Primary School Teachers and Teacher Candidates' Perceptions of Efficiency in Designing and Implementing Teaching Based on Individual Differences

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to examine the designing of the characteristics such as "prior knowledge and skills, the speed of learning and the level of reasoning, learning style and multiple intelligence" which are accepted as individual differences and the perception of application efficiency of primary school teachers and teacher candidates. The study was designed according to phenomenology which is one of the qualitative research methods. Participants in the study were selected according to the criterion sampling among primary school teachers working in schools in different socioeconomic levels in Adana and Gaziantep in the fall semester of the 2017-2018 academic year and primary school teacher candidates continuing their education in the same period. In this case, 13 female, 10 male out of 23 primary school teachers and 17 female 3 male out of 20 primary school teacher candidates attended. In the research, the data were collected through "Daily Lesson Plans" and "Demographic Specifications Form", "Semi-structured Interview Form Based on Individual Differences" developed by the researchers. The obtained data were converted into findings by content and descriptive analysis. The analyzes show that primary school teachers have included the implementations for determining the prior knowledge and skills, learning styles and dominant intelligence areas, and teacher candidates have an awareness of how to do this too. However, primary school teachers and teacher candidates do not find themselves efficiency in designing and implementing the teaching process based on different prior knowledge and skills, the speed of learning and the level of reasoning, learning styles, and multiple intelligence activities.