Browsing by Author "Haser, Cigdem"

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Beginning Early Childhood Education Teachers' Struggle With Inclusion in Turkey
(Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2017) Akdag, Zeynep; Haser, Cigdem
The purpose of this study was to investigate Turkish early childhood education teachers' perception of inclusion before they started their teaching profession and to explore their experiences with the children with disabilities in their first year of teaching. Sixteen Turkish pre-service teachers were first interviewed when they completed the teacher education programme about their expectations of inclusion practices in their future career. Four participants among the 16 teachers started to teach children with disabilities in their first year of teaching. Then, they were interviewed about their experiences at the end of the first and second semesters of teaching. Findings revealed that Turkish pre-service teachers displayed positive attitudes towards inclusion before they started teaching. However, they had negative experiences with children with disabilities in their first year due to the misimplementation of the inclusion policy and being inexperienced about the inclusion process, and began to question the effectiveness of inclusion. Implications for the inclusion policy and teacher education programmes are discussed.
Beginning Early Childhood Education Teachers' Problems in Turkey
(Elsevier Science Bv, 2010) Akdag, Zeynep; Haser, Cigdem
The purpose of this paper is to explain problems of beginning early childhood education teachers in Turkey and how could teacher education programs be improved in order to reduce these difficulties. The general complaints of a novice teacher, mostly, resulted from the discrepancy between the teacher training and the actual teaching experience. Another problem that beginning teachers might encounter originated from regional differences. In some parts, beginning teachers find themselves in a situation that they have to teach children who cannot speak Turkish. Finally, most of the provincial universities are struggling with lack of qualified academic staff. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Beginning Early Childhood Education Teachers' Classroom Management Concerns
(Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2016) Akdag, Zeynep; Haser, Cigdem
This paper reports an analysis of the classroom management concerns of pre-service early childhood education (ECE) teachers prior to beginning their career and further examines the difficulties they experienced in classroom management in their first year of teaching and their coping strategies. Sixteen pre-service ECE teachers enrolled in the same teacher education programme were interviewed immediately before graduation, and were again interviewed at the end of the first and second semesters after they started to work in public schools. Phenomenological analysis was utilized for the data analysis. The findings revealed that all of the participants had a fear of being unable to manage their classes before starting their careers because they felt unprepared. However, they experienced fewer problems than expected after they started to teach. The teachers first tried to build trusting and close relationships with the children to create a peaceful classroom climate, while also attempting to empower the children by involving them in decision-making processes. In this way, the children became aware of the class rules and felt free in their actions within the limits of the rules.
Changes in Teachers' Motivation in Time
(Iated-int Assoc Technology Education & development, 2013) Akdag, Zeynep; Haser, Cigdem
This study aimed to shed light on how teachers' motivation was changed before entering the teaching profession and after getting involved in teaching profession. In order to investigate this phenomenon, 16 pre-service early childhood education (ECE) teachers' were interviewed about their source of motivation on their profession immediately after their graduation. Then, those 16 teachers began to work in public schools in Turkey at 10 different cities. They were contacted and interviewed once more, upon their dedication and commitment to teach young children and how they sustained their commitment to teach. This qualitative study embraces a phenomenological approach in which the researcher attempted to describe the meaning of the lived experiences of a phenomenon for several individuals. Moustakas's [1] phenomenological analysis was utilized to analyse the data. Findings have revealed that before starting to teach all of the pre-service teachers expressed that their main source of motivation was intrinsic, not extrinsic. When they enter in actual teaching life, their source of motivation was not change. They all expressed that their motivation mainly originated from love of profession and love of children. Another primary source of motivation for beginning teachers was observing children's development. All of the beginning teachers were suspicious about their teaching skills before starting profession. In this sense, observing children's development in a positive way might have helped them to eliminate the doubt of their skills and made them feel powerful on their profession. Then, both their motivation and love of profession increased.