A Curriculum Development and Quality Assessment Model Based on the Formation of Professional Identity

Educators are increasingly urged to improve quality control mechanisms. Improving quality involves more than simply increasing the variety of options for assessments. It calls for a new model of curriculum design focused on the formation of professional competencies students will need in the workplace along with the integration of theory-based learning activities and assessments supported by instructional technologies. This chapter will present a framework that educators can use to guide the integration of learning activities, assessments, and instructional technologies in a manner that guides students in the development of professional competencies for success in the workplace and also provides a stream of quality control data that can be used to measure both educational and organizational effectiveness.

Taming Technology

The twelfth issue of On Education is devoted to attempts to tame technology use in education. It asks what challenges educational institutions face from instructional technologies, and what answers have been and are being found. It asks to what extent programmers, software developers or entrepreneurs themselves are able to tame the technologies they want to sell to schools. It discusses the role of teachers, activists, policy makers, and administrators in resisting, regulating, or affirmatively embracing educational technologies.

Opinions of Computer and Instructional Technologies Students about the Robotic Coding Course

Robotic coding from coding training improves high-level cognitive skills. The re-search aims to determine the opinions of the senior students who took up the cod-ing course in the information technologies teaching department about the robotic coding course. In this context, 41 senior year students studying in Cyprus and Russian Universities were interviewed. The qualitative research method was ap-plied. Semi-structured interview forms were created by taking experts’ opinions. Findings were analysed by the content analysis method. The answers obtained were determined; general views, perceived usefulness, gains, reinforcement out-side of school and professional contributions were analysed. According to the re-sults, pre-service teachers of the information technology departments should be oriented towards the preparation of robotics and courses in schools. They stated that there is a high demand from all school education levels for training in robotic courses.

USING AUGMENTED REALITY IN BIOLOGY TEACHING

In this study, prospective teachers' views on Augmented Reality (AR) in biology teaching were examined. The study was designed as a case study. The study participants consisted of 16 prospective teachers who took Instructional Technologies and Material Design in the third grade of the Biology Teaching Department of the Faculty of Education of a state university in the spring term of the 2018-2019 academic year. During the application process, AR activities were carried out with the students. The data of the study were obtained using the interview form and the "Mobile Augmented Reality Questionnaire" developed by Küçük, Kapakin, and Göktaş (2015). After the activities, prospective teachers were asked for their views about AR in biology teaching. As a result, it was observed that future biology teachers mostly expressed positive thoughts about AR activities. Some advantages of the AR activities were as follows: concretising the subjects; retention; being exciting and entertaining; repetition capability; and multimedia support. Apart from these advantages, some disadvantages were emphasised such as internet connection cut off, the necessity to keep the phone stable, passivation of the students over time, being costly, and not being suitable for every subject. Prospective teachers also suggested extending AR activities in schools, ensuring equality in accessing technological tools, using these activities in different lessons and developing various applications.

Evaluation of pre-service teachers' views on their ability to use instructional technologies

In recent times, educational technologies have gained grounds in many fields of study. The use of technology to facilitate learning has increased over the past decade, but related problems in education and training are still on the surge. The aim of this study is to determine the opinions of prospective teachers about the skill levels of using and preparing the internet, computer and instructional technology according to different variables. The study was applied to the senior students studying at the classroom teaching department of a university of education faculty in Kazakhstan. Optional participation was provided.The 32 teacher-participants were asked 4 interview questions. Data were taken with a qualitative research method. The prepared questions were prepared to get the opinions of pre-service teachers studying in the classroom teaching department regarding the use of technology in educational technology, and the questions were applied by giving the final shape by the experts in their fields. The elementary school teacher candidates feel insufficient to use the internet and computer for teaching purposes. However, they stated that they are sufficient in using computers and internet search engines, they can prepare simple materials for teaching purposes and they cannot prepare multi-purpose teaching devices. Keywords: teacher candidate, technology, educational technology;

Attitudes of preservice teachers having pedagogical formation certificate training towards instructional technology and material design course

The purpose of this study was to determine the attitudes of the trainees registered in Pedagogical Formation Certificate Program (PFCP) towards the Instructional Technologies and Material Design (ITMD) course and to analyze whether these attitudes differed according to gender, department and level of grade. The data were obtained from totally 110 trainees including 78 females and 38 males. In addition to the personal information form, the Attitude Scale towards ITMD Course was used as the data collection tool. The scale had three sub-dimensions as effectiveness, admiration and denial, and the internal consistency coefficients calculated for the current implementation were between .99 and .77. It was understood that the trainees regarded the ITMD course effective enough to be considered good, admired the course at a moderate level, and did not neglect the course very much. It was noticed that female trainees found the course more effective and admired it more rather than the male trainees. The trainees in the English group were determined to consider ITMD course more effective than the trainees in the philosophy group. Moreover, it was proved that the students in the English group admired more rather than the trainees in the theology and philosophy groups. The graduate trainees regarded ITMD course more effective than the ones who were still students. Keywords: instructional technologies, information technologies, instructional technologies and material design, attitude towards itmd course;

The effect of self-regulated programming learning on undergraduate students’ academic performance and motivation

Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of self-regulated programming learning on undergraduate students’ academic performance and motivation compared to traditional methods. Design/methodology/approach This study was conducted with an explanatory sequential mixed method. Participants consist of 31 undergraduate students studying in the department of computer and instructional technologies education. The students were separated into two groups as experimental (n = 15) and control (n = 16) in the robotic programming course. Academic performance tests, programming motivation scale and interview form were used as data collection tools. After collecting quantitative data, interviews were conducted with the students regarding their academic performance and motivation. Findings The results indicated that the self-regulated programming learning process can contribute positively to students’ academic performance and motivation compared to traditional methods. Students stated that self-regulated learning strategies can positively affect their academic performance and motivation. Originality/value In this study, a self-regulated learning support system was designed to encourage students to use self-regulated learning strategies. This study has the potential to contribute to the gap in the literature, especially as a study of adapting the phased model of self-regulated learning to programming teaching. Instructors can use the self-regulating programming learning framework by adapting it to different disciplines.