Abstract:

It is difficult to inculcate the knowledge, skills, competence, quality and values that students need to gain through traditional approaches of teaching. Therefore, approaches of teaching which make students active in learning, which lead them to solve daily life problems and thus inculcate in them the upper order thinking skills need to be used in teaching the social studies course. In this context, using authentic learning could be functional in the process of teaching social studies. It is because students actively take part in the learning process, they face daily life problems and they can gain upper order thinking skills whilst solving the problems in authentic learning. Besides, learners are also pleased with such learning. Hence, this study aims to identify students’ and teacher’s views on the use of authentic learning in the social studies course. The sample in the study, which was designed in the form of a case study- a design of qualitative research- was formed in criterion sampling. In this context, the working group of the research is 35 4th grade students, 20 of whom are girls, 15 of which are boys, who study at a public school in Diyarbakır, Turkey and the teacher of the class. The research data were collected with focus group interviews and with a questionnaire form composed of open-ended questions. The data were analysed in content analysis technique. The findings obtained demonstrated that students and teacher had positive views on using authentic learning in the social studies course. In addition to that, students also thought that the process of authentic learning contributed to them in developing several skills and qualities.  

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