented mathematics curriculum in the first period of elementary school was done using the triangulation design. For this purpose, qualitative data were collected through observing the teaching process in classrooms, semi-structured interviews, teachers' reports, and focus groups. The findings of this study showed some differences, shortcomings and weaknesses in the implementation of the curriculum, which were discussed and presented separately for the elements of the program. Finally, 25 solutions emerging from the findings of this research were proposed for future planning.
 

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The main purpose of this research was to investigate the barriers, facilitators, and continuance of implementing a creative instructional method (Collaborative prototyping of digital educational games using design thinking). This study employed a phenomenological study as a qualitative research method. The data were collected using a semi-structured interview. Participants included 20 teachers that have experienced the method mentioned above in their class teaching in primary schools. An abductive content analysis was conducted to determine the main and sub-categories. The identified barriers and facilitators were categorized according to the stages of the design thinking process: empathy, definition and idea generation, prototype construction and evaluation. Regarding continuance factors, six categories were identified: learning and instructional activities, content organization strategies, game conditions, teacher-related factors, student-related factors, and evaluation-related factors. Future research suggestions were discussed in light of the study findings.