Research indicates attributes and practices for mentor teachers that can be used for effective mentoring. Universities provide guidelines for preservice teacher (mentee) engagement in schools generally from anecdotal evidence, however, what are desirable attributes and practices for mentees? This qualitative study gathers data from 25 mentor teachers through an extended response questionnaire and audio-recorded focus group discussions about attributes and practices for mentees. Findings showed that desirable attributes for mentees included: enthusiasm, being personable, commitment to children, lifelong learning/love of learning, open/reflective to feedback, develop resilience, and taking responsibility for their learning, while desirable practices included: planned and preparation for teaching, reflective practices; understanding school and university policies, knowing students for differentiated learning, and building a teaching repertoire (e.g. teaching strategies, behaviour management, content knowledge, and questioning skills). Preservice teachers need to consider teachers‟ suggestions on desirable attributes and practices that can help them achieve positive teaching experiences.

Creativity is regarded as one of the cornerstones for economic and social progress in every society. There are two possible ways to get creative people to work for an enterprise or community. The first is by attracting creative employees by good working conditions – a solution for those who can afford such an approach. For communities that are not so rich, the only solution is to foster creativity by education and by helping small and medium enterprises to create products based on creative ideas and innovations. In Slovenia, proposals for nourishing creativity and innovations emerge from the government thus forgetting that creativity does not start at University or on the first day of employment. To increase creativity, immediate action should be taken throughout the educational system, recognizing that society needs not only creative artists but scientists, economists and engineers as well. Through the analysis of the legislation, syllabi and textbooks, it can be recognized that they do not promote or even allow creativity in science education; even more, they can be regarded as creativity killers. In such a way key documents and teaching resources are placing creative science teachers in the position of guerrillas in a battle against prevailing teaching methods influenced by highstakes external exams or measurable outcomes. To improve science creativity, the legislation should be changed to give creativity appropriate value, and teachers must be educated to use methods that increase creativity in students, with the aim of producing open minds that will be able to work in a creative way.

The main objective of this study is to examine the attitudes of preschool teacher candidates and teacher candidates in other branches towards scientific research in terms of some variables. Survey method was used. The study group consists of 547 teacher candidates studying in education faculty of a private university in the spring term of 2015-2016 in Istanbul province. Personal Information Form, Scale of Attitude towards Scientific Research were used as data collection tool. According to the results; Preschool teacher candidates’ levels of reluctance to help researchers and negative attitudes towards research are lower when compared to Turkish language teacher candidates. Preschool teacher candidates’ positive attitudes towards researchs and researchers are higher when compared to Turkish language teacher candidates. Guidence and psychological counselor candidates’ negative attitudes towards research are lower when compared to Turkish language teacher candidates. The levels of reluctance to help researchers of male teacher candidates are higher when compared to female teacher candidates. Negative attitudes towards research of the teacher candidates who do not take the course of scientific research methods are higher when compared to the teacher candidates who take the research methods course. The teacher candidates’ attitudes towards research do not vary by age, grade level and the academic success average.

Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) is a model that explains how teachers use technology more effectively in the context of technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge. Teachers' TPACK competencies play great importance in this regard. Lesson study has also been playing significant roles in the development of teachers' professional trainings. When the researches on TPACK and lesson study have been analyzed, the research is expected to provide significant contributions to the literature. This study aims to present reflections from a lesson study practice that carried out to urge techno-pedagogical competencies of the secondary school mathematics teachers and to reveal the development of teachers’ progress. The study used case study method, and it was conducted with three in-service teachers. The research data were collected through semi-structured interviews, voice recorder, and observation notes. To analyze the collected data, descriptive analysis method was used. The results have revealed that teachers have made much more progress in designing, implementing, and problem solving in terms of TPACK competencies. It has also been determined that teachers’ development of openness to the innovations was limited. This limitation appeared to emerge as a result of teachers’ time anxiety and insufficient knowledge regarding the use of technology.

