The opinions of teachers on the new 9th grade biology curriculum (Trabzon sample)

The principal purpose of this study is to determine teacher opinions on the 9th grade Biology course curriculum. For this aim; the ideas of teachers about the new curriculum, the problems that teachers encounter during implementation and their suggestions to render curriculum more effective and productive were collected. The participants of the research were chosen as 5 teachers conducting 9th grade Biology courses in secondary schools of the Ministry of National Education Turkey in Trabzon. The study is a case study and the data were gathered with open-ended questions of a structured interview. The obtained qualitative data were analyzed with descriptive analysis.At the end of the study, it was determined that the general structure of the curriculum is clear understandable, up to date and consistent. However, it was detected that the new curriculum is not practical enough in terms of learning gains, content, activities and assessment because of the certain reasons arising from; the curriculum itself, teachers, students, the coursebook and school infrastructure. It was also revealed that in-service trainings about the introduction of the new curriculum and teacher beliefs affect practicability of the curriculum. Concerning all the results above, it can be said that the intended improvements with the new curriculum cannot be fully achieved. Along with the obtained results, it was recommended that Ministry of National Education and universities should cooperate to organize elaborate applied in-service trainings to introduce the new curriculum to teachers.