Determining The Academic Knowledge Level Of Social Studies Teacher Candidates On Settlement Geography Of Turkey

Abstract

Having a long history of settlement, Anatolia has a distinctive role in settlement geography. Despite the fact that people may cause changes in physical environment in various other ways, the conversion of physical geographic expression into a cultural geographic expression had been realized most vigorously where people were settled in. Therefore, through history the settlements have been the focus of all branches of the social sciences and have been researched. Most especially, it has been at the core of history and geography and has become one of their most popular research topics. Being situated at the crossroads of three continents geographically, Turkey has attracted various civilizations since ancient times and increased the significance of settlements in here. Researches of settlements as a field of social studies have been one of the significant issues those should be handed down the rising generations. Increasing the academic knowledge level of social studies teacher candidates who are to pass these issues on rising genereations, constitutes our subject matter. For that purpose, an activity was organized within the context of a technical visit of 30 third grade students from Faculty of Education Department of Elementary School Division of Social Sciences Education, 10 of which were female and 20 male, within the scope of settlement geography, a sub-branch of Human and Economic Geography of Turkey, an excursion-observation activity at Konya (Çumra) Çatalhöyük, where we have grown wheat grass beforehand. Also the students were instructed via a descriptive study which was vocalized in order to emphasize the agricultural activities that have been initialized with the historical basis of Anatolia and human settlement in here. This study is based on phenomenology research design, among the qualitative research methods. The one-sample pretest-posttest method which includes the descriptive analysis was used in this study. 6 open ended questions were prepared for pretest and posttest. This study aimed at increasing the academic level of teacher candidates on Çatalhöyük, which is considerably important with regard to settlement geography in Anatolia and thus, making the accumulation of knowledge outlast as they pass it on the rising generations.