A professional teacher development program on the usage of archive documents: A course study on Turkish Republic Revolution History and Kemalism classes

The aim of this study is to reveal the reflection of the educational backgrounds of social studies teachers and the Professional Development Program organized for them on their use of activities based on archive documents in their courses. Within the scope of this study, the curriculum, course outcomes and textbook of the 8th grade Republic of Turkey Revolution History and Kemalism course were examined. It was observed that the course is designed to cover history methodology and the students' correct use of concepts peculiar to the course. Although in the curriculum the necessity to use archive documents, first-hand sources, as educational content by emphasizing producing evidence-based results in science was pointed out, appropriate activities were not seen in the content of the textbook. The lack of an inservice training program for teachers regarding these issues and insufficient shared information on how to manage the process were effective in determining the research topic and developing the method to be applied. "Action Research", one of the qualitative research designs, was used in order to emphasize the process and to enrich it with different contents and participants. First of all, in order to determine the professional development program that teachers need, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 social studies teachers and a needs analysis was conducted. The data obtained were analyzed by descriptive analysis method. A 5-session professional development program was created by comparing the relevant data with the literature. In order to set an example for the professional development program participants, a unit of the TR Revolution History and Kemalism Course was selected and a sample workbook and a guidebook was prepared on this unit. 5- session training determined through distance education was applied to 5 social studies teachers selected with the purposeful sampling method. Before and after the training, the change in the opinions of the participants regarding the use of archive documents in the courses was examined through semi-structured interviews with similar questions with the teachers. During the training, observations were made by an external observer within the framework of a semi-structured observation form and the researcher diary was kept by the researcher. Teachers were asked to write their autobiographies so that the data could be analyzed in the context of the teachers' personal stories. The distance education program was recorded and its traceability was ensured to confirm the data later. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive analysis and content analysis methods, coding was performed by two different coders, and the reporting process was started after the compatibility between the coders was sufficient. Before the action research, it was observed that the participants had a positive attitude regarding the use of archive documents in the lessons, but they did not have sufficient knowledge about how to select these documents, how to check their accuracy, how to turn them into educational documents and how to evaluate them. Although it was observed that the participants used the archive documents in their lessons and were willing to use them, it was found that these experiences were not systematic, but rather subjective and random. During the action research, teachers received comprehensive training on how to access archive documents, how to verify the accuracy of these documents, how to turn archive documents into teaching material, how to design lessons based on archival documents, and how to evaluate such teaching, and they developed their competencies in this field. As a result of the action research, the teachers stated that they have mastered the processes regarding the use of archive documents in the lessons, they can use these documents in their lessons without forcing the course time in accordance with the curriculum objectives and gains, and they can use the archive documents as the main activity of the course. The view that interdisciplinary studies can be carried out by using archive documents in the lessons and that the higher-level thinking skills of the students will be contributed in this way was shared with the participants. As a result of this study, a content was tried to be presented to social studies teachers regarding the regulation of professional development programsrelated to the use of distance education tools and archive documents of the Ministry of National Education in lessons. It is recommended that education faculties include training on the use of archive documents in undergraduate and graduate programs, establishing an education unit in the Presidency State Archives, increasing the recognition of archive documents and publishing them as educational material by harmonizing with the course outcomes