Okul öncesi öğretmenlerinin fen ve sanat etkinliklerinin bütünleştirilmesi konusundaki bakış açıları ve deneyimlerindeki değişikliklerin incelenmesi: durum çalışması

The aim of this study is to investigate the changes in early childhood teachers’ views about and practices of integration of visual art into science activities that occured after they attended the workshop. In order to explore the changes in five early childhood teachers’ views about science teaching, semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, and activity plans were used in this study. The study was conducted in a private preschool located in the Çayyolu district of Ankara. The first phase of the analysis consisted of portraying all the data related to participant teachers’ views about science teaching and the integration of science and visual art on the basis of pre-interviews, observation, and post-interviews. The second phase of the analysis involved finding out whether there was any difference between pre- and post-interviews of participant teachers in terms of their views about science teaching and the integration of early childhood science and art. Meanwhile, observational fieldnotes and teachers’ activity plans were examined based on the themes emerged from the pre- and post-interviews. The findings of this study indicated that early childhood teachers believed in the importance of science activities in their practices. They provided child-centered activities for children to improve their science experiences. In addition, they used different learning experiences that were naturalistic, informal, and structured in early childhood classrooms. In terms of the place of visual art in early childhood curriculum, all participant teachers stated the importance of visual art in early childhood settings. They also mentioned that visual art could be considered as an effective tool for teaching science because children like attending art activities. They preferred to use art activities after they implemented their science activities. Teachers also mentioned that children could easily express themselves with the help of art activities so they stated that they generally used art activities in their classroom practices.Ph.D. - Doctoral Progra