In order to reflect the integration of the teachers’ content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and technology usage skills to the class context and to provide the expected outputs for the program's purposes, it is needed to be revealed the different dimensions of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK). In this study, it was aimed to investigate the teacher training programmes related to pre-service science teachers’ TPACK. This study was designed as a cross-sectional study. In the 2015-2016 academic year, a total of 269 pre-service teachers (73 of them from 1st grade, 73 of them from 2nd grade, 87 of them from 3rd and 36 of them from 4th grade students) attending Science Education Department participated in this study. As a data collection tool, 7 subscales of “Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge Scale of Pre-Service Teachers”; namely, technology knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, content knowledge, technological pedagogical knowledge, technological content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and technological pedagogical content knowledge were used. According to the results, as the class level of pre-service teacher increases, their level of technological pedagogical content knowledge increases as well. Moreover, there is a significant difference on behalf of pre-service teachers at the 1st grade in all dimensions of technological pedagogical content knowledge scale.

The aim of this study is to reveal the benefits gained from “Special Training Methods II” course and the problems prospective mathematics teachers encountered with it. The case study method was used in the study. The participants in the study were 34 prospective mathematics teachers studying at a Primary School Mathematics Education Department. The data collection tools were a form composed of open-ended questions and semi-structured interviews. Descriptive analysis of the quantitative data was carried out. In the “Special Teaching Methods II” course, beginning in the spring term of the 2015-2016 academic year, teaching activities on “multiple intelligences”, “discovery”, “group work”, “problem-solving”, “history of mathematics” and “computer-assisted teaching” were developed and implemented. It was concluded that these activities helped students like mathematics more, understand the importance of helping each other and cooperation and have more enjoyable lessons, as well as aiding their cognitive, social and emotional development. It was also found that through these activities participants improved their belief in themselves and increased their confidence regarding teaching mathematics. The participants also faced with some difficulties during the application process. They mostly mentioned that preparing worksheets was time-consuming, finding a school to perform the activity was hard and students were reluctant.

In this research, it was aimed to determine the views of mathematics teacher candidates about the technological tools that can be used in mathematics lessons. The research was conducted through qualitative research methodology. 120 teacher candidates who were educated in the mathematics teacher education program in Dicle University Ziya Gokalp Education Faculty took part to the research. The data of the study were collected through semi-structured interviews. The data collection tool used in the study is an interview form developed by the researcher, and it consists of open-ended questions. In the analysis of the data, descriptive analyses were used. As a result of the data analysis obtained from the research, it was determined that teacher candidates responded as “computer/computer software” at most for the questions about what technological tools could be used in mathematics lessons, what technological tools they would use when they were teachers, and which technological tools would be beneficial. In addition, teacher candidates stated that there were computers at most as technological tools in their faculties and the technological tools in their faculties were mostly used for visualization/concretization the subject.

This study attempts to reveal pre-service teachers’ conceptions, definitions, and understanding of quadrilaterals and their internal relationships in terms of personal and formal figural concepts via case of the parallelograms. To collect data, an open-ended question was addressed to 27 pre-service mathematics teachers, and clinical interviews were conducted with them. The factors influential on pre-service teachers’ definitions of parallelograms and conceptions regarding internal relationships between quadrilaterals were analyzed. The strongest result involved definitions based on prototype figures and partially seeing internal relationships between quadrilaterals via these definitions. As a different result from what is reported in the literature, it was found that the fact that rectangle remains as a special case of parallelogram in pre-service teachers’ figural concepts leads them not to adopt the hierarchical relationship. The findings suggested that learners were likely to recognize quadrilaterals by a special case of them and prototypical figures, even though they knew the formal definition in general. This led learners to have difficulty in understanding the inclusion relations of quadrilaterals.

