Investigation of the In-service Teacher Training Programs in the United States and Recommendations for Turkey: The Case of Kent Education Excellence Partnership (KEEP)

Abstract

In the current study, the purpose was to evaluate the professional development school applications conducted under the coordination of Kent State University in the USA on the basis of the researcher's observations and the faculty members' opinions to come up with suggestions for the in-service teacher training programs conducted in Turkey. The study is a qualitative case study. Being an example of the professional development school applications, Kent State Excellence Partnership (KEEP) program was evaluated by seeking the opinions of two faculty members who are among the main elements of the program and of 17 teachers having participated in the program. Moreover, document analysis and observations were conducted to evaluate the applications. The data of the study were collected through the semi-structured interview technique, and a questionnaire. The data collected through the interviews conducted with the faculty members and teachers' written responses to the questionnaire items were analyzed by using the "content analysis" technique and then interpreted by the researcher. The application process of the program was observed by the researcher, who was in the position of a participant observer, and an assistant doing doctorate in Kent State University and thus, two separate observation reports were written. Recognizing that there are no significant differences between the observations, two reports were combined into a single report through discussion. The findings of the study revealed that the faculty members are of the opinion that teachers come together for professional development and learning within the context of the professional development school applications, that participating teachers make their own decisions about what they want to learn and that they learn in a learning process based on reciprocal interaction. The teachers having participated in the program stated that the most important contribution of KEEP applications is the creation of a university-school partnership and their working in cooperation with other teachers. According to the observations of the researcher, in professional development schools, teachers find opportunities to develop themselves, their colleagues and schools as practitioners, researchers, listeners and active participants in the planning and implementation of the learning process.