Page 198 - Innovative Professional Development Methods and Strategies for STEM Education

Impact of a Professional Development Programme

The present study was initiated to identify concerns of trainee teachers on a large-scale, and to con-
duct a PDP as part of their professional practice that would reconcile those conflicting views by helping
trainees develop appropriate strategies, and support them in weighing alternatives for action, and deciding
upon the one which best meets specific needs.

Participants and the Research Setting

Participants of the study were final-year trainee teachers of English attending a four-year English Lan-
guage Teacher Education Programme in a Turkish university, the first three years of which include EFL
courses. In Turkey, the Initial Teacher Education for primary and secondary school teachers takes place
through a four-year university programme leading to a Bachelor of Education degree. The curriculum
of the Teaching Practice at the university where this study took place is typical of other universities in
Turkey where the Teacher Education programme is offered. In the first term of their final-year of the
teacher education programme, as part of the ‘School Experience I’ course, trainee teachers are placed
in various schools to observe mentor teachers to develop awareness of English language teaching and
learning experiences.
In the second term, trainee teachers visit the placement schools, generally twice a week, as part of
the ‘School Experience II’ course, to take responsibility for teaching. A serving teacher from the school
is appointed as the mentor, responsible for guiding, supporting and evaluating the trainee teachers’
learning. Additionally, each trainee is supervised by a cooperating teacher from the university. All the
trainee teachers’ teaching performance during the practicum is assessed by their university supervisors.

Data Collection

This multiple-source qualitative study (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000) explored a phenomenon in its natural
school setting. A collective case study design was adopted “to examine, in-depth, a case within its ’real-
life‘ context” (Yin, 2003: 111), in order to provide both description about how each trainee teachers
engaged in CAR and explanation regarding the Turkish pre-service English language trainee teachers’
beliefs and problem solving skills in teaching practicum during the 10-week School experience II course.
Data were collected from multiple sources in two stages as described below:

School Experience I: 150 trainee teachers of English in their fourth-year of teacher education programme
were the participants of this part of the study. Assigned to classes in primary and secondary schools,
they observed 25 mentors. Before their observation of the mentors, I asked the participants to write
what their expectations were from the school-based mentors to investigate the participants’ pre-
established beliefs about language teaching and learning. At the end of the ten-week mentoring
observation period, participants were asked to reflect upon the extent to which their expectations
were met by the mentors whose lessons they observed.

Furthermore, the participants wrote two different reports each week: 1) field notes, in which they
mostly included their observations of the mentors; 2) a reflective report or a commentary, in which they
critically reflected on the experiences they gained from their observation of their mentor; that is, a more
personal account of the course of the inquiry. By doing so, they produced a written summary of their
evaluations/reactions to their mentor’s lesson delivery in terms of how the mentor’s teaching influenced

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