An Investigation of the Changes in the Administrative Perception of Former Teachers Promoted as Section Directors

Purpose of the study is to gain insights into the opinions of former teachers, who were lacking in any sort of management experiences and yet promoted as section director on the basis of a written and oral examination process, about the basic concepts of educational administration in the light of their experiences before and after they have been promoted to the managerial position. The research adopts a case study approach. The study focuses on two section directors who were former teachers and promoted to their new positions without any managerial experience. The data collected in two different occasions: The first data set including participants’ opinions about educational administration was collected within the realm of a course “Educational Administration” while they were studying for their master degree in the department of Educational Administration, Inspection, Planning and Economy (EAIPE) of Gaziantep University in the fall semester of 2013-2014 academic year. The second data set was collected after the participants had been promoted as section directors. In both data collection processes participants were applied the same set of open-ended questions. Analysis of the participants written responses clearly indicate a shift in their opinions from the educational processes to the managerial processes. In terms of management style, though taking side with democratic approach while they were teachers, they were observed to favour an autocratic approach following the appointment of their new positions

Değişen öğretim programları ve sınıf içi normlar

Extended AbstractRationale of the study: Turkish curricula have been undergoing a massive change since 2005, especially at primary level. The new curricula set forth certain basic skills that every student at primary level needs to acquire; these skills are: critical and creative thinking, communication, questioning, problem solving, use of information communication technologies, initiation and use of Turkish language eloquently. However, research (Bingolbali et al., 2008; Ozmantar et al., 2008) shows that teachers working at this level experience difficulties in teaching such skills to the students. Hence, the need to help teachers for that matter is obvious. Having recognized this need, this study makes use of the notion of social classroom norms proposed by Cobb and his colleagues (Yackel and Cobb, 1996; Cobb et al., 1997) and suggests that teaching students such skills requires the establishment of certain classroom norms in line with the target skills. Classroom norms could be considered as tacit rules shaped by the interactions and dialogues amongst the agents in the classroom. The norms involve how students and teachers view themselves with regard to teaching and learning activities and what kinds of roles are assigned to the members of the classroom. Norms also reflect value judgements and determine what is important in a classroom regarding teaching and learning.The purpose of the study: This paper aims to demonstrate how the notion of social classroom norms can be used to enable the teachers to get students equipped with the basic skills (e.g. critical thinking and questioning skills) that the new curricula set forth.Method: This is a qualitative study which involves document analysis. To determine the kind of classroom norms, official documents concerning the new curricula are subjected to the content analysis. Further to this, literature (Cobb et al., 1997; Tsai, 2004 & 2007) on classroom norms is examined and the norms developed and used in classrooms by others are evaluated along with the basic skills. The analyses are carried out independently by each of the authors who determined such norms as they think are necessary for basic skills to develop. The determined norms are later compared and contrasted along with the targeted skills by the curricula. The norms are finalized through the agreement of all the authors and the relations between the determined norms and every each of basic skills are detailed.Results: The analyses of the official documents and details of the basic skills given in those documents lead to the development of eight classroom norms which, we believe, need to be existent in each and every classroom concerned with teaching the students these skills. The determined norms are as follows:1.      Explanation of the ideas (i.e. solutions, arguments and explanations)2.      Justification of the arguments3.      Sharing the ideas without any fear4.      Making real effort to understand the others’ ideas5.      Stating agreement or disagreement with the ideas shared in the classrooms6.      Stating explicitly what is understood and what is not7.      Developing alternative solutions8.      Questioning the validity of the argumentsThese norms are closely related to each other and every one of them needs to be established in the classrooms in order to create an environment in which students find opportunities to gain the basic skills that the new curricula aim. The use and importance of these norms are exemplified through dialogues obtained from Cobb et al’s (1997) study. The dialogues take place in a mathematics class where a teacher tries to establish similar norms as proposed in this study. The dialogues are examined in terms of both the norms and the basic skills in such a way to exemplify the relationships amongst them.Discussion: The discussion addresses teachers with regard to creating particular classroom cultures through the determined classroom norms and how these norms can be used to help students to obtain the basic skills. It is argued that the new roles that the curricula assign to the teacher and students during the teaching and learning activities require a dramatic change in the classroom interactions and this in turn necessitates the establishment of classroom norms accordingly. This is particularly important given the fact that norms reflect what is valued during the learning and what is expected of students. The paper also discusses the importance of creating awareness for teachers with regard to the importance of classroom norms and suggests designing in-service teacher professional development programs. However, it is pointed out that the duration of such programs and the methods employed to enable teachers to appreciate the significance of these matters are issues of great importance. İlköğretim seviyesinde, 2005 yılında yenilenen öğretim programları, öğrencilerin bazı beceriler (eleştirel düşünme ve araştırma-sorgulama becerileri gibi) kazanmasını hedeflemiştir. Bu çalışmada, söz konusu becerilerin öğrencilere kazandırılmasına yönelik olarak, Milli Eğitim Bakanlığı tarafından hazırlanan öğretim programları incelenerek sınıf içinde oluşturulması gereken bir takım normlar belirlenmiştir. Belirlenen “sınıf içi normlar” ile programların hedeflediği her bir beceri arasındaki ilişki sınıf ortamında elde edilmiş veriler üzerinden örneklendirilmiştir. Son olarak, sınıf içinde oluşturulması gereken normların, öğrencilerin bahsedilen becerileri kazanabilmelerine nasıl katkıda bulunacağı tartışılmıştır

