Investigating the Activity Design and Development Skills of Geography Teachers

Abstract

As geography program has been discussed with the constructivist approach, it has become necessary to enhance the lessons with activities. Geography teachers implement the activities in course books, on the one hand, and also use the activities other teachers prepared or the activities in social network websites, on the other. However, what is more important is teachers’ designing and developing activities considering the conditions of the school they carry on their duties, status of their students, environmental properties and geographical area depending upon acquisitions. The Ministry has also provided conveniences required for designing and developing activities taking the activities in course books and other sources as example.

In this research, it was aimed to reveal skills of geography teachers upon designing and developing activities. The research was carried out  by using the case study method, one of qualitative research approach and the opinions of geography's teachers working in Turkey in Nevsehir province, were consulted in the academic year of 2015-2016. 

The views of 32 geography teachers carrying on their duties in the center and districts of Nevsehir province were collected using semi-structured interview form. Each question in the form was accepted as a main theme, and sub-themes were created depending upon the views. 

It was concluded in the research that activities performed in the lessons had several benefits upon affective and cognitive development of children, course books, supplementary sources and internet websites were widely used for the activities, school sub-structure was adequate for organizing activities, teachers considered themselves as competent for designing activities, and teachers were able to develop the relationship of activity-acquisition in activities.