PRESERVICE TEACHERS METAPHORS ABOUT ICT USE IN TEACHING

Abstract

Telling preservice teachers what to do and how to teach in classroom and expecting them to apply these theoretical knowledge to their teaching practice is not a reasonable expectation. Preservice teachers' knowledge of practice are not cultivated directly from the theoretical knowledge which they learned in teacher education institutions but from their personal experiences. When students enter teacher education faculties they came with beliefs and knowledge about teaching/learning which had been established in their classroom experiences and observations. These beliefs, shapes preservice teachers' understanding of "good teaching", are generally entrenched or subconscious, withdraw from examination and hard to change. In order to be able to change these beliefs first teachers educators need to learn about them. Beliefs could be unfolded in a thorough and complex process of inference and interpretation which points to qualitative research. In recent years metaphors has been used as a way of data collection and gaining insights into teachers' thinking. In this context, this study aimed to elicit preservice teachers, 'first and fourth grade teaching education students' metaphors in order to disclose their beliefs regarding place of technology in teaching/learning. In addition, in order to understand whether there was any difference in students perceptions about place of technology in education, first and fourth grade preservice teachers' metaphors will be compared. It is thought that findings of this study, could reveal preservice teachers' beliefs about technology use in education and could extend existing literature.