Investigation of the In-service Teacher Training Programs in the United States and Recommendations for Turkey: The Case of Kent Education Excellence Partnership (KEEP)

Year 2018, Issue: 14, 181 - 197, 25.07.2018

Necdet Aykaç

https://doi.org/10.30786/jef.357055

Abstract

 

In the
current study, the purpose was to evaluate the professional development school
applications conducted under the coordination of Kent State University in the
USA on the basis of the researcher’s observations and the faculty members’
opinions to come up with suggestions for the in-service teacher training programs
conducted in Turkey. The study is a qualitative case study. Being an example of
the professional development school applications, Kent State Excellence
Partnership (KEEP) program was evaluated by seeking the opinions of two faculty
members who are among the main elements of the program and of 17 teachers
having participated in the program. Moreover, document analysis and
observations were conducted to evaluate the applications. The data of the study
were collected through the semi-structured interview technique, and a
questionnaire. The data collected through the interviews conducted with the
faculty members and teachers’ written responses to the questionnaire items were
analyzed by using the “content analysis” technique and then interpreted by the
researcher. The application process of the program was observed by the
researcher, who was in the position of a participant observer, and an assistant
doing doctorate in Kent State University and thus, two separate observation
reports were written. Recognizing that there are no significant differences
between the observations, two reports were combined into a single report
through discussion. The findings of the study revealed that the faculty members
are of the opinion that teachers come together for professional development and
learning within the context of the professional development school
applications, that participating teachers make their own decisions about what
they want to learn and that they learn in a learning process based on
reciprocal interaction. The teachers having participated in the program stated
that the most important contribution of KEEP applications is the creation of a
university-school partnership and their working in cooperation with other
teachers. According to the observations of the researcher, in professional
development schools, teachers find opportunities to develop themselves, their
colleagues and schools as practitioners, researchers, listeners and active
participants in the planning and implementation of the learning process.

Keywords

Mesleki gelişim okulları, hizmetiçi eğitim, öğretmen eğitimi, öğretmen yetiştirme

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