Teacher Candidates' Experiences with the Flipped Classroom Model: A Phenomenological Approach

Abstract

Today, technology integration has become an important issue in the teaching-learning environment. Developed countries integrate technology into schools from pre-school education to higher education, adopting a student-centred approach in their curriculums. Turkey has embraced a constructivist approach to its curriculum since the academic year 2005, in which studies of the teaching-learning environment ushered in the integration of new technology. Despite this, few studies have been conducted on technology integration in higher education. One approach to this research explores the integration of technology in Turkey into the flipped classroom model by the higher education institution, a subject upon which there has not been a sufficient amount of qualitative research. For this reason, in this study, the opinions of elementary teacher candidates regarding their experiences with the flipped classroom model were examined. The research was designed according to phenomenological research design, one of the foremost qualitative research patterns. The participants of the research are teacher candidates studying at Süleyman Demirel University as classroom teachers. The research sample was determined according to the criterion sampling method. An opinion questionnaire about the flipped classroom was used as a data collection tool in the research. Content analysis, a qualitative analysis method, was used to analyse the data. From the research, it was concluded that teacher candidates have experience with the flipped classroom model, believe this model provides many contributions to them and have encountered various problems with the model, for which they have suggestions on how these can be fixed.