A lesson plan model for character education in primary education

The purpose of the study is to design a lesson plan model for character education in primary education, and to elicit the related stakeholders’ opinions and suggestions on the proposed lesson plan model. As a qualitative design research, the data in this study were collected through written document analysis and interview. Criterion sampling method was used to determine the participants of the study. The participants were five primary education teachers, two experts from the field of psychological counseling and guidance, and two academicians from the department of elementary education. The data were analyzed using content analysis. The study has two phases: (1) developing lesson plan model on the basis of the affective domain grounded by Krathwohl, Bloom and Masia and eleven principles of effective character education proposed by the Character Education Partnership, and (2) piloting the model. Up till now, the 1st stage has been completed. The results indicated that the participants mostly gave positive feedbacks in terms of fundamentals, parts and steps of the model. Moreover, the assessment and evaluation part of the model might be a weakness. Finally, the results indicated that the suggested model will be a pathway in the application of character education in primary schools. The lesson plan model will be piloted as a follow-up research.


INTRODUCTION
In the literature, there have been various definitions of character education.One of them was made by Howard et al. (2004) as an effort to enable individuals to make ethical decisions and to act on them.Another definition made Lickona et al. (2011as cited in Lee, 2016) defined character education as a purposeful effort to make young people develop universal ethical values and act on them.Despite the various definitions of character education, almost all indicated same properties namely; its intentionality, ethical thinking and acting, place of school.However, there have been terminological problems related with character education.The problem and its reason were explained by Howard et al. (2004) as follows, names (e.g., moral education, values education).The most common term at present is character education.Terminology can be problematic, because character education can refer either to the entire field or to one of three major approaches …: caring, (traditional) character, and developmental.The caring and developmental approaches tend to use the term moral education (189).
On the basis of the explanations made by Howard et al. (2004), it is possible to reach various inferences.One of them, character education is an umbrella term for all education asking for good, appreciating of universal values and aiming to make people internalize being good character and behave in line with good character.Another inference is that character education is not new; it has its origins in moral, value education.
In this regard, Lickona (1993) expressed that character education is not new.Moreover, Lickona (1993) emphasized that education has had two main goals namely; to enable people become smart and good.In this respect, it may be said that education has included character education throughout its history as one of two main goals.In other words character education and education are at the same age.Lickona (1993) expressed that the Bible was sourcebook for schools and enabled them make instruction both morally and religiously.Then, the second sourcebook was "McGuffey Readers" in the context of which, there were many favorite Biblical stories, poems, exhortations and heroic tales.With this book, children practiced reading and arithmetic and learned about honesty, love of neighbor, kindness to animals, hard work, thriftiness, patriotism, courage.Although the early character education were provided by the Bible and McGuffey Readers through daily school curriculum in the early years, for Lickona (1993) the consensus supporting character education began to decline because of various powerful forces in the 20 th century.The powerful forces were; the philosophy of logical positivism, rise in personalism, rapidly intensifying pluralism of American society and the increasing secularization of the public arena.The term "character education" and interest in it has been popular in recent years (Russell and Waters, 2013).Lickona (1993) proposed three causes for explaining rise of character education.The causes were: (1) The decline of the family (2) Troubling trends in youth character (3) 10 troubling trends: rising youth violence; increasing dishonesty (lying, cheating, and stealing); growing disrespect for authority; peer cruelty; a resurgence of bigotry on school campus, from preschool through higher education; a decline in the work ethic; sexual precocity; a growing self-centeredness and declining civic responsibility; an increase in self-destructive behavior; and ethical illiteracy.A recovery of shared, objectively Temiz 131 important ethical issue.
Finally, the causes have been alive since 1993 so it can be stated that character education has been popular and it will be popular if it succeeds.Although character education has become popular, challenges in relation to character education have occurred because matters even definitions in relation to character education may change from country to country and region to region in years (Russell and Waters, 2013).Moreover, they expressed that there has been educators" request and desire about character education implementation.Therefore, there have been various curricula, programs, methods, activities and implementations in order to meet the requests.It is not possible to find solution to character education in terms of approach, curriculum, method, or any other component in realizing character education.In this regard, it is useful to talk about Skaggs and Bodenhorn"s research.Skaggs and Bodenhorn (2006) examined various character education programs in 5 different districts of US in their study.They summarized the strategies for character education in the light of the schools" purposes.In this regard, they stated that district 1 program"s curricular materials were developed on the basis of Lickona (1993) (Skaggs and Bodenhorn, 2006).
Another example for study on realizing character education was Model for Using Film proposed by Russell. Russell and Waters (2013) said one of the major approaches for implementing character education was using film as the basis for moral dilemma discussions.In this regard, Russell (2004Russell ( , 2007) ) proposed Model for Using Film in order to enable teachers, especially elementary school teachers to effectively use films and conducting moral dilemma discussions (cited in Russell and Waters, 2013).The four stages model has "implementation recommendation" at each stage of the model for elementary teachers using film to develop character of global citizens.The stages are namely; (1) the preparation stage, (2) the pre-viewing stage, (3) watching the film stage, (4) the culminating activity stage.
In this case, the implementation examples can be increased; however it has been obvious that there have not been one route for implementing character education.Besides, this has been normal in practice for character education.As it was stated before, implementation of character education depends on culture and society in which it is actualized.After all, in the field of character education, there has been need in terms of plan and implementation route.In this respect, some initiatives are very useful, for example The Character Education Partnership (CEP-Character.org.) proposed 11 principles in order to guide for curriculum integration, extracurricular activities, maximizing character education outcomes.The principles are as follows: (1) The school community promotes core ethical and performance values as the foundation of good character.
