During primary education, classrooms are the places where students spend most of their time in educational activities. Educational environments, where the curriculum is implemented, have an important role in achieving the goal of the social studies curriculum. This research was conducted to determine social studies teachers' perspectives on the use of social studies classrooms. The study was conducted according to the phenomenology study design, one of the qualitative research methods. A semi-structured interview form, one of the qualitative research techniques, was used to collect research data. The questions in the semi-structured interview form were developed by the researcher by taking expert opinions and conducting a pilot application. There are four open-ended questions in the interview form to determine teachers' opinions on the use of social studies classrooms. The study group of the research consists of 20 social studies teachers of different ages and periods of professional experience working in different public schools. The collected data were analyzed according to descriptive and content analysis techniques. According to this research; Social studies teachers' opinions about the use of branch classrooms are positive. Smart boards and maps have been found to be the most popular teaching materials for teachers. It has been determined that branch classrooms will save teachers from the trouble of moving course materials and provide the opportunity to use and preserve more course materials. It has been concluded that students will enjoy the course more in such a learning environment and will have the opportunity to understand it more easily and learn permanently. The most striking opinions of teachers about how to create an ideal social studies classroom are: drawing maps on the walls and equipping the classroom with ready-made materials related to the lesson. Various suggestions have been presented regarding the results obtained from this research. Since the application of the branch classroom system is not widespread enough, conducting new studies by considering different variables on the subject and conducting research on designing social interests classrooms are some of the suggestions presented as a result of the research.
Branch Classroom, Learning Environment, Social Studies, Social Studies Teacher