Improving Coherence in Teacher Education

This chapter describes the author's work as a teacher educator to establish, sustain, and improve a methods course partnership with a local K-6 school using an integrated school-situated, practice-based model. The model was designed with an aim of improving the coherence of teacher candidates' experiences and learning to better prepare them for the complicated work of equitable teaching. Coherent field-based components in teacher education offer opportunities to mitigate divisions between 1) theory and practice and 2) coursework and fieldwork. The chapter begins with a definition of coherence, describes how this definition of coherence was used to design an elementary literacy/social studies methods course, shares data to evaluate the course from the perspective of the teacher candidates, and describes what candidates learned by participating in the course.

Solution Suggestions in Elementary Literacy Teaching to Elementary School Students Whose Mother Tongue is not Turkish

The purpose of the current study is to offer solutions to the issues first grade students whose mother tongue is not Turkish face in elementary literacy teaching. Case study among qualitative research methods was used in conducting the current research. The sample consisted of 40 elementary school first grade teachers chosen according to maximum variation sampling who worked in Diyarbakır city center, province centers, towns, and villages in the 2012-2013 academic year. The data was collected using semi-structured interview forms. Content analysis was used to analyze the data. In the interpretation of the data frequency and percentage were used. It is seen that the most frequent view (25%) reported by teachers related to mother tongue education is:" Parents should be aware of the education their children receive and they should care about the education their children receive". The 22, 5% of the teachers report that: “Education must be in the mother tongue first and then the official language". The 17, 5% of the teachers report that:" Students should be provided to speak in Turkish as well as their mother tongue before they start school". The 10% of the teachers report that: “Education must be in the mother tongue"; however, they did not comment on how to proceed with this education. It may not be possible for students whose mother tongue is not Turkish to receive education solely in their mother tongue. Even if students receive education in their mother tongue they still need to receive education in Turkish as well, since the official language of our country is Turkish and it is used in formal procedures. Keywords: Mother tongue, bilingual education, elementary literacy teaching, solution.