THE EFFECT OF USE OF MIND MAPPING AND CONCEPT CARTOONS IN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION ON STUDENTS' ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENTS AND INQUIRY LEARNING SKILL PERCEPTIONS

Bu çalışmada fen ve teknoloji öğretiminde zihin haritası ve kavram karikatürü etkinliklerinin öğrencilerin akademik başarılarına ve sorgulayıcı öğrenme becerileri algılarına etkisi araştırılmaya çalışılmıştır. Bu amaçla eşitlenmemiş kontrol gruplu ön test son test desen kullanılmıştır. Çalışma iki ayrı ilköğretim okulundan birer sınıf belirlenerek gerçekleştirilmiştir. Araştırmanın çalışma grubunu deney grubunda 17 ve kontrol grubunda 17 olmak üzere toplam 34 kişi oluşturmaktadır. Uygulamanın öncesinde grupların akademik başarı puanlarının ve sorgulayıcı öğrenme becerileri algı puanlarının sıra ortalamaları arasında anlamlı bir farklılık olmadığı belirlenmiş ve gruplar göreli olarak bağımlı değişkenler bakımından denk olarak kabul edilmiştir. Deneysel uygulama sonrasında uygulanan akademik başarı testi sonuçlarına göre ise grupların sıra ortalamaları arasında anlamlı bir farklılık olduğu, sorgulayıcı öğrenme becerileri algıları arasındaki farklılığın ise anlamlı düzeyde olmadığı ancak deney grubu lehine yüksek artış gösterdiği belirlenmiştir. Araştırmadan elde edilen bulguların yorumlanması sonucunda zihin haritalarının ve kavram karikatürlerinin kullanımına dayalı etkinliklerin fen ve teknoloji derslerinde kullanılmasının öğrencilerin akademik başarılarının ve sorgulayıcı öğrenme becerileri algılarının gelişimi konusunda yararlı olabileceği düşünülmektedir.\r\n\r\nThis study aimed to investigate the effect of mind map and concept cartoon activities in science and technology education upon students' academic achievement and perception of inquiry learning skills. For this purpose, non-equivalent pretest posttest control group design was employed. The study was conducted by selecting two groups, each one a class from two elementary schools. The study group consists of a total of 34 individuals, 17 in the experiment group and 17 in the control group. Before the treatment, no significant difference was found between the groups' mean ranks of academic achievement scores and perceptions of inquiry learning skills and thus, the groups were taken as equal in terms of relatively dependent variables. The results of the academic achievement test administered after the experimental treatment showed a significant difference between the groups' mean ranks, while the difference between their perceptions of inquiry learning skills was not at a significant level but it showed highly increase in fovour of experiment group. On the basis of the interpretation of the study results, it is believed that activities based on using mind maps and concept cartoons in science and technology classes will help improving students' academic achievement and perceptions of inquiry learning skills.\r\

THE ACTIVITIES BASED ON CONCEPTUAL CHANGE STRATEGIES PREPARED BY SCIENCE TEACHER CANDIDATES

One of the main objectives of science education is to make students learn concepts meaningfully. It is known that students have some difficulties in understanding some concepts and they usually have misconceptions. In order to make meaningful learning possible, these misconceptions should be removed. Conceptual change strategies can be used for removing students' misconceptions in science education. Primary school science education is of great importance for meaningful science learning. Provided that science teachers teach scientific concepts correctly, students can be expected to learn meaningfully. Because of this, science teacher candidates should learn conceptual change strategies and how to apply them. This study contains science teacher candidates' activities related to conceptual change strategies, such as; conceptual change texts, analogies, models and concept cartoons. The study was conducted in 2009-2010 academic year, at Dokuz Eylül University, Buca Education Faculty. This 5-week study was carried out during Special Teaching Methods course. 28 students joined the study. This study was helpful in that the science teacher candidates involved in the study learned conceptual change strategies better and they prepared activities based on the

PROSPECTIVE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY TEACHERS' METAPHORS RELATED TO SCINCE AND TECHNOLOGY TEACHER CONCEPT

Science and technology course is one of the leading course in which students are thought abilities to obtain knowledge rather than transfer knowledge directly. Teachers guide students to obtain these abilities. So it is important to define field and job perception of future science and technology teachers. Metaphors are one of the tools that can be used for this. Besides it is regarded as a symbolic language tool that two idea or concept associated for comparison in deep meaning metaphor presents more of this. The aim of this research is to find prospective science and technology teacher's perception related to science and technology teacher concepts through metaphor. In the research it is used phenomenology one of the quality research features. Research is conducted by 90 prospective teachers who go on their teaching in University of Dokuz Eylul Buca Education Faculty in the spring semester of 2009-2010 academic year. The prospective teachers are asked an open ended question related to science and technology teacher. The result of the research we obtain data about perception of prospective teachers related to and science and technology It is tried to understand point of view of teacher of the future related to their own job

AN ARGUMENTATION BASED BLACK BOX ACTIVITY EXAMPLE ABOUT TRANSFORMATION OF ENERGY IN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION

Argumentation draws an ascending line in contemporary teaching-learning methods. Within argumentation applications the black box activity is considered to be efficient method. In this study, the black box experiment activity was applied on the topic Transformation of Energy with grade eight elementary students in Science and Technology course. This study particularly aims at answering the questions: "How is a black box experiment activity designed in science classes?" and "What are the students' views on black box experiment activity?". The argumentation was guided by the researchers during the activity. Semi-structured interviews were carried out at the end of the activity with 26 students in order to determine their views towards the activity, to identify the deficiencies and impediments and to improve it. Descriptive analysis was used to analyze the semi-structured interviews. The results analyses showed that black box activity was considered as a meaningful making, intriguing, challenging, enjoyable and motivating activity. With a well-planned black box activity, thinking, arguing and inquiry skills can possible to easily be acquired and improve

