Abstract:

The Teacher Training Program for Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities at the Department of Special Education at Anadolu University, which is the focus of this study, has graduated students since 1987 for 24 years. This program is a four-year program with eight semesters. For six semesters, theoretical courses are given, while the last two semesters are for the teaching practicum. The pre-service teachers should complete 240 European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) credits to graduate. Anadolu University uses ECTS, which is the value representing students’ entire studies (e.g., theory, practice, seminar, individual study, exams, and homework) to pass the course successfully. This value indicates how much of the total study load a course includes to complete an academic year as full-time at a higher education institute. In other words, ECTS credit is the number explaining how much study is necessary to complete an academic year full-time at any higher education institute, when considering the total study load
There are 52 total ECTS credits for the teaching practicum courses for the final year of the Teacher Training Program for Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities at the Department of Special Education at Anadolu University. Thus far, the application of the teaching practicum has developed and improved, and is conducted under the supervision of instructors who have master’s and/or doctoral degrees and work in the same department. In this study, an explanation of the teaching practicum’s features and the manner in which it is to be conducted took place in an effort to provide insight into the training cycle of the pre-service teacher.

Keywords:

Special education, special education teacher preparation, teaching practicum.