The Process of Effective Strategic Plan Development for Schools: An Action Research

Ministry of National Education called for every school nationwide to prepare their own strategic plan (SP) as a requirement of 5018 numbered law. In this regard, the aim of this paper is to detail the notion of SP, explain the process of strategic planning and provide a concrete example for those who will prepare SP for their own schools. This is a qualitative study which employed action research approach and conducted in a private school in Gaziantep. The study initially focuses on the basis of SP, benefits of SP to the institutions where it is applied, historical development of the notion of SP, and constitutional infrastructures of SP in Turkey, and the position and importance of SP in educational institutions. Then the formation process of a SP becomes the focus of attention and is described in detail. On the basis of the theoretical framework, the strategic planning of a school is composed. The SP is successfully achieved due to administrative structure of the school and its support, required trainings given to the members of staff, participation of the students and their parents into the planning process and the remarkable efforts of the SP team. In the final section of the study, the issues to be considered for the preparation of effective SP are discussed and certain suggestions are made for the formation and implementation of SP in school

A Turkish adaptation of a framework for evaluating the mathematical quality of instruction: Matematik öğretiminin niteliğini değerlendiren bir çerçevenin Türkçe’ye uyarlama çalışması

A structured assessment tool on the quality of mathematics instruction is considered to be important. It is believed that such a tool could play an important role in providing feedbacks to the preservice teachers during their trainings as well as in evaluating the quality of in-service teachers’ practices. From this point of view, firstly, it has been performed a comprehensive examination of the relevant frameworks developed to evaluate the quality of mathematics instruction. As a result, it was observed that the Mathematical Quality of Instruction (MQI) framework differed from the others with respect to both functional and structural features. Within the scope of this study, the adaptation of the MQI framework to Turkish language has been realized. In this study, the characteristics, usage, components and theoretical background of the MQI framework are shared with the reader. In addition, the adapted version of MQI framework was shared and the performance indicators to help potential users were elaborated. ​Extended English summary is in the end of Full Text PDF (TURKISH) file.   Özet Matematik öğretiminin niteliğine ilişkin yapılandırılmış bir değerlendirme aracı oldukça önemlidir. Bu türden bir araç gerek öğretmen yetiştirme sürecinde öğretmen adaylarına geri dönüt vermek gerekse halen hizmet veren matematik öğretmenlerinin uygulamalarının niteliğini değerlendirerek uygulamaların geliştirilmesine katkıda bulunabilecektir. Bu düşüncelerle öncelikle matematik öğretiminin niteliğine ilişkin değerlendirme yapmak için kullanılabilecek çerçevelere ilişkin kapsamlı bir tarama yapılmıştır. Bu tarama neticesinde kullanışlılığı ve yapısal özellikleri nedeniyle Mathematical Quality of Instruction (MQI) çerçevesinin diğerlerinden ayrıldığı görülmüştür. Bu makale çalışması kapsamında matematik öğretiminin niteliğine ilişkin işlevsel bir değerlendirme yapmak amacıyla geliştirilen MQI çerçevesinin ülkemizde kullanılabilmesi amacıyla Türkçe’ye adaptasyonu gerçekleştirilmiştir. Bu çalışmada söz konusu çerçevenin özellikleri, kullanım şekli, bileşenleri ve kuramsal arka planı okuyucuyla paylaşılmıştır. Ayrıca adaptasyonu yapılan çerçeve paylaşılmış ve potansiyel kullanıcılara yardımcı olacak performans göstergeleri detaylandırılmıştır

