Page 208 - Innovative Professional Development Methods and Strategies for STEM Education

Impact of a Professional Development Programme

The last interview took place during the last week in the practicum summarises nicely how Özge
perceived her belief changes. Through participation in the CAR, she experienced how the initial ideas
of teaching and student learning were brought into reality and her ability to come to terms with many
of the dilemmas and concerns improved. This was expressed as follows:

Since I had so many opportunities to observe my mentor in the first term, I made some decisions about
my own teaching process. For example, I decided that I would use L2 in class frequently and I would
be more facilitator towards the students. Teaching young learners is like creating a new picture. I have
been very determined because I tried my way and didn’t choose the traditional way though it was really
hard, at times. During the lessons, I used L2 as much as possible. And my students were always busy
doing the activities. Sometimes these were stir-up activities, sometimes settle-down. I always had two
activities about a topic. I gave them the chance to choose which activity they wanted. So they didn’t have
time to get bored in my classes.

While I was teaching, every class has taught me something. I used realia, songs, games, reinforcements,
etc. during the lesson to support my teaching. I gave clear instruction, did a lot of practice, and tried to
monitor classroom activities, gave feedback and reinforcement regarding their behaviour. While doing
these all, I made use of humour, when suitable, to stimulate student interest or reduce classroom ten-
sions. Thanks to these, I could involve students in lessons and didn’t have problems related to classroom
management.

SOLUTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Situated in an L2 teacher education context, the present study reveals that collaborative action research is
a valuable tool to promote trainee teachers’ problem solving skills in resolving dilemmas and concerns;
and, contributing to their professional development during their school practicum, when facilitated in the
field school with expert support. Involvement in action research helps teacher trainees reflect upon the
concerns originating from observation of mentors and their specific classroom contexts and promotes
deeper reflection and the ability to deal with genuine problems. As revealed from reflective journals,
interviews and other data sources, all the participants, as well as Özge perceived the implementation of
CAR positive despite the fact that action research is an additional workload. In the present study, the
CAR was part of formal assessment of school practicum.
Despite the short duration of the teaching practicum, the participants’ prior beliefs interacted with the
new input and experiences through participation, practice, and reflection. As a result, their beliefs about
language teaching and their self-understanding as a language teacher were transformed and developed
(Freeman & Johnson, 1998; Kelly, 2006). The study also reveals that trainee teachers’ beliefs about
language teaching and learning are not stable, but open to change and development, which corroborates
Borg’s (2006, 2009) claim that significant changes do take place in pre-service teachers’ beliefs through
the teaching practicum. Given their past learning experience as a language learner and student teacher,
trainee teachers could form a set of beliefs about language teaching and learning. As they come to the
field school, their encounters with the realities of language teaching could trigger a chain of changes in
their beliefs. In the present study, the participant consolidated, confirmed or modified many of her original

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