The purpose of the study was to explore the problems of first three-year classroom teachers who graduated from regular teacher education programs and alternative certificate programs. The study also aims at examining the problems in relation to the type of certification, gender, cities they work in, institutions they graduated from, age, graduation year, recruitment year, teaching practice, number of teachers in the schools, class size, and type of classroom they teach. The subjects of this study were elementary school classroom teachers, from Ordu, Samsun and Sinop. A total of 300 teachers in these cities were ! asked to fill out a questionnaire. Of the 300 teachers, 275 teachers (128 females, 147 males) completed and returned the questionnaires. The researcher for the purpose of data coll! ection prepared a questionnaire that consisted of a 19-item de! mographi c data sheet, and 24-item five points Likert type questionnaire. The collected data was analyzed by using descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentages, means and standard deviations, as well as t test, and ANOVA. The findings indicated that classroom teachers mostly face problems in teaching compound classes, applying, and understanding the body of current laws, rules and regulations, teaching the reading and writing to elementary school students, in developing supporting teaching materials and in getting students participate to the course. The findings also indicated that the alternative certification teachers experience more professional problems than the regular education teachers. It was observed that gender,! city, teaching practice, number of teachers in the school, cl! ass size , and type of classroom they teach did not affect the problems experienced by the teachers.

This study indented to explore preservice elementary and secondary science teacher&rsquo / s perception of their professional roles and investigate their reasons of choosing teaching as a profession. To explore the perception of professional roles, metaphorical images were also used as a tool. The present study was conducted during the spring semester of 2004-2005 academic year with a total number of 441 (n=287 females / n=153 males and n=1 gender not provided) senior preservice elementary and secondary science teachers who enrolled in the elementary science and secondary science (biology, physics and chemistry) teacher education programs of three different universities in Ankara. Data were collected utilizing a questionnaire developed by Saban (2003) composed of five basic sections which investigates the participant&rsquo / s perception of teaching as a profession and their roles in instruction process and reasons of choosing teaching as a profession. Data of the present study were analyzed utilizing descriptive and inferential statistics. Analysis of the data showed that preservice teachers perceive their roles mostly with student-centered metaphors and define their selves as pedagogical expert who fosters student&rsquo / s social, emotional, and moral growth. Besides, most of the preservice teachers have altruistic reasons to choose teaching as a profession.

This study is a detailed examination of reflection in pre-service teacher education. It focuses on the process of the promotion of reflective teacher education. Within this process, it considers pre-service teachers&#039 / perceptions on becoming reflective and their focus of attention throughout their practicum. In relation to these, it analyzes pre-service teachers&#039 / improvement in reflection by focusing on various methods of promotion for reflectivity.

The present study investigates the impact on teachers' beliefs and teaching practices of their involvement in an innovative curricular project in Korea. The study explores the experiences of four teachers who were required to teach maths and science using English as the medium of instruction, and the inevitable changes to their practices that resulted when adopting the English language teaching materials. The investigation is a qualitative study, using face-to-face interviews as the main source of data, alongside teaching observations and the adoption of a research diary. Through an in-depth analysis of such data, the present study illuminates some of the concerns of the teachers embarking on the new curriculum, including their perceived lack of English ability, as well as perceived shortcomings of the English language program. However, all four teachers highlighted a number of positive experiences that they had not conceived of previously. The research reveals in some detail the process that the teachers went through from a position of doubt to a position of acceptance. This process reveals a range of emotions and challenges as well as evidence of personal and professional development leading to a broadened perspective on teaching. Overall, this study provides evidence of changes in teacher cognition and instructional practices in a context of educational reform, in which teachers are challenged to learn something new and subsequently, to change their pre-existing beliefs. The study reveals how positive aspects of teacher change can be experienced through their learning efforts, leading to a feeling of self-affirmation in their abilities as a teacher. This finding has particular implications for practitioners involved in teacher development in the field of ELT as well as teacher education more generally.

