Evaluation of teaching practice course in education faculties and preparation of teaching practice curriculum

The new concept that has appeared with the onset of information age affects both teaching and teachers as it does almost all domains. Today, teachers are supposed to provide the information that is available but they are also required to have the ability to generate information and use it in a critical way. This new concept makes it essential that teaching and the education of teachers should be redesigned thoroughly. With a long history that starts with the Ottoman Empire, our teacher education programs are to be redesigned in line with the new concept. As a matter of fact, it has been made clear in multiple studies that there are a great many problems with the capabilities of the newly-qualified teachers and the pre-service teacher education they receive in education faculties. An important source of problems our teacher education programs are faced with is the lack of strong connections between theory and practice. At this point, the experiences of student teachers in schools are very essential, and with teaching practice, student teachers are provided with better opportunities for putting theory into practice so that they can improve their teaching skills. In the process of teaching practice, it seems that student teachers are faced with many problems both qualitatively and quantitatively. In order to overcome these issues, a comprehensive evaluation study needs to be conducted, but at the same time a curriculum for teaching practice is also is also essential. The purpose of this study is to evaluate teaching practice course and to prepare teaching practice curriculum in education faculties based on Daniel Sufflebeam's Context, Input, Process and Product (CIPP) Evaluation Model. The pattern of this study has been designed in a way that blends both quantitative and qualitative methods. The study was conducted in accordance with sequential exploratory mixed method design. The population of the study is composed of the student teachers, as well as the university teachers and the teachers, who are actively involved in teaching practice in the education faculties of Turkey. Since not only quantitative but also qualitative data were sought, sampling was achieved in two phases. The quantitative data were obtained from 1129 student teachers training in 4 education faculties located in Van, Diyarbakır, Konya and İzmir, including 90 university teachers in these faculties, and from 314 teachers in the schools where the teaching practice was achieved. As for the qualitative data, they were obtained by interviewing 24 student teachers, 18 faculty members and 18 teachers. A survey for evaluation of teaching practice curriculum in teacher training programs, a focus group interview form and two semi-structured interview forms were prepared for data collection. A literature review was conducted in the course of improving the survey form. Also, learned opinion was received and a pilot scheme was practiced. Furthermore, learned opinion was received in improving the interview forms. SPSS and NVivo 7 packet programs were employed for data analysis. The quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics, the Kruskall Wallis H test and the Mann Whitney U Test, while the qualitative data were analysed using the techniques of descriptive analysis and content analysis. Below are some of the results drawn from the present study: • The time allotted for teaching practice was insufficient. Likewise, the duties and responsibilities of the partners were not defined sufficiently. Also, the schools in which teaching was practiced did not have appropriate conditions. • The objectives and content of the curriculum were not prepared appropriately, nor were the teaching-learning process and evaluation criteria. Finally, none of the student teachers, the cooperating teachers, the university teachers and school managers was equipped with sufficient skills for teaching practice. • According to the viewpoints of student teachers and university teachers, the student teachers were not provided with enough information prior to the teaching practice process. Likewise, the seminars were not carried out on a regular basis. In addition, no effective lesson planning was achieved and so the lessons were lacking in adequacy and quality. Furthermore, since no feedback was provided after the lessons, assessment and evaluation studies could not be done sufficiently. • According to university teachers, student teachers did not have sufficient methods and techniques required for teaching, nor were they sufficiently equipped with teaching technologies. Also, they lacked sufficient skills for assessing and evaluating the learning process, developing materials, getting students to actively participate in the lessons, providing consolidation tests, and giving informative instructions to the students. • The teaching practice should be achieved in schools with various conditions by extending the time allotted for teaching practice. In addition to lesson planning, teaching lessons, holding seminars, student teachers should be enable to achieve measurement and evaluation, engage in school management when necessary, attend extracurricular activities, engage with school-parents associations and write daily journals within the expansion process of teaching practice scope. Keywords: Teacher education, teaching practice, curriculum development, curriculum evaluation