Özet:

The aim of this study is to analyze the views of high school 6th grade students on the course of social studies processed in out-of-school learning environments. The study was conducted through the method of phenomenology. The study is based on purposeful sampling and conducted in a secondary school classroom taught by one of the researchers. The classroom was in a state school in Istanbul, Turkey under the scope of social studies lesson. Throughout the lesson, various out-of-school activities were carried out for “Culture and Heritage” and “People, Places and Environments” learning areas within social studies curriculum. As for data collection, student opinions about experiences on these activities were collected. Participants before and after the study were interviewed face-to-face with semi-structured interview forms. Also, student diaries where students noted their experiences and reflections were also collected. At the end of the study, the data was enriched with focus-group interviews. The results obtained from the research were achieved by following content analysis.   At the end of the study, the results showed that social studies course enriched with out-of-school lerarning environments made it easier and more effective for the students to reach course obectives. It has been established that student perceptions on social studies as an abstract and limited-opportunity lesson has been broken. Students who felt that they were at the center of the learning process took responsibility for trying to produce something and develop their skills. This has also contributed to the fact that the social studies is a lesson that facilitates the acquisition of effective and long-lasting experiences that enable practical learning.

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