Since final grades have been announced, now I can write my ideas related to this semester. I did not want to write before because sometimes it can be misunderstood when you say them before grading. :)))

I really enjoyed being a member of this lesson. It was a great semester and class. I would like to thank all of you for everything, especially to our instructor, Evrim Baran. Now I have a huge theories of instruction folder with all of our readings and presentation materials which will be a great source for my future studies. I must say I did not think I will learn that much at the beginning of the semester but now I am glad that I took this course.

I hope we will meet in another class in the future.

Happy holidays!

This is a lesson plan I prepared during my last year of college while I was taking school experience course and attending a public school as an intern. My proffessor Jale Çakıroğlu also liked this lesson plan very much and published it in her book named "Bilimin Doğası ve Öğretimi". Moreover, I also implemented it this semester with preservice teachers at METU. I took activity from http://www.indiana.edu/~ensiweb/lessons/gr.fs.fd.html and adapted it into Turkish. I also made some changes to make it more appropriate for 6th graders. In this activity, students are active all the time. The teacher only provides them the required materials and answer their quesions to guide them. The students work in small groups to learn the nature of science aspects with an acitivity where they act as they are scientists. The evaluation is process based not product based and this is clearly explained to the students. Since I prepared this lesson plan, actually implemented it and saw that it worked perfectly I would not change anything, but I always welcome your suggestions. :))

I completely agree. I think dressing children like they are in military and having strict rules is wrong but with this new system so many new problems come up. I think -as always- this change have not been thought well.

A useful webpage about situated cognition. Kind of a summary. :)) Especially "Sam learns about situated cognition video was very nice.

A useful website including examples of learning and teaching materials about humanism.

An interesting project. A collection of photographs of different classrooms in different countries.

These are the articles related to epistemological world view scale which I brought to the classroom yesterday.


Schraw, G., & Olafson, L. (2002). Teachers' epistemological world views and educational practices. Issues in Education: Contributions from Educational Psychology, 8(2), 99-148. http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/springer/jcep/2003/00000003/00000002/art00007

Lori Olafson, Gregory Schraw, Teachers' beliefs and practices within and across domains, International Journal of Educational Research, Volume 45, Issues 1-2, 2006, Pages 71-84, ISSN 0883-0355, 10.1016/j.ijer.2006.08.005.
(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0883035506000917)

Ozgul Yilmaz‐Tuzun & Mustafa Sami Topcu (2008): Relationships among
Preservice Science Teachers' Epistemological Beliefs, Epistemological World Views, and Self‐efficacy Beliefs, International Journal of Science Education, 30:1, 65-85. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09500690601185113

A paleontologist man who is committed to the theory of evolution like a religion and a modern hippie woman who believes in all kinds of weird spiritual staff arguing about evolution. One of the best parts of the tv show Friends.

This is the news: http://www.ntvmsnbc.com/id/25290563/

This is the original article: http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~johnson/snp/Downloads/Brain%20Plasticity%20and%20IQ%20During%20Adolescence.pdf