The purpose of the present study is to investigate pre-service history teachers’ perceived self-efficacy and the effect of pedagogical formation training on this perception. The study is based on a one-group pretest-posttest research design, which is a type of pre-experimental design. For the purpose of the study, in the first week of the formation training, the “Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale” developed by Tschannen-Moran and Hoy and adapted to Turkish by Capa, Cakiroglu and Sarikaya was administered as a pre-test to a group of 178 pre-service history teachers who underwent pedagogical formation training in 2016-2017 academic year in two different universities in Turkey. The same scale was administered again as a post-test at the end of the 28-week training. The study has found out that the pedagogical formation training did not make a significant difference in pre-service history teachers’ perceived self-efficacy except for the classroom management subscale, in which the self-efficacy scores of pre-service history teachers decreased after the pedagogical formation training.

Advanced technology helps educational institutes to improve student learning performance and outcomes. In this study, our aim is to measure and assess student engagement and collaborative learning in engineering classes when using online technology in solving physics problems. The interactive response system used in this study is a collaborative learning tool that allows teachers to monitor their students’ response and progress in real time. Our results indicated that students have highly positive attitude toward using the interactive response system as a tool in education in order to improve collaborative learning and student engagement in classes. Consequently, student-learning performance has been improved considerably, and technology was successfully incorporated in engineering classes.

This study examines the subjects and concepts in biology perceived to be difficult to learn and teach by 759 pre-service biology teachers registered in the pedagogical formation program at Uludag University Faculty of Education in the academic year of 2005-2016, as well as the associations that word “biology” first calls to their mind. The study was designed as a survey model, and a questionnaire of three scaled questions was used as a data collection tool. The data were classified into 10 different categories based on different branches of biology: Anatomy-Morphology, Biotechnology, Ecology, Evolution, Physiology, Genetics, Histology, Cytology, Systematics and Reproduction and Development. Following the classification, the data were analyzed using frequency and percentages. The subjects and concepts perceived to be difficult to learn by the pre-service teachers are respectively as follows: photosynthesis and its stages, genetics, circulatory system, aerobic respiration, respiratory system, anaerobic respiration, protein synthesis, phanerogams, DNA structure and function, cryptogams, mitosis, plant systematics, endocrine system, meiosis, ETC, urinary system, plant physiology, taxonomy, evolution and digestive system. The subjects and concepts perceived to be difficult to teach by the pre-service teachers are respectively as follows: photosynthesis and its stages, protein synthesis, circulatory system, endocrine system, meiosis, plant systematics, evolution, mitosis, reproduction, genetic crossing over problems, Latinization of names, urinary system, genetics, ecology, aerobic respiration, DNA structure and function, plant tissues, glycolysis and anaerobic respiration. These findings confirm the need for developing undergraduate programs in biology and promoting the research culture at the secondary education level.

Mathematics educators have reported on many issues regarding students’ mathematical education, particularly students who received mathematics education at different departments such as engineering, science or primary school, including their difficulties with mathematical concepts, their understanding of and preferences for mathematical concepts. This study aimed to investigate the opinions of primary-school teacher education students in terms of their perceptions of difficulty level of the mathematics courses, change in their achievement, if there is any, and interest in mathematics after completing these courses, and factors affecting their achievement and interest level in these courses. Being qualitative in nature, this study was a case study. The data were analyzed using the content analysis and descriptive methods. According to the results, most students stated that they faced mathematics course content with unexpected level of difficulty. After taking basic mathematics courses, the percentage of students with decreased level of interest and achievement in mathematics was found higher than the students who experienced an increase in their interest and achievement. Students underlined such significant factors for the change of their interest and achievement in mathematics as prior knowledge, lecturer(s), and content coverage. Finally, most of the students viewed mathematics courses as a beneficiary tool for their professional development.

