A social project model: Our guest students

Abstract

The aim of the study is to investigate the opinions of preservice teachers in social studies department related to the social project called “our guest students” whose target group is Syrian students. In accordance with this purpose, the study was designed with case study method, which is one of the qualitative research methods. The sample of the study consisted of 8 preservice teachers studying their third year at Social Studies Education Department in the Faculty of Education of a state university during the academic year 2016-2017. Sampling of the study was performed according to criterion sampling, a type of purposeful sampling. The data of the study was gathered through semi-structured interview, weekly reports with photographs and a magazine article which is an end-ofstudy product. The data was analysed with descriptive analysis method. At the end of the study, it was found out that the main activities performed were playing games and watching films, the primary problem in the project was communication problems, the project made a lot of contributions to many skills particularly empathy skills and values specifically hospitability and preservice teachers associated the project they carried out with community service practices course. © The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology.