Inclusion of newspapers in social studies for gifted students: A phenomenological study

This study examines pre-service teachers’ views and experiences using newspapers in Social Studies lesson plans for gifted students. The research was conducted in the college of education at a large Western university in Turkey. The participants in the study were pre-service teachers from the Department of Gifted Education, who will become classroom teachers and expected to be teaching both life studies and Social Studies. The study is a phenomenological qualitative investigation based on pre-service teachers’ views and experiences with the use of newspapers in Social Studies lesson plans. Pre-service teachers developed lesson plans that included the use of newspapers as a teaching tool in accordance with the course topic and content in the undergraduate course called Life Study and Social Studies for Gifted Students. Then, they presented their lesson plans as a way to practice receiving feedback from their classmates and shaping their lesson plans into a final form. Thirty-eight pre-service teachers (30 female and 8 male) participated in the study voluntarily. Written open-ended interviews were used to elicit data. Data were analyzed inductively, and emergent themes were shaped. The findings revealed that pre-service teachers indicated positive experiences and changed their views on the use of newspapers in their Social Studies lesson plans for gifted students.