Being a Teacher: Elementary Teachers’ (mis)Conceptions and (ill-structured) Beliefs about Teaching

Year 2017, Volume: 42 Issue: 42, 135 - 147, 01.07.2017

Sibel Duru

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to
investigate experienced elementary teachers’ beliefs and conceptions about
teaching and to explore their ill structured beliefs and misconceptions in the
context of student-centered education perspective. 151 experienced elementary
teachers in Turkey participated in the study. The participants produced 81
metaphors from parents up to multi charger for the concept of a teacher. The
results of the study showed that some of the same metaphors were used for
different perspectives by different participants. In addition, majority of the
participant (57,6 %) believed that their metaphors represented student-centered
perspective. On the other hand, the results of descriptive analysis showed that
of the 151 elementary teachers, 119 (78.8%) had teacher-centered beliefs, 8
(5.3%) had student-centered beliefs while 24 (15.9%) elementary teachers had
mixed beliefs.. The result of the content analyses indicated that some of the elementary teachers did not have any clear
conceptions about student-centered teaching. These teachers described their
metaphors as student-centered or mixed perspectives in terms of codependent
relationships between students and teacher, instead of psychological and
philosophical foundations of education. In addition, it was
observed that the most popular misconceptions and ill structured beliefs were
related to “guide”, “active learning” and “students’ need, interest and
differences”. Discussions of the findings and recommendations for further
research are presented.

Keywords

Teaching metaphors; teachers’ beliefs; student- centered perspectives; teacher-centered perspectives; elementary teachers

Öğretmen Olmak: İlkokul Öğretmenlerinin Öğretimle ilgili (Yanlış) Kavramsallaştırmaları ve İnançları

Abstract

Bu
araştırmanın amacı ilkokul öğretmenlerinin öğretimle ile ilgili inanç ve
kavramsallaştırmalarını araştırmak, öğrenci merkezli anlayışları ile ilgili
varsa yanlış kavramsallaştırmalarını, ürettikleri öğretmen metaforlarına
dayanarak ortaya çıkarmaktır. Araştırmaya 151 deneyimli ilkokul öğretmeni
katılmıştır. Katılımcılar 81 farklı metaphor üretmişlerdir.  Araştırma sonucunda aynı metaforların farklı
katılımcılar tarafından farklı eğitim anlayışları için kullanılabildiği
gözlenmiştir. Ayrıca araştırmanın sonucu göstermektedir ki   katılımcıların çoğunluğu (57, 6 %)
ürettikleri metaforların öğrenci merkezli olduğunu düşünmelerine rağmen,
üretilen metaforların büyük bir bölümü (78.8%) öğretmen merkezli eğitim
anlayışını yansıtmaktadır.   İçerik
analiz sonuçlarına göre katılımcıların bazılarının öğrenci merkezli anlayışa
yönelik net bir kavramlaştırmaya sahip olmadıkları görülmüştür. Ayrıca,
özellikle öğrenci merkezli anlayışla özdeşleşen, rehber, aktif öğrenme, öğrenci
ihtiyaçları, farklılıkları ve ilgileri gibi, bazı temel kavramlarla ilgili
yanlış kavramsallaştırmaların olduğu gözlenmiştir. Araştırma sonucunda ilgili tartışma ve öneriler sunulmuştur. 

Keywords

Öğretmen metaforları; öğretmen inançları;öğrenci merkezli eğitim anlayışı; öğretmen merkezli eğitim anlayışı; ilkokul öğretmenleri

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