Evulation of the practise of cooperating teacher in initial teacher training

The aim of this study is to evaluate different aspects of the practice teaching implementation which occupies an important part in teaching practice activities in schools in teacher training programs in primary teaching departments of education faculties in Turkey. The study was carried out by using a descriptive survey method. The population of this research study includes faculties of education with primary teaching departments, directorates of national education and practice schools as the partners of these faculties during the teaching practice activities, and faculty coordinators and coordinators of directorates of national education, and also school coordinators, supervisors, cooperating teachers, and student teachers who participated in the teaching practice activities throughout the 2005-2006 academic year in Turkey. The sample of this study consisted of 17 faculty coordinators, 17 local authorities of the ministry of national education, 303 school coordinators, 272 supervisors, 798 cooperating teachers, and 3375 student teachers. However, 17 faculty coordinators, 173 supervisors, 498 cooperating teachers and 2377 student teachers participated in this study. The data in this study were gathered by applying the following two questionnaires and one scale: ?Questionnaire for Identifying Qualities and Problems of Coordinating Teachers?, ?Questionnaire for Identifying Coordinating Teacher Election Methods and Training Activities?, and ?The Coordinating Teachers? Roles Scale?. Numerous statistical techniques such as means, percentages and standard deviation were used for ii analyzing and interpreting the data. Statistical analysis of the data was done by computer, using SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) Version 11.5. The findings of this study showed that the majority of cooperating teachers were male with undergraduate diplomas, 10 or more years of teaching and also 4 or more years of practice teaching experiences. The results of the study also indicated that the cooperating teachers could not be selected in many places, and in places where they were selected only practice school headmasters and faculty coordinators were effective in determining them, and in such cases, since the selection criteria required were not taken into consideration, the cooperating teachers who did not have the qualifications specified for the cooperating teacher tasks were selected. In addition, it was understood that some cooperating teachers could not benefit from training activities for improving themselves as cooperating teachers and most training activities arranged were limited with short meetings. Besides, even though cooperating teachers performed their roles as colleagues at a good level, they performed their roles of expertise, guidance, leadership, and also openness at an average level. Furthermore, cooperating teachers had trouble in terms of accessing to the informative materials written about school practice activities, consulting the authorities to solve the problems faced; communicating with supervisors, and experiencing difficulties while filling in some forms for student teachers and acquainting themselves with the procedures related to the contents of portfolios. In addition to all these, cooperating teachers were not able to perform their guidance roles adequately since it was discovered that the number of student teachers assigned to them for training was too many.