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Abstract
Education based on constructivist approach has been implemented in Turkey for ten years. The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of teacher trainers in the Faculty of Education regarding constructivist education through metaphors. Thus, the expressed metaphors were ascertained, the themes were extracted, analyzed and, then, compared according to departments in the Faculty of Education and programs in the Department of Educational Sciences. In this study, phenomenological design, one of qualitative research design, was used. 323 teacher trainers at 71 Faculties of Education volunteered to take part in the study. 13 themes were extracted from metaphors. It was observed that teacher trainers considers constructivist education generally as providing an opportunity to learn by doing and living, constructing new knowledge from prior knowledge, and guiding students to discover and learn how to learn. Any noteworthy differences have not been observed between departments and programs. As a final remark, the metaphors and themes pointed out that cognitive constructivism was emphasized by the teacher trainers.
Keywords
Abstract
Education based on constructivist approach has been implemented in Turkey for ten years. The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of teacher trainers in the Faculty of Education regarding constructivist education through metaphors. Thus, the expressed metaphors were ascertained, the themes were extracted, analyzed and, then, compared according to departments in the Faculty of Education and programs in the Department of Educational Sciences. In this study, phenomenological design, one of qualitative research design, was used. 323 teacher trainers at 71 Faculties of Education volunteered to take part in the study. 13 themes were extracted from metaphors. It was observed that teacher trainers considers constructivist education generally as providing an opportunity to learn by doing and living, constructing new knowledge from prior knowledge, and guiding students to discover and learn how to learn. Any noteworthy differences have not been observed between departments and programs. As a final remark, the metaphors and themes pointed out that cognitive constructivism was emphasized by the teacher trainers.