Abstract:

The reflections of the Practicum in Science Teaching (Science Teaching II) Curriculum into the elementary school level curriculum from the students, instructors, curriculum and the evaluator’s perspectives were tried to be identified and analyzed for this study. In terms of the purpose of evaluating the undergraduate third grade of Classroom Teacher Education Department’s course which is called Practicum in Science Teaching (Science Teaching II), following research questions are identified for this study; .a) What are the reflections about the course from the instructors’ point of view? and b) What are the reflections about the course from the students’ point of view?
Eclectic approach (Combination of Content-Input-Process-Output and Illuminative approaches) is chosen for this study because the structure of the course which was evaluated for this study is eclectic and flexible. As Fitzpatrick, et al. (2004) stated that; the purpose in the foregoing comparative analysis is to provide key information on the strengths, limitations and primary uses of each approach.
This study is a combination design of both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies. Study group is limited for 200 third grade preservice teachers and three instructors. Six of 61 students were selected purposefully for the interviews. Both convenience and purposeful sampling strategies were used for this study. Science Process Skills Test, Science Attitude Scale and questionnaire with open-ended questions were applied to preservice teachers and then course outline, student diaries, previous semester portfolios were investigated to identify the need areas of the course, after than, sample lesson plan was created and applied to groups for the formative evaluation process and preservice teachers’ and instructors’ perceptions were taken by the informal interviews, periodical classroom observations. After formative evaluation process, assessment tools were applied to 61 students and interviews with six students and three instructors were conducted for the summative evaluation process. T-test, descriptive and content analyses were used as statistical techniques.
The mean of the Science Process Skills Test was 72.79 out of 100 and the mean of the Science Attitude Scale was 53.61 out of 75 for 61 students in the needs assessment process. The mean of the Science Process Skills Test was 75.43 out of 100 and the mean of the Science Attitude Scale was 57.48 out of 75 for 61 students. Difference between the needs assessment and summative evaluation attitude and skill scores are statistically meaningful at .05 level. Preservice teachers claimed that they know the theoretical background of the teaching and learning methodologies, strategies and techniques but they do not know how to apply all the strategies and techniques and there is no consistency between the teaching and learning strategies, techniques and assessment techniques. It can be suggested that instructors can make application plans besides the general flowchart of the lesson plans and show sample implementation of the theoretical aspects during the process and they can inform students about the measurement and evaluation process before the course starts. Preservice teachers can make more applications in the elementary level to see the problems of the real application environment. Instructors provide this application facility to them.

Keywords:

Program Evaluation, Content-Input-Process-Output Approach, Illuminative Approach, Science Education.