Primary Teachers and Their Mathematical Difficulties

This paper is a by-product of a research that aimed to explore primary teachers‟ preparedness of the implementation of the new curriculum with particular regard to their pedagogical content knowledge. The study is carried out with 216 primary teachers working in 104 different schools in a large province in Turkey. Teachers were applied a questionnaire that included open-ended questions on different mathematical concepts covered in the primary mathematics curriculum. We report only on the questionnaire item on fraction in this paper. The findings obtained from this item show that almost a quarter of teachers have serious mathematical difficulties and misconceptions with regard to fractions. We discuss the concerns that these findings raise in terms of the implementation of the new curriculum and the issue of teachers‟ professional developmen

Sınıf Öğretmenleri ve Sınıf Öğretmeni Adaylarının Bakış Açısıyla Müdür Yetkili Öğretmenlik Uygulaması

Bu çalışmanın amacı, Türk eğitim sisteminin mevcut öğretmen ve yönetici yetiştirme dinamikleri göz önüne alınarak birleştirilmiş sınıflı okullarda müdür yetkili öğretmenlik görevini yürüten öğretmenler ile eğitim fakültesi sınıf öğretmenliği bölümü son sınıf öğrencilerinin “müdür yetkili öğretmenlik” kavramına ilişkin görüşlerini karşılaştırmalı bir şekilde incelemektir. Çalışma nitel betimsel bir araştırma olup, veriler yarı yapılandırılmış görüşme formu ile toplanmıştır. Çalışma gruplarından ilkini 10 müdür yetkili sınıf öğretmeni, ikincisini de 52 sınıf öğretmenliği son sınıf öğrencisi oluşturmaktadır. Veriler içerik analizine tabi tutulmuştur. Müdür yetkili öğretmenlerin tamamı ve öğretmen adaylarının da büyük bir kısmı müdür yetkili öğretmenlik kavramını olumsuz ifadeler kullanarak değerlendirmekle birlikte müdürlük ve öğretmenliğin farklı görevler olduğunu, kesinlikle böyle bir görevin yöneticilik formasyonu olmayan, deneyimsiz öğretmenlere verilmemesi gerektiğini ifade etmişlerdir. Katılımcılar bu görevin iş yükünü artırarak çok zaman aldığını, yorucu olduğunu ve tükenmişlik hissi yarattığını; görevi yerine getirecek kişinin lider, yönetim bilgisi ve iletişim becerisine sahip, gönüllü, sorumluluk sahibi ve adil olması gerektiğini belirtmiş ancak müdür yetkili öğretmenliğe ciddi bir alternatif üretememişlerdir. Tüm katılımcılar lisans eğitiminde alınan dersleri ve bu dersleri veren öğretim elemanlarını akademik açıdan yetersiz bulmuş, birleştirilmiş sınıflarda staj yapılmasını, derslerin içeriğinin değişmesini ve göreve yeni başlayan öğretmenlere danışman atanmasını önermişlerdir