Abstract:

The museums gain more and more importance in visual arts education as multifaceted learning and living spaces. It is aimed to visual arts teacher candidates acquire knowledge and skills relating to benefit effectively and efficiently from museums for educational purposes with the 'Museum Education and Practices' course which is 4 hours a week in Undergraduate Programs of Arts and Crafts Education. In this study, it is aimed to introduce suggestions concerning more effective and efficient implementation of this course by taking into consideration the experiences and opinions of the students attending the Museum Education and Practices course in the Department of Fine Arts Education of Anadolu University in 2015-2016 academic year. Qualitative research approach was adopted in the research process and focus group interview was made with 6 teacher candidates. In the focus group interview, the teacher candidates had been asked about their expectations about this course, their opinions about the purpose of the course, their thoughts about the practices they made in the course and their theoretical knowledge about the course, their opinions about the duration of the course and its’ place in the program. In addition, their opinions had been taken about the contributions that the course had provided to them, the topics they had been challenged in the course, the problems they had been experienced. Finally, they had been asked to make proposals for more effective and efficient implementation of this course. The data obtained at this focus group interview were analyzed through descriptive analysis. In the context of the opinions of the visual arts teacher candidates, to perform Museum Education and Practices course more effective and efficient the suggestions were introduced.

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