ICT Pre-service Teachers’ Opinions about the Contribution of Initial Teacher Training to Teaching Practice

Year 2011, Volume: 2 Issue: 4, 319 - 332, 01.12.2011

Hatice Sancar Tokmak Turkan Karakus

Abstract

The purpose of this qualitative study is to investigate how well initial teacher training in ICT prepare pre-service teachers to teaching profession. Eight pre-service teachers attending to the “School Experience” course from the Computer Education and Instructional Technology Department at the Middle East Technical University took part in this case study. Observation and interview methods were employed to gather data. Moreover, pre-service teachers’ lesson plans prepared for teaching activity were analyzed. The results showed that initial teacher training courses provided several affective teaching skills such as developing awareness about the importance of being well-prepared for each class, being calm for unexpected situations, and understanding the reasons of students’ misbehaviors in the class. However, according to ICT pre-service teachers, practical aspect of these courses was not enough. Most of them stated that they could not apply different strategies in different contexts. In addition, due to the lack of experience on classroom management they had difficulty in completing subjects although they left extra time for each activity in their lesson plans.

Keywords

Teaching practice, Initial teacher training, Case study, ICT pre-service teachers.

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• Correspondence: Hatice Sancar Tokmak, Instructor, Department of Computer Education and
• Instructional Technologies, Faculty of Education, Mersin University, Yenisehir Campus, Mersin, Turkey