This study aims to determine the relationship between the self-efficacy perceptions of the prospective teachers and the levels of their professional competence. In the study, relational screening model is used and it is investigated whether prospective teachers' perceptions of academic self-efficacy and professional competence differed according to various variables. The population of the research constitutes 1430 university students (prospective teachers) who are educated in Inonu University Pedagogical Formation Education (PFE) Program in 2015-2016 academic year. In the sample of the study, there are 537 participants who were determined by random sampling method. The Ohio Teacher Competence Scale and The Academic Self-Efficacy Scale (Turkish versions) are used as a data collection tool. In the analysis of the data, the standard deviation, frequency, percentage and arithmetic mean of respondents were calculated. One-way analysis of variance, ANOVA and Scheffe Test are used. The main result of this research is that the perceptions of academic self-efficacy of prospective teachers are "Moderate" but their perceptions of professional competence are in level "Very". According to this result, prospective teachers are of the opinion that the teaching profession can be achieved with “a moderate level of academic competence”.

The aim of this research is to determine the thoughts of the teachers about the concepts of "Smart Board", "Computer", "Internet" and "Social Media" from the Instructional technologies of the secondary school teachers with different branches through metaphors. In the research, a qualitative research model was used to identify teachers' thoughts in metaphor analysis from various branches about the use of instructional technologies in the national field. Within the scope of the qualitative research model, the phenomenology design was used. In order to find out what kind of thoughts teachers have about teaching materials from the participants "Smart Board / Computer / Internet / Social Media is like / similar to…..; Because ..." they were asked to complete their covenants. As a result of the research, 25 valid metaphors belonging to the concepts of smart board, computer, social media and 27 of internet concept were obtained from secondary school teachers. The most book (f = 4) metaphor for smart board concept, brain and memory (f = 2) metaphors for computer concept, most air (f = 3) and medicine, ocean, water (f = 2) metaphors for internet concept and the drug and virus (f = 2) metaphors related to the concept of social media. The metaphors of the concept of smart board are classified into 5 conceptual categories with common characteristics related to each other, 6 categories with common features related to computer and internet concepts, and 7 conceptual categories with social media concept related to each other. In the research, it was reached that the secondary school teachers expressed positive opinions about the concept of smart board and computer, partially negative about the concept of the internet but more negative opinions about the concept of social media.

The aim of this study was to explore the degree to which a professional development (PD) program designed using GeoGebra influences a group of Turkish middle school teachers’ beliefs in relation to mathematics and role of GeoGebra in mathematics education. In order to collect the required data, the PD course was established to provide six teachers with an opportunity to obtain practical experiences with and necessary knowledge about the use of GeoGebra in mathematics education. In this context, a multiple case study approach was utilized, in which mathematics teachers were observed and interviewed using a variety of procedures to expose qualitative data about their beliefs and the dynamics of their beliefs changes during the course. The main findings illustrated that teachers’ beliefs were transformed to some extent in favour of the use of GeoGebra, as well as using constructivist ideas in their mathematics teaching and learning can be attained through the GeoGebra based PD course. In fact, the relationship amongst stated beliefs and intended teaching practice is complex and the social issues were very influential on teachers’ pedagogical decisions. This research also introduces some suggestions for researchers who focus on professional development of mathematics teachers relative to their beliefs..

According to Bronfenbrenner’s socio-ecological model, school is an essential microsystem of the developing child. Schools provide important developmental contexts for children and adolescents, as they constitute environments that might either foster or evoke students’ emotional instability. In particular, less is known about the precise and dynamic interplay of students’ socio-environmental aspects in school (i.e., sense of school belonging, social relationships with teachers and peers) and emotional instability (i.e., depressive symptoms, perceived stress, feelings of loneliness) during adolescence. To close this gap, this study examined within- and over-time cross-lagged associations based on data from a quantitative questionnaire-based survey of adolescent students (T1: N= 1088; Mage = 13.70, SD = 0.53) from 23 secondary schools in Brandenburg, Germany. Results of latent cross-lagged panel design supports the mutual relations for within-time associations, which is in line with Bronfenbrenner’s model. However, only the over-time association between school belonging and teacher-student relationship was found to be reciprocal.

