The purpose of this study
is to identify the main challenges geography teachers face in providing a
more efficient geography education and the solutions teachers come up with
against these issues. In order to be more effective in geography teaching,
identifying and producing solutions for the issues that geography teachers go
through within the context of school administration, students, parents and
other branch teachers is among the first measures that need to be taken.
Phenomenology design, one of the qualitative research methods, was used in
the study. As a part of the study, semi-structured interviews were held with
212 voluntary geography teachers from nine different provinces of Turkey, and
the obtained results were analyzed using descriptive analysis. According to
the obtained findings, two third of the geography teachers state that they
have problems with parents, more than half with the school administration and
students, and more than one third with other branch teachers. By extension,
it can be seen that the majority of geography teachers face problems with
parents, students and school administration, the key shareholders of
education. In an effort to turn the current situation around, applied
trainings assisted by case studies may be provided to improve geography
teachers' conflict management, adolescent psychology, problem solving and
communication skills. Furthermore, projects that will turn the socio-cultural
environment of the school into a center of attraction and promote
participation may be designed to spark parents' interest in education.
Lastly, school administrators may be suggested to take measures in terms of
both in-service training and material and learning environment that are aimed
at inclining teachers towards using student-oriented active learning methods
and techniques in order to generate interest and motivation in students
towards lessons.
|