Views of high school teachers on learning and teaching

Learning conceptions include the overarching framework that explains how the role of teacher, student, and teaching context permeate the learning situation. The views of teachers on learning and teaching are shaped in terms of the learning theories they consciously or unconsciously adopted. The body of literature choose to handle that teachers have either teacher/content centered approaches based on behaviorism or learner-centered approaches based on constructivism. One of the handicaps in implementing a curriculum succesfully is the views of teachers on learning and teachers. In order to understand how constructivist, learner-centered approaches are reflected in practice and how it affects the learning process, it seems important to know the existing views of the teachers. Moreover, teachers' views can determine what kind of teacher they are in classrooms and also the learning approaches of their students. The main purpose of this study is to examine how high school teachers conceptualize the terms of learning and teaching. The study was designed as basic interprative qualitative research. Participants were seventeen high school teachers working two different public high schools in Denizli. Semi-structured interview form was prepared and the interviews were analyzed according to the constant comparative method. As to the results, a core category labeled "teacher/content-centered approach" and three sub-categories labeled "learning", "teaching" and "factors affecting learning" were found. There were no differences in terms of schools however teachers' views about their school and students differentiated. Moreover, the central university entrance exam has a dominant role on determining the learning-teaching decisions of teachers.