What Is the Place of Conferences in the Training of Educators: A Case Study of Faculty of Education, METU

Abstract

Teacher training and education is a very difficult and demanding process. Training qualified and elite teachers require even greater efforts. Today, training qualified and elite teachers cannot be achieved only by implementing the curricula to the letter. Curricula must be constantly supported with programs such as high level seminars, symposiums, workshops, etc. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of such activities on the professional development of students. As part of a project called 'Community Leaders Are Coming' (CLC) conducted in cooperation between the Dean's Office of the Faculty of Education of Middle East Technical University (METU) and Çankaya Rotary Club, a series of seminars on education, science, arts, painting, music and sports were held in the past six weeks. In the seminars, 14 high level speakers specialised in their respective areas offered a total of 41 hours training that included visits to historical sites, opera and ballet performances, leadership training and practices. 136 students in the faculty of education joined the project, and 60 of them received a certificate after evaluations. Following the seminars, a 5-point Likert type questionnaire with 30 questions was administered to the participants to assess the project. The Cronbach's alpha internal consistency coefficient for the questionnaire was 0.82. To analyse the data, the study used descriptive statistics, the Mann-Whitney U test and Kruskal Wallis test. The study found that the prospective teachers achieved significant professional learning outcomes through such activities and hoped that these programs would continue while they all agreed similar programs should be held also for students in other education faculties.