A new look in social studies courses: Memory place

The aim of this study is to enable the social studies teacher candidates to recognize memory places that can be accepted from out-of-school learning environments, to associate them with social studies education and to show them how to use memory places in their fields. Action research, one of the qualitative research models, was used in the research. In the research, "Interview Form 1" and "Interview Form 2" developed by the researcher were used as data collection tool. Before the application process started, the researcher applied the Interview Form 1 to the pre-service teachers of social studies. As a result of the examination of the applied form, 23 volunteers among the teacher candidates who gave inadequate answers to the questions were determined as working groups. With the study group, 30 sessions and a total of 57 hours were applied. At the end of each session, application related feedback was received from prospective teachers. At the end of 30 sessions, "Interview Form 2" was applied to the study group and an evaluation was made regarding the whole process. The data obtained from the study group were analyzed by using descriptive analysis and content analysis. Overall evaluation of the results of the study, at the end of the applications, it is possible to say that all of the social studies teacher candidates in the study group can explain their memory places. Moreover they can identify their memory places in out-of-school learning environments, they can associate their memory places with their acquisitions of social studies lesson, and they can prepare lesson plans for out-of-school learning environments using memory places.