The purpose of this study was to examine topic-specific nature of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). Two experienced chemistry teachers&rsquo / PCK was examined in electrochemistry and radioactivity. To capture participants&rsquo / PCK, all PCK components were studied. To get deep and rich answers to research questions asked, qualitative methodology was used. Participants were selected through purposeful sampling. Data were gathered through card-sorting activity, Content Representation (CoRe), semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, and field notes. Results revealed that participants had two types of PCK, namely, PCK A for teaching electrochemistry and PCK B for teaching radioactivity. PCK A included content-based and teacher-centered instruction, many links to other topics in chemistry and in physics. The assessment was coherent which included different types of assessment strategies used at the beginning, during, and at the end of teaching. In PCK B, it was less teacher-centered. The link to other topics was limited. Additionally, teachers used fragmented assessment and were less knowledgeable about learners&rsquo / difficulties and misconceptions in radioactivity than they were in electrochemistry. Differences between PCK A and B may be related to nature of the topics. Learners need to have much pre-requisite knowledge both from chemistry and physics to learn electrochemistry. Also, there are more concepts in electrochemistry than there are in radioactivity. It seems that when teachers have to focus on more concepts to teach, they may have a tendency to teach more-teacher centered to save time. Teacher education programs should focus on topic-specific nature of PCK and provide topic-specific training to teachers.

The purpose of this study is to design and development of an online professional development material for science and technology teachers in order to solve their problems related with assessment and evaluation issues of constructivist learning. For this purpose, design and development research method was used in design, development and validation of this instructional tool. Research has been performed in two parts. In the first part, design and development of online professional development material was carried out. In this part, ADDIE model with rapid prototyping procedure was used in three phases. To gather science and technology teachers&rsquo / perceptions and attitudes towards prototypes, semi-structured interview schedule, Internet Tutorial Attitude Questionnaire, and a Checklist for Product Evaluation was conducted to 21 science and technology teachers in total. These data were analyzed using both qualitative and quantitative methods to reveal considerations of science and technology teachers about these prototypes and to make adjustments on these prototypes accordingly. In second part, final version of this material was evaluated. In this phase, researcher used self-efficacy questionnaire about alternative assessment and evaluation methods and a checklist for material validation. These instruments were administered both before and after use of final version of online professional development material. Descriptive data analysis was conducted to reveal differences in participants&rsquo / perceived-knowledge, beliefs, and applications about alternative assessment and evaluation methods after use of online professional development material. Research results disclosed participants&rsquo / beliefs and attitudes towards content, design and usability issues of online professional development material. Besides, validation of online professional development material revealed positive changes in participants&rsquo / perceived-knowledge, their classroom practices, self-efficacy beliefs and their perceptions about appropriateness of alternative assessment methods&rsquo / usage in classroom.

This study aims at finding out instructors&rsquo / perceived competencies in Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and Ministry of Education (MONE) competencies, and accordingly exploring strengths and weaknesses of the ELT undergraduate program as well as providing suggestions for a more effective and fruitful program. At the first phase of the research, a questionnaire is given to seventy-five participants, working in the department of Foreign Languages at various universities. For the second phase of the study, an interview prepared in the light of the questionnaire results is conducted with thirty-four of aforementioned participants. The results of this study illustrate that the participants find themselves more competent in learning, language proficiency, planning, instructing, and content than assessing, identity and context, and commitment and professionalism since the participants believe in the need of improving themselves in latter standards. Similarly, they consider the methodology, general education and language components of the ELT undergraduate program effective because they find those components practical and focused during the program while the literature and linguistics components are thought to be ineffective in preparing them for the profession as the methodology of these components, which is not integratedwith ELT enough. Lastly, in the lights of these findings, some suggestions are made for improving the program. For further research, all ELT teachers&rsquo / perceptions in Turkey can be investigated and suggestions for a better undergraduate program can be asked.

