Browsing by Author "Ecer, Munir"

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The Place of Contemporary Religious Issues in Religious Culture and Ethics Courses: an Evaluation According To Teachers' Views
(Sirnak Univ, 2023) Ecer, Munir; Candan, Abdurrahman
Depending on the changing time and renewed conditions, the needs and expectations of the society diversity, so that searches emerge in many areas of life. This situation is also reflected in the religious field. People constantly feel the need to reconsider religious provisions according to their lives, within the framework of changing conditions depending on time and conditions. Considering Islam specifically, it is seen that interpretations and jurisprudence are made by competent institutions in the areas where innovations and transformations take place, and the said need is tried to be met in this way. One of the areas where innovations and transformations in Turkey are handled from a religious perspective, depending on current conditions, are schools and the Religious Culture and Moral Knowledge courses taught here. As a matter of fact, the fourth unit of this course in the 12th Grade of Secondary Education is titled "Contemporary Religious Issues". Some situations and events that are encountered in daily life and which are questioned and answered in terms of religious judgment are discussed and processed in this unit. In this study, it is aimed to examine and evaluate the general structure, content and processing of the Current Religious Issues unit in the learning-teaching process from the perspective of Religious Culture and Moral Knowledge teachers. The study was designed in accordance with the case study pattern, one of the qualitative research methods. In this direction, the unit of Contemporary Religious Issues and the teaching of this unit in the lessons have been accepted as a situation that can be the subject of research. Semi-structured interview technique was used to collect data. In this context, 9 participants with different gender, school type, seniority and education status were identified and online interviews were conducted with them after obtaining the necessary ethics committee permissions. These recorded interviews were first transcribed and then tried to be analyzed by the researchers through content analysis. The analysis of the data was carried out in two separate steps, first reaching the codes and then generating themes from these codes. At the end of the data analysis process, 5 themes emerged in the Religious Culture and Moral Knowledge teacher's views on the unit and the topics covered in this unit. These themes are: Need, current value of content, teacher efficacy, use of methods and materials, and problems encountered. All the teachers who participated in the research within the framework of the first theme stated that it is a necessity to deal with the religious provisions and explanations of the current issues within the scope of this course. In the second theme, where the current value of the content is discussed, the teachers found the topics of this unit to be related to the current, but stated that this relationship was not sufficient. In addition to this, they made suggestions to take into account the topics such as e-commerce and metaverse, which are increasing in value and frequently questioned by students. In the third theme, where the teachers evaluated their own competencies, the view that this competency was below their own expectations came to the fore. In the fourth theme, in which the methods and materials used in the teaching of the related unit are discussed, it has been determined that the teachers cannot exceed the classical methods, especially the lecture and question-answer, and include method diversity. In the use of materials, on the other hand, it was observed that the facilities of the schools were mainly used, and material development and production did not occur. Lastly, the problems encountered are that this unit is the penultimate unit of the 12th grade, where students are close to graduation, and the acquisitions related to current issues are not reflected in daily life as a habit. The themes obtained were handled and discussed as findings titles, and then they were concluded and various suggestions were developed on the subject.
Teaching of Religions Other Than Islam According To Religious Culture and Ethical Knowledge Teachers
(Hitit Univ, 2023) Uzunpolat, Yakup; Ecer, Munir
Throughout history, people of different faiths have encountered each other and experienced sharing common space and life opportunities. However, with the spread of globalization, especially the increase in communication and transportation opportunities, this experience has intensified. This mobility brought together individuals of different faiths more frequently and made it even more necessary for them to share a common ground. This situation has affected religious education as well as many other fields, and has given religious education new duties and responsibilities. Through religious education, more systematic searches and approaches have been tried to be developed in order to have information about the religions living in the world and to get to know the people who believe in these religions. In Turkey, different religions have started to be included in the curricula of religion courses since 1956. Especially with the inclusion of Religious Culture and Ethical Knowledge (RCEK) among the compulsory courses and the emphasis on the concept of culture in this course, religions other than Islam have been included in the curriculum in a more systematic way. In this context, the subjects related to other religions are included in the 11th and 12th grade contents of the RCEK curriculum, which was updated in 2018 and is still valid. Accordingly, Judaism and Christianity are covered in the last unit of the 11th grade, and Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism are covered in the last unit of the 12th grade within the scope of Indian and Chinese religions. The curriculum emphasizes the development of an objective, scientific and descriptive teaching style of these religions, and adopts an understanding of presenting them according to their own sources and understanding of knowledge. The learning outcomes in the units include the summaries of the birth and development process of each religion. The aim of this study is to examine the subjects related to religions other than Islam in the RCEK courses and the teaching of these subjects according to the views of the teachers. The absence of any field research on religions in the curriculum and approaches to teaching these religions makes the study important. In this study, case study design, one of the qualitative research methods, was used. One-on-one interviews were conducted with 8 teachers selected from 7 regions of Turkey as the working group. Questions were directed in a semi-structured interview form. The answers were subjected to content analysis by the researchers and 6 themes were revealed. These themes are the necessity of including other religions in the curriculum, the content of these religions, student attitudes, teacher attitudes, learning status and problems encountered in the processing of the subjects. When the results obtained from the data are examined, it is revealed that the teachers mostly consider it necessary to include the subjects of other religions in this course. Teachers state that the content on other religions is covered objectively in both the curriculum and the textbook, supported by scientific data and in accordance with the sources of the religions themselves. According to the teachers, students who take this course are eager and curious to learn about other religions, however they try to understand and evaluate these religions in the context of their own beliefs. Teachers have a defensive attitude towards their own religion and an objective and tolerant attitude towards other religions. Although the importance of using different methods and techniques in the teaching of other religions is appreciated, it is determined that the teachers cannot employ other teaching methods than the traditional verbal lecture method. The teaching materials are the course book, interactive boards and various audio-visual tools. Finally, the lack of readiness of the students, the inability to give satisfactory answers to some questions, and the fact that these courses are in the last units of the last two stages of secondary education are identified as the problems encountered.