Özet:

Proficiency of teaching strategies which urges the learners to memorize rather than improving their abilities about creativity was discussed and found doubtful. As a result of those discussions in the literature, it is mentioned that there are several active teaching methods. Cooperative learning is one of those methods. This study aims to reveal prospective teachers’ opinions about cooperative learning, group research, jigsaw and reading-writing techniques. Action research method, one of the qualitative research methods, was employed. The research sample consists of 150 prospective teachers studying social studies in The Ataturk University Kazim Karabekir Education Faculty. 50 of these prospective teachers were assigned as the research group, 45 of them were placed into the jigsaw group; 55 of them were assigned into readingwriting group. The interview form containing three open-ended questions was used to determine their opinions. The data obtained from the study was analyzed through frequency, percentage by using direct explanation. Majority of the prospective teachers found the techniques positive. In addition to that they mentioned that there were several problems such as lack of physical space, technical infrastructure and duration. Results of the study indicated that the prospective teachers found the cooperative learning very beneficial in terms of their academic achievement, psychological and social characteristics. It was also found out that the cooperative learning has negative characteristics such as lack of time, entailing so much time, native to the cooperative learning. Besides, the prospective teachers stated that they are not contended not to take up enough responsibility due to inefficiency of infrastructure and physical environment.

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