This study investigated prospective mathematics teachers’ reflections on the experience of designing and conducting one-to-one clinical interviews with middle school students in the context of an elective course on use of video in teacher learning. Prospective teachers were asked to write about weaknesses and strengths in student understanding as well as their own performance as an interviewer in terms of asking questions and responding to student thinking in their reflections on conducting clinical interviews. Furthermore, prospective teachers were also asked to reflect on what they would do differently in order to conduct better clinical interviews.  Nature of prospective teachers’ reflections were analyzed by using existing frameworks (through constructs of reflection-on-action and reflection-for-action) and by using thematic analysis. Results of data analyses revealed that prospective teachers had more difficulties in providing meaningful reflection-for-action which was related to alternative decisions and planning for future similar interviews. Thematic analysis results revealed prospective teachers’ learning were grouped under three categories: conducting clinical interviews as part of being a teacher, complexity of conducting clinical interviews, and personal theories about middle school students. There are implications for both teacher learning and research.

This study aims to explain the extent to which prospective physics teachers’ views and practices are consistent with the constructivist framework. A case study design was employed as the research approach. The study was conducted with 11 prospective physics teachers attending a state university in Turkey. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews, observation notes and lesson plans. The interview guide consisted of questions which allowed the interviewer to probe participants’ views of constructivism based on 5E learning model. Such questions as “how do you plan your teaching?” (introducing new topics, continuing the lecture, types of questions to ask, evaluating students’ understanding etc.) were included in the interview. Following the analysis of the interview data, participants’ profiles were classified into three categories: traditional, transition and constructivist under the dimensions “beginning of a lesson,” “learning process,” “learning environment” and “assessment.” Observations were carried out using an observation checklist consisting of 24 items based on 5E learning model. Another checklist developed by the researchers was used to evaluate participants’ teaching qualifications. Interview results showed that seven participants had transitional, three had constructivist and one had traditional views. However, none of the participants were observed to exhibit constructivist teaching styles. Moreover, observation and interview results were consistent only for six participants, indicating that almost half of the participants had difficulty putting their views into practice.

It is important for pre-service teachers to know the conceptual difficulties they have experienced regarding the concepts of multiplication and division in fractions and problem posing is a way to learn these conceptual difficulties. Problem posing is a synthetic activity that fundamentally has multiple answers. The purpose of this study is to analyze the multiplication and division of fractions problems posed by pre-service elementary mathematics teachers and to investigate how the problems posed change according to the year of study the pre-service teachers are in. The study employed developmental research methods. A total of 213 pre-service teachers enrolled in different years of the Elementary Mathematics Teaching program at a state university in Turkey took part in the study. The “Problem Posing Test” was used as the data collecting tool. In this test, there are 3 multiplication and 3 division operations. The data were analyzed using qualitative descriptive analysis. The findings suggest that, regardless of the year, pre-service teachers had more conceptual difficulties in problem posing about the division of fractions than in problem posing about the multiplication of fractions.

The object of this study is to determine the conceptual understanding that prospective Science teachers have relating "de Broglie: Matter waves" and to investigate the effect of the instruction performed, on the conceptual understanding. This study was performed at a state university located in the western part of Turkey, with the Faculty of Education-Science Teaching students (2nd year / 48 individual) in the academic year of 2010-2011. The study was planned as a single group pretest-posttest design. A two-step question was used in the study, prior to and after the instruction. Lessons were conducted using the 7E learning model in the instruction process. When all these results are evaluated, it can be said that the conceptual understanding of the prospective teachers regarding "de Broglie; matter waves" has been taken place. In general, when all the sections are examined, it has been observed that the prospective teachers have more alternative concepts prior to the instruction and more scientific concepts after the instruction.  In this process, besides instruction, the prospective teachers have not taken any place in a different application regarding the basic concepts of quantum physics. Therefore, it has been determined that the 7E learning model used in the research and the activities included in the 7E learning model are effective in conceptual understanding.