Primary School Teachers’ Opinions and Application Levels Related to Constructivist Approach to the Subjects of “Voice and Light”

Abstract

In Turkey, constructivism has begun to be implemented in education through the new Science and Technology National Curriculum in 2005-2006 school terms. Since 2005, the teachers have been a part of an altering process in education. This process has been emerged as a change for old teachers in the means of both theoretical and practical. Even though the change has occurred in the mean of theoretical through in-service education, unfortunately this change couldn’t have occurred in practical mean. In this respect, constructivist approach oriented activities should be more allowed for in the in-service education courses to the teachers. The teachers should be encouraged to make practices about constructivist learning. The aim of this study is to determine the opinions and application levels of primary school teachers related to constructivist approach. The sample of this study consists of teachers from six primary schools chosen as low, medium and high socioeconomic status by Ministry of National Education in Turkey. In this study, lesson observations and interview records are used as data collection techniques. The data are analyzed by using grid tables with Teacher Pedagogical Philosophy Inventory and Science Teacher Analysis Matrix. Findings from lesson observations and interview records are compared and interpreted together. As a result of the analysis of the interviews with and observation of the teachers, it is found that all of them, except for two, used non constructivist approaches in their teaching. Other teachers have started to recede didactic (classic-traditional) learning-teaching approaches. Though tree teachers express the non didactic teaching philosophy in the interviews, in the observations, it has been seen that these teachers exhibited wholly didactic teaching learning behaviors.