Elementary Science Education

For an effective chemistry education, it is crucial to determine views of the chemistry  teachers.  This  study  aims  to  investigate  the views of  chemistry  teachers working at science high schools, about the revised chemistry curriculum. Forty-two chemistry teachers participated in the study designed as survey study where the data were collected by a questionnaire with open-ended questions, Chemistry Curriculum Evaluation  Questionnaire  (CCEQ).  The  data  were  analyzed  based  on  the  themes existed in CCEQ. The majority of the chemistry teachers reported that both teachers and  the  students  also  have  an  active  role  in  the  current  curriculum,  but  their  views were fragmented about the learning activities and evaluation parts in the curriculum.  The teachers also emphasized the differentiation of chemistry curricula according to the school types.

The goal of this study was to analyze the science and technology questions with respect to science process skills (SPS) included in the Transition from Primary to Secondary Education (TEOG) examination developed for use with 8th-grade students in Turkey. The 12 TEOG exams administered in the course of three academic years from 2014 through 2016 that included 238 science and technology questions were subjected to document analysis to determine whether the process is being made toward incorporating science process skills in this high-stakes exam. The number of science and technology questions that incorporated SPS increased from 49 in 2013-2014 to 53 in 2014-2015 and 76 in the most recent year, 2015-2016. These questions included interpretation and inference skills far more often (n = 59) than data processing/modeling/hypothesis skills (n = 2). The document analysis showed that basic science process skills were included in science and technology questions more or less as often as integrated science process skills.

Early childhood education for sustainable development roots on environmental, socio-cultural and economic ground for encouraging lifelong learning and improving values and behaviors that support sustainable development such as use of natural resources, cultural awareness, gender equality, and democracy. Educational drama contributes to the development of skills necessary for sustainable development such as communication, cooperation and decision-making. This study has two main objectives: the former is to raise awareness and to develop these skills of pre-service teachers by organizing drama activities in Education for Sustainable Development (ESD); the later objective is to implement and to evaluate the activities based on the data collected from pre-service teachers and from one specific preschool teacher, in whose classroom these activities were carried out. Phenomenographic approach was adapted for the current study and the data was collected through interviews, photos, and field notes. The study shows that the drama activities increase awareness and improve skills for ESD within pre-service teachers. Furthermore, opinions and experiences of the pre-service teachers and the preschool teacher state that drama has positive impact on learning of preschool children about sustainable development.

Abstract: The primary purpose of this study is to classify contexts as one-disciplinary, two-disciplinary and multidisciplinary according to the disciplines. The secondary purpose is to determine which contexts are appropriate for teachers and students to learn and teach in the classroom environment. The 77 contexts in the questionnaire were selected from high school physics and chemistry curricula. The sample is a total of 378 participants from 3 universities in Ankara, 48 academics and 330 pre-service teachers from 3 departments. According to the results of descriptive analysis related to context and discipline relation, contexts are divided into 4 groups. Only 48 were associated with physics and 18 with only chemistry, and 5 were associated with both physics and chemistry. Only one context was classified as multidisciplinary. In the second part of the questionnaire that aimed to determine the desire of academics and pre-service teachers to learn and teach these contexts was examined, it was revealed that 65 contexts wanted to be learned and taught moderately. At the end of this study, the "human" context, which is a multidisciplinary and desired to learn and teach at a high level, has come to the forefront.
Özet: Bu çalışmanın birinci amacı, bağlamların disiplinlere göre tek disiplinli, iki disiplinli ve çok disiplinli olarak sınıflandırılmasıdır. İkinci amaç ise öğretmen ve öğrencilerin öğrenmek ve öğretmek istedikleri bağlamların belirlenmesidir. Bu çalışmada kullanılan anket formunda bulunan 77 tane bağlam lise fizik ve kimya öğretim programlarından seçilmiştir. Örneklem Ankara'daki 3 üniversitenin, 3 bölümünden 48 akademisyen ve 330 öğretmen adayı olmak üzere toplam 378 katılımcıdan oluşmaktadır. Bağlam ve disiplin ilişkisi ile ilgili olarak yapılan betimleyici analiz sonuçlarına göre bağlamlar 4 gruba ayrılmıştır. Bağlamların 48 tanesi yalnızca fizik ile 18 tanesi yalnızca kimya ile ilişkilendirilmiş, 5 tanesi hem fizik hem de kimya ile ilişkili bulunmuş sadece bir bağlam çok disiplinli olarak sınıflandırılmıştır. Anketteki akademisyen ve aday öğretmenlerin bu kavramları öğrenme ve öğretme isteklerini belirleyen kısım incelendiğinde 65 bağlamın orta düzeyde öğrenmek ve öğretilmek istendiği ortaya çıkmıştır. Bu çalışma sonunda hem yüksek oranda öğrenilmek hem de öğretilmek istenen ve çok disiplinli olan "insan" bağlamı ön plana çıkmıştır. Anahtar kelimeler: Bağlam, bağlam temelli öğretim ve öğrenme, bağlam temelli yaklaşım, bütüncül bir öğretim programı, bağlam disiplin ilişkisi