The purpose of this doctoral thesis research study was first to investigate the needs for a faculty development program in Middle East Technical University (METU). Later, in the second phase, models that explained the linear structural relationships among factors that might be influential on faculty&amp / #146 / s perceived competencies about the skills necessary for the instructional practices, personal, professional and organizational developments were proposed and compared. In this study, a questionnaire considering different aspects of faculty developments were sent to all of the academicians in METU. After collecting data from faculty members and research assistants, they were analyzed both descriptively and using principal component factor analysis. Based on the results of factor analysis, linear structural relations models fitting the data were generated through LISREL-SIMPLIS computer program runs. The descriptive results indicated that there was a feeling for need to improve the faculty&#039 / s self-proficiency in different instructional issues. On the other hand, both descriptive results and LISREL modeling results indicated that faculty members and research assistants show different characteristics based on their needs and factors affecting their self-proficiencies. These aspects will lead us to prepare different faculty development programs based on their needs and priorities. The result for both faculty members and research assistants showed that in a faculty, instructional self-proficiency cannot be considered as a single absolute parameter. Rather, it should be considered as several interrelated parameters connected to different aspects of faculty&#039 / s proficiencies.

This study analyzes the kinds of beliefs pre-service elementary mathematics teachers hold about mathematical problem solving, and investigates whether, or not, gender and university attended have any significant effect on their problem solving beliefs. The sample of the present study consisted of 244 senior undergraduate students studying in Elementary Mathematics Teacher Education programs at 5 different universities located in Ankara, Bolu, and Samsun. Data were collected in spring semester of 2005-2006 academic years. Participants completed a survey composed of three parts as demographic information sheet, questionnaire items, and non-routine mathematics problems. The results of the study showed that in general the pre-service elementary mathematics teachers indicated positive beliefs about mathematical problem solving. However, they still had several traditional beliefs related to the importance of computational skills in mathematics education, and following predetermined sequence of steps while solving problems. Moreover, a number of pre-service teachers appeared to highly value problems that are directly related to the mathematics curriculum, and do not require spending too much time. Also, it was found that although the pre-service teachers theoretically appreciated the importance and role of the technology while solving problems, this belief was not apparent in their comments about non-routine problems. In addition to these, the present study indicated that female and male pre-service teachers did not differ in terms of their beliefs about mathematical problem solving. However, the pre-service teachers&rsquo / beliefs showed significant difference when the universities attended was concerned.

The aim of the study was to investigate the dynamics of two online communities of practice (oCoP) for preservice teachers. The research process encompassed three main phases. Phase 1 was related to the design and development of online environment. By the help of existing literature and a pilot study, a portal which is called as &ldquo / Professional Development Circle (PDC)&rdquo / was developed. In Phase-2, 28 preservice teachers from three different universities participated to an online course as a part of an undergraduate course. During the term, they discussed on different video cases which were recorded in real classroom environments and produced new lesson plans for these lessons in the light of given suggestions. In the third phase, the same preservice teachers got involved in a different online environment without any grading motivation in the Phase 2. They discussed on some hot topics in mathematics teaching with other preservice teachers, academicians and experienced teachers. This research study was mainly a qualitative study. Two cases of the study were two oCoP which included mandatory or voluntary participation of preservice teachers to discussions. The data were collected through written reflection reports, observations and interviews. In addition, private e-mail exchange with participants and discussion list message history were rich data sources. The data were analyzed according to qualitative data analysis techniques. The design principles and findings of this research study were discussed in the frame of Activity Theory. This study revealed outcomes of two online communities of practice environments in preservice teacher education. In addition, motivators and barriers to be active in oCoP environments were discussed. Some of the motivators were getting more responsibility, self confidance, sociable personality, altruism, sincerity in the environment, and quality of materials while some of the barriers were not wanting to enter a fight, lack of time, the idea &ldquo / max benefit minimum effort&rdquo / , feeling availability of others, and Internet access and computer availability.