Preservice teachers' levels of understanding of place value and numeration systems [Ögretmen adaylarının basamak degeri ve sayma sistemlerini anlama düzeyleri]

The purpose of this study is to determine preservice teachers' levels of understanding (error reproduction) and analyzing (dept of analysis) the errors about place values and numeration systems and their using descriptive language according to their genders. This study was designed as a descriptive survey and both qualitative and quantitative research techniques were used. Accordingly, the study was carried out with 140 (female: 71, male: 69) pre-service classroom teachers at the third grade in the academic year of 2010-2011. Four questions which were intended for basic skills about the concept of place value and which included possible errors that the students at the primary school might make were used as the data collection tool. The results of this research revealed that preservice teachers were more successful in understanding the errors than they were in the dept of analysing and using descriptive language. Preservice teachers; however, could not give satisfactory responses about analyzing the error and the language that they used in explaining the errors

An Investigation of School Violence Through Turkish Children's Drawings

PubMedID: 19252068This study investigates Turkish children's perception of violence in school as represented through drawings and narratives. In all, 66 students (12 to 13 years old) from the middle socioeconomic class participated. To elicit children's perception of violence, they were asked to draw a picture of a violent incident they had heard, experienced, or witnessed. Children mostly drew pictures of violent events among children (33 pictures). Also, there were pictures of violent incidents perpetrated by teachers and directors against children. It was observed that violence influenced children. Violence was mostly depicted in school gardens (38 pictures), but there were violent incidents everywhere, such as in classrooms, corridors, and school stores as well. Moreover, it was found that brute force was the most referred way of violence in the children's depictions (38 pictures). In conclusion, children clearly indicated that there was violence in schools and they were affected by it. © 2010 Sage Publications

The effectiveness of Jigsaw II on prospective elementary school teachers

Jigsaw is a well-known and frequently used technique in cooperative learning. As part of ongoing studies to develop the technique, this research concentrates on exploring its use with prospective elementary school teachers (PTs). In order to establish PTs' views regarding Jigsaw and its effective on their academic success a proficiency test and questionnaire were administered and observations were made. Eighty-one PTs from the Elementary Education Department at Cukurova University attending a math teaching course (MTC) participated. Forty-five of these participants were in the experimental group and 36 in the control group. Findings show that Jigsaw II had a positive effect (effect size51.06) on PTs' academic success as well as on their views regarding the technique itself. © 2007 Australian Teacher Education Association