Abstract:

This study investigated primary school teachers’ and faculty members’ opinions about the teaching practice course identified in the classroom teaching curriculum. Being qualitative in design, participants of this case study were six faculty members assigned with the teaching practice course at a faculty of education affiliated to a state university in Turkey and ten teachers working at practice schools at the time of data collection through the convenient sampling method. Data were collected via a semi-structured interview form developed by the researchers during the 2017-2018 fall semester and analysed through content analysis method. Based on the research findings, the participants have stated that the teaching practice course contributes to candidate teachers especially on putting theory into practice, intramural communication, developing a positive attitude towards teaching profession and gaining experience in the school and classroom setting and that they are confronted with problems related to the course duration and the use of educational technologies in the course. Besides, they have proposed such practical implications as “increasing the class hours for teaching practice”, “revision of the existing course curriculum/content”, “reconstructing the teaching evaluation forms”, “use of micro-teaching” and “increasing the practical course hours of teaching in multi-grade classrooms”. 

Keywords: