Abstract
This article presents findings from research about a practice teaching course designed to help mathematics pre-service teachers to learn from the practices of school teachers and supervisors. For this reason, the aim of this study is to research the contribution of the practicum course to the teacher candidates understanding of the teaching process. The participants in this study were 61 pre-service teachers, enrolled in a required six-hour teaching practicum course taught in the last year of the mathematics education program at a large state university located on the north coast of Turkey. To answer the research question, information was primarily obtained from reflection reports prepared by the supervisor. Content analysis was completed to reveal the emerging themes and codes. The results indicate that practicum contributed in several ways to novice teachers’ view of teaching. These include preparing for the profession; application of theory-practice; getting to know students and being aware of the difficulties.
Highlights
1.1 Introduction to the ProblemTeaching requires the specified application of knowledge, skills and attributes designed to provide the educational needs of society
The study aiming to understand the contribution of the teaching practice course to development of pre-service mathematics teachers revealed the fact that the course contributed to their development from a number of perspectives
The study by Yılmaz and Kab (2013) found that the teaching practice course was very useful for social studies pre-service teachers in terms of gaining first-hand experience, promoting their teaching skills, and constructing more realistic views of the profession
Summary
1.1 Introduction to the ProblemTeaching requires the specified application of knowledge, skills and attributes designed to provide the educational needs of society. The main purpose of teacher education has been to develop an understanding of pedagogical content knowledge, a higher level of human psychology and classroom skills for prospective teachers to engage students in the learning process and to guide them to their own knowledge about any subject (Parkay & Stanford, 2010; cited in Akarsu & Karıper, 2015). One of them is a theory-practical approach and the other is a practical-theory approach. According to these two approaches, the theoretical knowledge given to teacher candidates will not make sense for them unless they are educated with the knowledge and skills they will need in the real classroom environment (Ceylan & Akkuş, 2007). Educating teacher candidates with the qualifications expected of them occurs during the theoretical and practical lessons they taken in education faculties
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