MARMARA GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW, no.20, pp.20-41, 2009 (ESCI)
Teacher training programs on educating teachers of Social Studies about teaching Geography include various geography courses. These courses aim improving the teacher candidates' general and field specific knowledge. Ability to design and manipulate instructional materials to be used in teaching geography bears crucial importance. Therefore, Geography courses should contain activities that will expand field specific knowledge. This research aims to determine what opinions teacher candidates hold upon completion of material design projects within the General and Physical Geography course. 44 teacher candidates taking General and Physical Geography course at Program in Social Studies Education at College of Education, Anadolu University participated in this study. Research data has been collected through a questionnaire consisting of open-ended questions; and the data has been analyzed through inductive analysis. Findings have revealed that teacher candidates believe that they understood the topics in General and Physical Geography course better and their ability to design instructional materials improved through project on instructional material design. The major problem mentioned by the candidate teachers regards the ones that arose during group works that took place in class; hence their suggestions mainly concern these problems. Furthermore, they regard the project as a critical experience in terms of Professional development.