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IASCE Forum–Cooperative Learning in Turkey: A Personal Journey Emine SUPCIN This is the latest in the series of Forum members' "calling cards" that describe the development of cooperative learning in their respective countries. The Forum coordinator is IASCE Board member Yael Sharan (yaelshar@zahav.net.il). Emine Supcin, a fifth grade school teacher in Denizli, Turkey, is frank about her initial attempts to apply cooperative learning, as part of a project led by the World Bank. IASCE board member Pasi Sahlberg was a consultant to this project. Her description of the difficulties teachers in Turkey have in adapting CL resonates with the challenges other countries faced at the beginning of their adaptation of CL, as we have learned from many authors in the Forum series. A few years ago, the Turkish government decided to modernize the education system. This led to renewing the curriculum, new textbooks and teacher education. The educational reform placed strong emphasis on active learning and more communicative and interactive pedagogies. As new materials and curriculum entered the schools, many teachers found it difficult to know how to use them and what was expected of them in the classrooms. This is understandable because most of them were trained in the classical/traditional university system. Universities started to include active learning, including some cooperative learning, in their teacher training programs about 10 years ago. Therefore, only teachers who have fairly recently graduated or have studied further have some understanding of these new pedagogical ideas. There are more than 300,000 primary school teachers in Turkey. While newer teachers are familiar with alternative methods, materials and activities, more veteran teachers tend to rely on teacher talk and question-asking techniques. Many teachers in Turkey understand that the classical/traditional system will not sustain their motivation to teach well nor sustain students' interest in learning. Yet since most teachers have not been trained to understand and use cooperative learning, this remains a huge challenge to the system. In my school, teachers are like many teachers anywhere in Turkey - they have not yet adapted to the new system. My experience I have been familiarizing myself with cooperative learning for the last year and have realized that I need to do more active learning than I did previously. Mostly I use CL in science and social studies projects. For instance, I plan together with my students the time line, study techniques, and the criteria for evaluation of presentations. I have found myself much more of a guide or coach than an instructor. Also, I combine cooperation with competition by using activities that involve intragroup cooperation and intergroup competition. Here is an example of how I use CL. Students are divided into small groups to study a topic which is part of the curriculum. At the end of their work, I award points for each type of presentation (demonstration, role playing, presenting a model, etc.) After each group's presentation, the other groups grade the presentation according to the criteria agreed upon at the beginning of the project. Awards are presented at the end of the unit at a party on “Project Day,” to which parents, teachers, and school officials are invited, and groups exhibit their projects. A committee consisting of a teacher, the headmaster and a parent evaluates the projects. Points that were awarded during the project are added to the points given by the committee. The winning group gets a gift (an aquarium, pencils, books, CDs, or chocolate). At this point I am emphasizing the social skills that develop when small groups work together. My students are learning that it is often easier to be successful together than alone. Also, I am becoming more creative in using active learning styles. There is much to be done by the government, by school administrators and by teachers in Turkey in order to improve the quality of teaching and learning. For this, we must have high quality training courses on cooperative learning. It is important that school headmasters, inspectors and educational administrators take part in these courses to understand what is required to make teaching and learning more cooperative. Turkey needs fundamental changes in teacher training policies. It will take time, but I believe we will be successful.
Emine
SUPCIN |