TECHNOLOGICALLY SUPPORTED MIND MAP APPLICATIONS FOR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY TEACHERS

Fen ve teknoloji öğretiminde, öğrencilerin derslerde aktif olmalarını sağlayacak teknoloji destekli etkinliklerle bilgilerini yapılandırmaları önem taşımaktadır. Zihin haritalama tekniği, öğrencilerin bilgiler arasında bağlantılar ve ilişkiler kurmalarını sağlayan, anlamlı öğrenmelerine katkıda bulunan görsel bir tekniktir. Öğrencinin herhangi bir konuya ilişkin hazırladığı zihin haritasını inceleyen bir öğretmen, onun zihinsel yapılandırmasına ilişkin fikir sahibi olabilmekte, gerekli görürse ek etkinlikler düzenleyebilmektedir. Öğrencilerin, Fen ve Teknoloji derslerinde, konulara ilişkin zihin haritaları hazırlayabilmeleri için, öncelikle onları eğitecek olan öğretmenlerin, zihin haritalama tekniğinin Fen ve Teknoloji derslerinde nasıl kullanıldığını öğrenmeleri gerekmektedir. Bu kapsamda, ülkemizin her bölgesinden, en çok Fen ve Teknoloji öğretmenine sahip birer ilinde, yani toplam 7 ilde Fen ve Teknoloji öğretmenlerine, "Fen ve Teknoloji Öğretiminde Zihin Haritalama Tekniği", "Zihin Haritalarının Uygulanmasına Yönelik Çalışmalar", "Mind Manager Programı ve Kullanımı", "Mind Manager Uygulamaları" konularında hizmet içi eğitim seminerleri verilmiştir. Hizmet içi eğitim seminerleri, Milli Eğitim Bakanlığı'ndan gerekli izinler alındıktan sonra İzmir, Erzurum, Ankara, Diyarbakır, Samsun, Antalya ve Bursa illerinde yapılmıştır. Bu konulara ilişkin eğitim süresi, 1,5 iş günü, toplam 8 saattir. Bu çalışmada, Fen ve Teknoloji öğretmenlerinin, yapılan uygulamalar sırasında hazırlamış oldukları zihin haritası örneklerine yer verilmiştir. In science teaching, it is significant that students construct their knowledge with technologically supported activities and become active in lessons. Mind mapping is a visual technique, which contributes to meaningful learning and enables students to correlate and link their knowledge. A teacher that analyzes his/her students' mind maps can have an idea of their mental construction and offer additional activities if needed. It is essential that science and technology teachers learn how to use and apply mind mapping techniques in Science and Technology course so that the students could prepare mind maps well. Within this scope, in-service training seminars were held in 7 cities of Turkey, one city from each region where the science and technology course teachers are the highest in number. The subjects of the seminars were; "Mind Mapping Technique in Science and Technology Teaching", "Activities on Mind Map Applications", "The Mind Manager Program and Using It" and "Applications of The Mind Manager Program". The seminars were held in İzmir, Erzurum, Ankara, Diyarbakır, Samsun, Antalya and Bursa. Total duration of a seminar equals to 1,5 workday or 8 hours. This study includes examples of mind maps which science and technology teachers prepared during the seminars

CONCEPT CARTOONS INTEGRATED PROBLEM BASED LEARNING IN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION: AN ACTIVITY SAMPLE "DANCE OF THE HEATED PARTICULES"

Fen öğretiminde öğrenme ve öğretme yaklaşımının değişmesi ile öğrencilerin derse aktif katılmasını, onların bilgileri yaparak-yaşayarak öğrenmesini ve bilgileri içselleştirerek birer fen okuryazarı olarak yetişmesine olanak sağlayan yöntem ve teknikler büyük önem kazanmaya başlamıştır. Söz konusu yöntemlerden biri de Probleme Dayalı Öğrenme Yöntemi (PDÖ)'dir. Bu yöntemde öğrenciler iki ya da üç oturum boyunca kendilerine sunulan günlük hayattakine çok yakın problem durumunu çözümleyerek öğrenmeye aktif olarak katılırlar. PDÖ oturumlarının ve PDÖ etkinliklerin daha verimli hale getirilebilmesi için PDÖ yönteminin farklı öğrenme teknikleri ile desteklenmesinin öğrenci motivasyonunu arttıracağı düşünülmektedir. Kullanılabilecek bu tekniklerden biri de kavram karikatürleridir. Bu çalışmada fen ve teknoloji öğretiminde probleme dayalı öğrenme yöntemi içerisinde kavram karikatürlerinin kullanımı açıklanarak, Madde ve Isı ünitesine ilişkin örnek etkinliklere yer verilmektedir. After the change of learning and teaching approach in science education, methods and techniques which help students to participate in course actively, encourages them to learn by doing-living and supports them to become science literal by assimilating information became more important. One of these methods is Problem Based Learning (PBL). In this method students participate actively by solving a problem situations given to them during two or three sessions. Supporting PBL with different learning techniques to make PBL sessions and PBL activities more effective might increase students' motivation. One of the techniques could be used is concept cartoons. In this study use of concept cartoons integrated to problem based learning explained and sample activities towards matter and heat unit given