Social Studies Teachers’ Extent of Using Out-of-School Teaching Environments for Their Lessons
Abstract
The aim of the present study is to find out social studies teachers’ opinions about the use of out-of-school learning environments for their lessons. Since the social studies curriculum stipulates that out-of-school teaching environments should be given importance and utilized in accordance with the intended learning outcomes, the social studies teachers in this study were asked which out-of-school teaching environments they use and how they teach the lessons in such environments, as well as their opinions on the possible contributions of out-of-school teaching environments, the problems experienced in such environments, and their suggestions in this respect. Conducted with a basic qualitative research design, this study involved a study sample consisting of 10 social studies teachers who were working in schools located in Palandöken and Yakutiye Districts of Erzurum, and affiliated to the Provincial Directorate of National Education in the 2022/23 academic year. Research data were collected with semi-structured interview questions prepared by the researcher and analysed with a content analysis. In general, depending on the available data, it was concluded that 6 of the social studies teachers made use of out-of-school teaching environments in their lessons, while 4 of them did not. In this context, historical landmarks, museums and cinemas appeared to be the most common out-of-school teaching environments. Some other data further indicated that, in fact, all teachers participating in the study stated that out-of-school teaching environments make great contributions to the learning process as well as providing concrete and permanent learning, whereas some respondents expressed their negative views due to the difficulty of controlling students and the challenge of security-related problems.
Keywords
Social studies teaching, out-of-school teaching environments, teachers’ views
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