Teachers? opinions about changing in class roles in elementary education curriculum (grade 1 to 5)

The main purpose of this research is to determine the teachers? opinions about changing in-class roles after putting into practice the Elementary School Curricula-2005 in the first stage of elementary education (grade 1 to 5) and to determine the relationship between these opinions and the variables such as gender, experience, institutions they graduated from, and class size.The descriptive survey research was chosen as the research design. The sample of this study consists of 128 randomly selected primary school teachers. The teachers are from the provinces of Ankara?Akyurt, Çankaya, Keçiören and Şereflikoçhisar.In order to collect research data both qualitative and quantitative methods are used. For qualitative extent, an interview has been conducted in order to reveal the teachers? opinions on their in-class roles. For quantitative extent, a questionnaire has been conducted to find out the teachers? opinions about their in-class roles and to determine whether these opinions differ according to different variables or not. The data were collected in November, October and December in the 2009-2010 academic year. A total of 128 teachers in the sample were asked to fill out a questionnaire, and the interview forms were applied to 33 teachers who were willing to fill it.While analyzing the qualitative data, content analyze method has been used and analyzing the quantitative data, SPSS 11.5 statistical data analyze program has been used. As analyzing the data, t-test has been used for comparison of the opinions according to gender; Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) has been used to compare the factors such as seniority, graduated universities and class size with the opinions.As a result of the research;?Teachers define their in-class roles as guide, leader and instructor and practice the guide role more in the learning process,?As identifying the students, the teachers are mostly observe the students behaves, take information from the parents related to the student and apply inventories but do not always try to determine the different intelligent areas,?Teachers mostly fulfill the roles of preparing the teaching environment and directing but do not always pay attention to the individual differences in the class and do not always use various methods and techniques in education period, do not participate in trip-observation-examination activities and also use the technology as the school facilities make it possible.?The teachers try to provide the communication between student and teacher and also student and student; for that reason they encourage the students and be honest and behave openly towards them.?They do not always fulfill the roles related to providing the class control. Even though they are gentle and tolerant towards the students, they can?t control the class so they sometimes need to use the old methods such as authoritarian role and use award and punishment method,?They can not realize the roles according to the evaluation; do not always fulfill the duties such as preparing the portfolio and registering observation papers.?Teachers? opinions on their in-class roles vary according to the gender, yet these opinions do not vary on the factors such as seniority, graduated universities and class size.Key Words: Primary School Teacher, Teachers? In-Class Roles, Primary Education Curricula (2005).