The Perceptions of Student Teachers about the Effects of Class Size With Regard to Effective Teaching Process

The main purpose of this study was to determine student teachers\u27 perceptions concerning the effects of class size with regard to the teaching process. A total of 41 fourth-year student teachers participated in the study. A questionnaire including open-ended items was used for data collection. The study revealed that there is a direct relationship between class size and motivation, teaching method used, classroom management, and assessment according to student teachers\u27 views. Although carried with a small sample size, this study is expected to establish a firm basis for the future studies to contribute to teacher training programs, which enhance student teachers teaching abilities in both large and small classes

Öğretmen Adaylarının “Etkili Öğretmen” Nitelikleri Konusunda Düşünceleri

This paper proposes to determine the thoughts of Turkish prospective teachers about characteristics of effective teachers. Moreover, the study investigates the issue in terms of the variables as gender and field of study. In this descriptive study, the data was gathered by using a questionnaire based on quantitative research method. The questionnaire was conducted to 221 prospective teachers at a university in Ankara, Turkey in the 2007-2008 academic terms. The results of the study revealed that ‘being objective’ has the highest mean whereas ‘gets students to do presentations (projects, etc.) in lessons’ has the lowest mean according to prospective teachers’ responses. Furthermore, there is a significant difference in participants’ responses according to the variables of gender and field of study.Bu çalışma, Türk öğretmen adaylarının etkili öğretmen nitelikleri konusunda düşüncelerini belirlemeyi amaçlamaktadır. Ayrıca, çalışma konusu, cinsiyet ve öğretmen adaylarının devam ettikleri program değişkenleri açısından da incelenmektedir. Betimsel nitelik taşıyan bu araştırmada veriler, nicel araştırma metotlarına uygun bir biçimde anket kullanılarak toplanmıştır. Anket Ankara’da bulunan bir üniversitede 2007-2008 öğretim yılında 221 öğretmen adayına uygulanmıştır. Araştırmada öğretmen adaylarının görüşlerine göre en yüksek ortalamaya sahip öğretmen özelliği ‘objektif olma’, en düşük ortalamaya sahip özellik ise ‘derste öğrencilere sunum yaptırma’ olarak bulunmuştur. Buna ek olarak, öğretmen adaylarının etkili öğretmen özelliklerine yönelik görüşleri ile cinsiyetleri arasında ve yine bu özelliklerle devam ettikleri program arasında istatistiksel olarak anlamlı bir farklılık bulunmuştur

The effect of feedback on preservice teachers’ motivation and reflective thinking

This study aims to investigate the effect of a feedback model designed for preservice teachers on their motivation and reflective thinking. The study was designed as a single-factor within-groups design where the independent variable is the feedback model and the dependent variables are preservice teachers’ motivation and reflective thinking. The model was applied for six weeks in the Instructional Technologies and Material Development course at Gazi University during the spring term of the 2015-2016 academic year. The data was collected using the motivation scale, the reflective thinking tendencies scale and a semi-structured evaluation form of the feedback model designed by the researcher. The Shapiro-Wilk-W test, t-test, and eta-squared statistical test were used to analyze the quantitative data, and content analysis was used to analyze the quantitative data. The quantitative results indicated that the preservice teachers’ scores on the motivation scale significantly increased after the implementation of the model, while the qualitative results showed that the model contributed to their personal development.This study aims to investigate the effect of a feedback model designed for preservice teachers on their motivation and reflective thinking. The study was designed as a single-factor within-groups design where the independent variable is the feedback model and the dependent variables are preservice teachers’ motivation and reflective thinking. The model was applied for six weeks in the Instructional Technologies and Material Development course at Gazi University during the spring term of the 2015-2016 academic year. The data was collected using the motivation scale, the reflective thinking tendencies scale and a semi-structured evaluation form of the feedback model designed by the researcher. The Shapiro-Wilk-W test, t-test, and eta-squared statistical test were used to analyze the quantitative data, and content analysis was used to analyze the quantitative data. The quantitative results indicated that the preservice teachers’ scores on the motivation scale significantly increased after the implementation of the model, while the qualitative results showed that the model contributed to their personal development

Effective Teaching in the Eye of Teacher Educators: A Case Study in a Higher Education

Attempts to explore teacher educators’ thoughts seem to be meaningful at educational sciences since the number of studies discussing effective teaching and effective teacher at teacher education in the eye of teacher educators are quite limited. Therefore, this study mainly aims to identify the viewpoints of teacher educators in order to discover how they contextualize the concept of effective teaching. For this aim, a case study design, increasingly used in education (Tellis, 1997), is utilized in the study. This method is suitable when the research addresses an explanatory question such as how or why? (Yin, 2004). A questionnaire including open-ended questions is given teacher educators (n=48) who are working at a state university in Turkey. The participants are asked how they conceptualize effective teaching and which characteristics of effective teachers they prioritize. The results mainly show that to know what teacher educators’ opinions on the key concepts of effective teaching might be helpful for teacher educators to revise some points in their teaching and raise their awareness on the issue

Study in Teacher Education: Effects of Activity-Based Instruction on Student Teachers’ Achievement

Activity-based instruction is one of the teaching approaches used in the education of student teachers at teacher education. This study examined the effects of activity-based instruction on the views and learning outcomes of the student teachers. To this end, activity-based instruction approach was applied during the instruction on the experimental group and traditional learning method was applied on the control group. Poster study, puzzle and card activity were the main activities used for instruction in the experimental group during the study. The results showed no significant differences in the pre-test scores (p>.05) and the post-test scores (p>.05) between the experimental and control groups. These statistical results are different from those found in similar studies, which is found to be worthy of consideration.

Challenging Moments of Novice Teachers Surviving Strategies Developed through Experiences

The first year of teaching can be regarded as a challenging and testing time as teachers may face numerous problems (Huntly, 2008; Akyeampong & Lewin, 2002). In the present study, novice teachers are defined under two categories: student teachers and beginning teachers in their first five years as Lavigne (2014) defines in her study. First group of the participants of this study are novice teachers with maximum five years’ teaching experiences who have been enrolled in a graduate programme in Faculty of Education in two different universities in Ankara. Prospective teachers also take part in this study since they are considered to be novice teachers in literature. Moreover, it is believed that prospective teachers would contribute to this particular study to a great extend as they have already started to gain experience in real teaching context. In the data collection process initially novice teachers were asked to use log books for two weeks to write about their challenging incidents and moments during their teaching. Apart from log books participants were also interviewed. Focus group inerviews are conducted with prospective teachers whereas, indivual interviews were used with teachers. However, the log book did not work out as expected and the data came through were not sufficient. Therefore, only the interview data are analysed for the present study. The following questions are directed to novice teachers during the interviews in order to reflect on their challenging moments in order to reflect on their challenging moments: (1) Describe situations. (2) How did you experience the situations (3) How did you go forward / what were you thinking? What helped you? (4) What do you know about the result, how did it go?. The data was analysed through content analysis (Miles & Huberman, 1994; Strauss Corbin, 1998). The data analysis has not been finalised yet however, data analysed so far provides some remarkable outcomes. For instance, student teachers reflections reveal that they try to transfer their knowledge in real classroom context and deal the problems with the strategies based on their strategy repertoire gained in teacher education programme whereas, teachers reflections point out that they generally make effort to develop their own strategies for each case they experience. Awareness of the problems that novice teachers experience will allow us to think more deeply about adopting approaches that will help make their transition from novices to experts more smoothly and less problematically