On the way of transition: Do teacher candidates gain necessary skills to be a teacher?

Author(s):

Esra Eret-Orhan(presenting / submitting)Ahmet Ok

Conference:

ECER 2015

Network:

10. Teacher Education Research

Format:

Paper

Session Information

10 SES 09 E,

Paper Session

Time:

2015-09-10

11:00-12:30

Room:

101.Oktatóterem [C]

Chair:

Sally Elton-Chalcraft

Contribution

As agreed today, the world is changing fast and continually and many new trends are reshaping the societies in such a fast-changing global age. Together with the globalism and the developments in many phases of life, new skills and abilities are needed to survive. In other words, as explained below by Wilson (1998), the new age requires new skills:

…in the twenty-first century the world will not be run by those who possess mere information alone . . . We are drowning in information while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by the synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely. (p. 294)

Therefore, in this age, teachers are expected to provide transition for the changing societal conditions, and parallel to this, changing educational needs and expectations so that new generations will be prepared with essential skills to be able to cope with the requirements of the new era. Being the leading agents for the education of human beings, teachers also need to be educated in a way that they experience transition towards being personally and professionally masters of their work. At this point, teacher education mostly delivered through colleges of education should be mentioned as the sine qua non of qualified teachers and quality teaching (Cruicshank, Jenkins, & Metcalf, 2009; Glathorn, Jones, & Bullock, 2006). The necessary personal, teaching-related, and 21^st century skills to be gained by teachers to become a teacher are presented through teacher education programs; however, there is always a need to examine whether teacher candidates are furnished with these skills so that they can bring up generations considering their individual needs besides national and international needs (Ben-Peretz, 2001; Cailier & Riordan, 2009; Cochran-Smith, 2005). Within this perspective, the purpose of this study is to investigate the views of teacher candidates on their teacher education in terms of preparing them with skills for teaching.

Method

The context of the study is Turkey where there are “faculties/colleges of education” to provide teacher education and the length of the elementary teaching programs is four years. The programs are composed of subject-matter, general culture, and pedagogy courses. The study had a survey design, as the data were collected from a sample to analyze their views through a questionnaire. The questionnaire was prepared by the researchers after an extensive review of national and international studies besides existing scales. It was examined by experts, pilot-tested, and approved by Human Subjects and Ethics Center. Besides, for the validity of the instrument, factor analysis was used. Cronbach Alpha value was calculated and found to be .97, showing a high internal consistency of the scale. The questionnaire was administered to 327 senior classroom teacher candidates enrolled to the classroom teaching departments of seven different faculties/colleges of education. The sample was selected from seven different universities located in different cities of Turkey using a cluster sampling method. Academic success, region, and student quota of the institutions were regarded for the sample selection. In the questionnaire, the teacher candidates were asked whether the teacher education they have taken has effectively prepared them for the specified teaching skills.” Teacher candidates assessed forty-seven teaching skills provided in the questionnaire on a five points scale ranging from 5 = very adequate to 1= very inadequate. The quantitative data obtained through the questionnaire were analyzed using descriptive statistics.

Expected Outcomes

Descriptive data analysis indicated that the teacher education collages prepared teacher candidates inadequately and neither inadequately nor adequately for teaching in variety of countries (M = 2.31, SD = 1.22), taking part in the European Union projects together with students (M = 2.48, SD = 1.19), fulfilling administrative tasks or duties (M = 2.77, SD = 1.13), assessing the appropriacy of instructional programs (M = 2.81, SD = 1.02), leading parent meetings (M = 2.85, SD = 1.17), deciding on students' individual learning needs (M = 2.88, SD = 1.17), planning courses based on individual differences (M = 2.89, SD = 1.21), organizing extra-curricular activities with teaching purpose (M = 2.90, SD = 1.23), guiding parents to help their children (M = 2.95, SD = 1.17), assessing and evaluating student achievement by using appropriate tools (M = 2.96, SD = 1.17), and communicating with parents effectively (M = 2.99, SD = 1.20). On the other hand, teacher candidates claimed that they were prepared effectively/adequately for using their voice efficient in lessons (M = 3.35, SD = 1.06), communicating with students (M = 3.24, SD= 1.11), using native language correctly and effectively (M = 3.37, SD = 1.06), relating lessons with daily life (M = 3.24, SD= 1.11), and providing discipline in class (M = 3.36, SD = 1.00). Also, it is worth noticing that none of the skills covered in the questionnaire were rated as very adequate by senior students. Acknowledging its role of “providing transition towards being an effective teacher,” teacher education needs to be reconsidered by the policy makers and teacher educators in terms of its effectiveness for preparing future teachers. The teacher education curricula can be fostered by integrating more activities and projects on the necessary teaching skills.

References

Ben-Peretz, M. (2001). The impossible role of teacher educators in a changing world. Journal of Teacher Education, 52(48), 48-56. Caillier, S. L. & Riordan, R. C. (2009). Teacher education for the schools we need. Journal of Teacher Education, 60(5) 489–496. Cochran-Smith, M. (2005). The new teacher education: For better or for worse? Educational Researcher, 34(6), 181-206. Cruickshank, D. R., Jenkins, D. B., & Metcalf, K. K. (2009). The act of teaching. USA: McGraw-Hill, Inc. Glathorn, A. A., Jones, B. K., & Bullock, A. A., (2006). Developing highly qualified teachers: A handbook for school leaders. California, Corwin Press. Wilson, B. G. (1996). Constructivist learning environments: Case studies in instructional design. Englewood Cliffs: Educational Technology Publications.

Author Information

Esra Eret-Orhan (presenting / submitting)

Middle East Technical University

Ankara

Ahmet Ok

Middle East Technical University, Turkey

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