Teachers Candıdates’ Revıews on Teacher Candıdate Traınıng System

Abstract

Ülkemizde 2016 yılı Şubat ayında farklı branşlarda yapılan atamalarla 30 bine yakın aday öğretmen eğitim sistemine katılmıştır. Aynı zamanda aday öğretmenlik sürecini yeniden tanımlayan bir düzenleme yapılmış ve uygulamaya geçilmiştir. Aday öğretmenler, adaylıklarının ilk altı ayında yetiştirme sürecine tabi tutulurlar. Aday öğretmenler, adaylık süreçlerini atandıkları okullar yerine kendi tercihlerine uygun olarak farklı illerde geçirme olanağına sahiplerdir. Her bir aday öğretmenin deneyimli meslektaşları arasından belirlenmiş bir danışmanı bulunmaktadır. Aday Öğretmen Yetiştirme Programı modelinin uygulamaya nasıl yansıyacağını, mesleğe yeni başlayan öğretmenlerin gereksinimlerini ne ölçüde karşılayacağını incelemek önemli görülmektedir. Bu bağlamda bu araştırmanın amacı, aday öğretmen yetiştirme sürecinin aday öğretmen görüşlerine göre değerlendirilmesidir. Bu araştırma aday öğretmenlerin aday öğretmen yetiştirme sürecine ilişkin görüşlerinin belirlenmesi amacıyla nitel araştırma yaklaşımına göre desenlenmiştir. Araştırmanın çalışma grubunu 2016 yılı Şubat ayında öğretmenlik mesleğine ilk defa atanmış 10 aday öğretmen oluşturmaktadır. Araştırmada verilerin elde edilmesi amacıyla araştırmacılar tarafından hazırlanan açık uçlu sorulardan oluşan görüşme formu kullanılmıştır. Veri analizinde bilgisayar destekli nitel veri analizi programı olan NVivo 11 programı kullanılmıştır. Araştırmada elde edilen bulgulara göre öğretmenler bu süreci mesleki tecrübe kazanımı olarak görmekte iken bazıları zaman kaybı ve bazıları da öğretmenlik ile stajyerlik arasında sıkışmışlık olarak görmektedirler. Öğretmenler bu süreç boyunca mesleki tecrübe, sınıf içi iletişim, ders anlatma, problem çözme, idari işlerin uygulanışı hususlarında gerekli becerileri kazandıklarını belirtmişlerdir

