Views on the implementation of learning by teaching method in teaching profession courses (Case study)

'Learning by teaching' is a method created by Jean-Paul Martin, professor of French language and literature in Germany in 1985. Although it was applied in foreign language teaching in the beginning, it has been used in different courses at different school types over time. The basic principle in this method is to give the student as much teacher responsibility as possible and to encourage as many students as possible to be highly active in the course. It is a holistic learning process that places students as a whole personality in the center of the teaching process. Generally, the method has been found to be quite effective, but in some cases, this method has been misused. In recent years, the use of presentations at university-level courses has been increasing, and at some universities, courses are carried out in the form of student presentations for a whole semester. The main purpose of this research to investigate the opinions of students and lecturers about these presentations which are used as a part of learning by teaching method. In this context, at undergraduate level, a total of 13 senior students from 13 different programs at İnönü University Faculty of Education; at graduate level, 6 Master's students from the department of Curriculum and Instruction; and 5 lecturers from the same department were the sample group of the study. Data were collected on a voluntary basis. As a means of data collection, a semi-structured interview form was used and an average of 30 minutes of interviews were conducted with each participant. In the analysis of the data, a qualitative analysis program was used and descriptive and content analyses were applied. In the interview form, focus was on the purpose, usefulness of student presentations, role of lecturers before and during presentations and and evaluation of presentations. According to the findings regarding the purpose of presentations, in addition to some desired purposes such as research and examination, gaining teaching experience, learning by teaching and technology use, some undesired purposes such as lecturers' unwillingness to teach and lack of proficiency also appeared. Some participants found the presentations useful in terms of communication, learning, gaining experience and research, while others did not find it useful at all. The opinions about the support of the lecturers were examined under two headings: before and during presentations. It was found out that the support was often thought as not enough. As for the evaluation, it was revealed that the students mostly did not know anything about the criteria used in evaluation process. This research is important in terms of describing the situation in the application of the learning by teaching method and giving ideas about future applications. It is thought that the educators who already use or intend to use the learning by teaching method will benefit from the research findings. Keywords: Learning by teaching, Student presentations, Constructivism