Session Information
Contribution
The purpose of the study is to investigate the prospective teachers' level of readiness to deal with moral education. In this study, the researcher adresses two main questions: a) How do teacher candidates define morality, moral education and the factors which affects the moral development? b) How do they define teachers' responsibilities related to moral education? Moral and character education is an important issue in elementary education. The teachers' endeavors, interests and awareness constitute the one of the main components of the education and teachers' definitions and perceptions affect moral and character education directly. The reflections of the prospective elementary-school teachers provide us information about their preparation during in-service education to deal with moral and character education, what they expected to learn during their pre-service and in-service education, and what their opinions are about the in-class applications observed during field experiences concerning moral and character education. This is a survey research that included demographic information form and open-ended questions. Participants were 84 undergraduate senior students at Middle East Technical University (METU) Faculty of Education, Department of Elementary School Education. Fourty-nine of the participants (58,3 %) were female and the remaining thirty-five (41,7%) were male. From Foreign Language Education (FLE) 33 participants (39,3%), 28 teacher candidates (33,3%) from Elementary Mathematics Education (EME), 23 participants (27,4 %) enrolled in Computer Education and Instructional Technology (CEIT) participated in the study. The mean age of the participants was 22,52 years ranging from 19 to 26 (Sd: 1,10) A survey questionnaire adapted from a recent study by Akar (2006) was used in order to collect data. The interview questions were adapted for undergraduate senior students as survey. This study was introduced to faculty of education elementary school department's undergraduate senior students in spring term of the academic year in 2006 and data collection procedure was conducted in the classrooms. Before administering the questionnaire, researcher explained the main purpose of the study and the volunteer students participated in the study. The findings show that teacher candidates state the meaning of the morality as people's judgments about the universal values such as honesty, virtue, honor, and equity. Combination of un-written social rules, respect for others' rights and individivual differences, equity of educational opportunity, avoiding discirimination and plagiarism are stressed as concepts regarding morality. The students from different departments stress diverse feature of morality. The students of CEIT emphasize on ethics of cyber, EME students stress stages of moral development and FLE students point out emphaty. The common expectations of senior students are to get in detail information about how the teacher can contribute moral development of students and how they encourage students to internalize moral behaviors. According to teacher candidates, the initial responsibility belongs to families during moral and character education. The teacher's role is reported being a supporter, a guide and a good role-model. The participants offer examples about how they will deal with moral development and character education. They explain the positive aspect of their field experience applications related to moral and character education implementation in class and point out some aspects which is in need of development. The effects of families, society, media, elementary school teachers on students' moral education are discussed. Additionally, participants mentioned that their past experiences and socio-economic status effective in defining their understanding of morality. According to participants people construct a moral conception by thinking, by reading, by observing elder people and by educating and evaluating themselves. Akbaba-Altun, S. (2003). E?itim yönetimi ve de?erler. De?erler E?itimi Dergisi1(1),7-18.Clark, C. (1998). Discipline in schools, British Journal of Educational Sciences 46(3), 289-301. Covell, K. & Howe R.B. (2001) Moral education through the 3Rs: rights, respect and responsibility.Journal of Moral Education, 30(1), 29-41. Ek?i, H. (2003). Temel insani de?erlerin kazand?r?lmas?nda bir yakla??m: Karakter e?itimi programlar?. De?erler E?itimi Dergisi, 1(1), 79-96. Lovlie,L. (1997). The uses of example im moral education. Journal of Philosophy of Education 31(1) 409-424. Myyry L. & Helkama K. (2002) The role of value priorities and professional ethics training in moral sensitivity, Journal of Moral Education 31(1), 35-50. European or International Journal
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