In our country, as a result of the appointment in some different disciplines, nearly 30000 teacher candidates could be a part of education system. Also, a new revision has been completed on teacher candidate training and it has been put into action. Teacher candidates have been trained for six months after they have been appointed. These teachers can change their cities or schools from the schools they have been appointed. Each teacher candidate has got a supervisor chosen from experienced teachers. It is seen as important for searching that how the new model can affect applications and how it serves the purpose of teacher candidates’ needs. In this manner, the aim of this study is to analyze teacher candidates’ remarks on teacher candidate training process. This study is designed as a qualitative research to get information about teacher candidates’ ideas on teacher candidate training process. The participants of this study are 10 teacher candidates appointed for first time in February, 2016. In order to get information for the study, an interview form consisting of open-ended questions designed by the researchers is used. In this study, to analyze the data, NVivo 11 that is a data analysis program is used. According to the findings, while some teachers get this process as experience gaining, some teachers see it waste of time or got in stuck between being teacher and intern teacher. In the process, teachers indicated that they have gained required skills concerning experience in occupation, classroom interaction, didactics, problem solving, and managerial workloads.In our country, there have been a number studies on teacher education system and thanks to those studies, it has been aimed that the problems and suggestions for those problems have been determined. Via preservice education, the adaptation for the profession of teachers has been aimed to be accomplished with the help of some courses such as “Teaching practice and School Experiences”. However, novice teachers face a number of problems. In our country, thanks to the appointments in February, 2016, nearly 30000 teacher candidates from different disciplines have been a part of education system. At the same time, a revision that has defined the process of being preservice teachers has been conducted and in that year, it has been put into practice. Teacher candidates have been applied a training process in their first six months. Those teachers have a chance to change their training process in different schools from they have been appointed; nearly one fifth of the candidate teachers have been in Ankara, İstanbul or İzmir in their training process. The training process has been carried out by the supervisors and administrators in schools via the curriculum determined by the Ministry. Each one of the teacher candidates has a supervisor who has been determined from the experienced teachers in schools. In teacher candidate training program, it is thought that the courses based on “practicum” have not been adequate for acquiring the necessary experiences of preservice teachers (Altintas & Görgen, 2014). In the revised training program, they have been in 26-weeks program and their supervisors could be helpful for them. In teacher education, inservice teacher training is as important as preservice teacher training. Thanks to this revision, it is aimed that teacher candidates can acquire new experiences for their professions. This study is seen as important for determining the reflections of the new program namely Teacher Candidate Training Program on practice, how it is helpful for the teacher candidates, the problems of the first application, the deficiency of the new program and some suggestions in order to improve the new program. In this sense, the aim of this study was the determination of the process of training teacher candidate (PTTC) on the view of teacher candidates’ ideas. For this reason, the lack of the training program, the attributions of it for the teacher candidates, the differences of it from preservice teacher training education and the performances of the supervisors have been aimed to be determined in this study. Method This study was designed as a qualitative research method for the aim of determining the views of preservice teachers on the process of preservice teacher training. The sample of this study was 10 teacher candidates who were randomly selected from teacher candidates appointed in February, 2016. In this study, in order to collect data, the interview form that was developed by the researchers was used. In data analysis process, NVivo 11 program that is a computer-assistant qualitative data analysis program was used. In this program, in order to make data analysis easier, a code was defined for each one of the questions; and then each one of the teacher candidates’ answers were coded word by word and sentence by sentence as using in-vivo code maker. Discussion and Conclusions Some of the teacher candidates think that it is a process of acquiring professional experiences; however the others believe that it is a time-consuming process. Additionally, some of the teachers state that it is a process which gets stuck into being a real teacher and being an intern teacher. Teacher candidates also state that they are demotivated because they are seen as a real teacher in their training schools. When the courses on practicum and school experiences given at universities, it is seen that many of the teacher candidates can pay attention to these courses (Altintas & Görgen, 2014; Kirksekiz, Uysal, Isbulan, Akgun, Kiyici & Horzum, 2015; Yildiz, 2012; Yilmaz & Kab, 2013). After a supervising period, intern teachers stated that they could be more satisfied with their professions and they could be more successful while solving official problems (Boreen, 2009, p.25). In Turkey, since there is not a guidebook in which guidance information for teacher candidates, those teachers have to fend themselves on this field (Toker Gokce, 2013). If teacher candidates have not any guidance, their professional development will be both problematic and time-consuming (Azar & Cepni, 1999). The process of training teacher candidate can be a well-designed program in order to solve the problems of training teachers until today. In this sense, this program should go on as reducing its deficiencies and teachers should not be started at being a principal teacher without attending the training program. It is stated that one of the problems in the training program is the huge number of formal forms and those are very time-consuming. It can be thought that those forms can cause consume lots of time for both teacher candidates and their supervisors, so the training program is not so efficient for them. The teacher candidates in this study stated that they fulfilled the form that supervisors had to fulfill. Additionally, it can be said that enough attention did not paid during fulfilling those forms. One of the most important details of this program is the permission of attending the training program in different cities from the appointed ones. In general, teacher appointments are conducted in the east of Turkey. However, teacher candidates in the program completed the process in the west of Turkey. Duskun (April, 18, 2016) stated that this program was a handicap to adapt the appointed schools and it could retard the adaptation process of the appointed schools. Ozdemir and Yalin (2000) mentioned about teacher candidates need to academic support and help during their first years and they stated that the first years of teaching process had a critical period. Gokyer and Ozer (2014) also stated that intern teachers who could succeed to be appointed needed to be supported by guidance teachers. As a result of this study, it was found that the teacher candidates were not pleased to the supervisors’ performances during the program. As for the reasons of this problem, they stated that supervisors were not volunteers, they did not have a financial profit and they did not have enough information about this program. It can be said that teacher candidates have less problem than the previous ones in their first years in the schools thanks to the program of training candidate teacher. The teacher candidates in this study stated that they had some important skills such as professional experiences, introducing a course, problem-solving, knowing on formal processes thanks to this program. According to Toker Gokce (2013), the first experiences on teaching could affect the all teaching process during the whole life; and a teacher candidate who is trained adequately at the beginning of his/her professional life can adjust easily to school atmosphere and teaching process. Suggestions As a result of the study, it can be said that teacher candidate training program can be very effective on training teacher candidates. As following the teachers who have been participated in teacher candidate training program in the schools, some precautions can be designed in terms of their problems in their appointed schools. In teacher candidate training program, the role of supervisor is crucial. As a result of this study, as considering the views of the teacher candidates, it can be said that studying on this field is seen as a necessity. For this reason, some revising studies should be carried out by Ministry of National Education and supervisors should attend the process adequately