(2) The school defines "character" comprehensively to include thinking, feeling, and doing.
(3) The school uses a comprehensive, intentional, and proactive approach to character development.
(4) The school creates a caring community.
(5) The school provides students with opportunities for moral action.(6) The school offers a meaningful and challenging academic curriculum that respects all learners, develops their character, and helps them to succeed.(7) The school fosters students" self-motivation.(8) The school staff is an ethical learning community that shares responsibility for character education and adheres to the same core values that guide the students.(9) The school fosters shared leadership and long-range support of the character education initiative.(10) The school engages families and community members as partners in the character-building effort.(11) The school regularly assesses its culture and climate, the functioning of its staff as character educators, and the extent to which its students manifest good character.
(http://character.org/more-resources/11principles/) Therefore like character.org"sinitiative, various curriculum and plan routes should be developed and at the same time flexibility must be provided in terms of cultural differences.In this regard, the purpose of this study has been shaped.
For satisfying such a need in the field of character education, it should be examined general aims of character education.Tannir and Al-Hroub (2013) stated that character education programs aimed to enable children to learn to be responsible, honest, dependable, problem-solver, to value themselves and others, respect others (Hall et al., 1998 cited in Tannir andAl-Hroub, 2013).It is obvious that the purposes of character education are involved in affective domain in its nature.The affective domain care is about feelings, values, motivations, attitudes (Bloom, 1964cited in Jagger, 2013).Kratwohl, Bloom and Masia associated the affective domain to learners" beliefs, attitudes, values, emotions and acceptance or rejection (Savickiene, 2017).Similarly, Allen and Friedman (2010) stated that the affective domain originated from learners" emotional life, and reveals learners" attitudes, beliefs, impressions, desires, values, feelings, preferences and interests (Friedman, 2008;Friedman and Neuman, 2001;Picard et al., 2004 as cited in Allen and Friedman, 2010).Moreover, O"Donnell et al. (2009 cited in Green andBatool, 2017) expressed that the affective domain dealt with attitudes, beliefs, temperaments, points of view, impressions and feelings.
In this regard, character education is an education which involves affective domain.Accordingly, teaching in affective domain becomes the main topic of conversation.About teaching in affective domain, Allen and Friedman (2010) expressed that it is possibly the most complicated type of teaching because of cognition, behavior, feelings amalgam.Actually, Allen and Friedman"s view indicates another reason to think character education in teaching affective domain.In another words, like teaching in affective domain, character education also emphasizes cognitive, behavioral and emotional learning because of three main approaches of character education.The three main approaches stated by Howard et al. (2004) to character education namely; (1) the cognitivedevelopmental approach (often called moral education) gives primacy to "knowing the good," (2) the caring approach emphasizes "desiring the good," (3) and traditional character education, which sees "doing the good."The approaches can reach character education together.Character education requires all three "knowing good," "desiring good" and "doing good."When we look at the levels of affective domain, it is possible to see all these approaches.Krathwohl et al. (1964) divided the affective domain into five levels starting with the lowest simple level and ending with highest complex level (cited in Savickiene, 2017).The levels are receiving/attending, responding, valuing, organization and internalization/characterization (Savickiene 2017;Allen and Friedman, 2010).The definitions and explanations were developed by various authors and they are given below.
Receiving/attending: This level is the simplest level of affective domain.The level refers to individuals" readiness to concern themselves with some phenomena (Savickiene, 2017).In this level, an individual willingly and attentively take information about and deal with current phenomenon or environment.
Responding: The level refers to individuals" consciously reactions to the environment.In this level, individuals participate in activities and take initiative (Savickiene, 2017).
Valuing: At this level, an individual"s attitude moves from a simple acceptance of value to decisive actions (Savickiene, 2017).Students can explain the foundation and rational of the value, defend it and make judgments on the basis of the value (Allen and Friedman, 2010).
Organization: At this level, an individual takes new value/s into her/his existing value system.In other words, Savickiene (2017) said "New or newly perceived values are compared with the former ones, and they attain a respective priority in the value system of a student" (44).The reorganized value system helps her/him solve internal moral conflicts.
Internalization: This level is the final level of affective domain.At this most complex level, an individual represents behaviors depending on his / her value system internalizing newly attained values.The behaviors have become usual and consistent in similar situations (Savickiene, 2017).
Moreover, Allen and Friedman (2010) proposed that comprehending affective domain and its learning processes enabled professional values education to have useful framework.In this regard, a lesson plan model was designed on the basis of the affective domain grounded by Krathwohl et al. and eleven principles of effective character education proposed by the Character Education Partnership for character education in primary education.

Design and overall procedure of the study
The design process of the lesson plan model began with reviewing related literature in depth and detail.On the basis of the literature review, fundamentals of the lesson plan comprised five level of affective domain grounded by Krathwohl et al. and eleven principles of character education proposed by the Character Education Partnership.Then the steps of the lesson plan were constructed.
After that, the lesson plan model was submitted to the participants.The lesson plan model was reconstructed on the basis of the reviews and then it was submitted to the participants again.Lastly, they expressed positive opinion on the model and so the lesson plan model was put into final form.

Participants of the study
Criterion sampling method was used to determine the participants of the study.The criterion was the participant had experienced character education for least three years in somehow.The participants of the study were five primary education teachers, two experts from the field of psychological counseling and guidance, and two academicians from the department of elementary education.The detail information about the participants was given in Table 1.

Data collection methods and instruments
As a qualitative design research, the data in this study were collected through written document analysis (reviewing the related literature) and interview.The interview instrument was developed by the researcher as semi-structured.The researcher interviewed with the participants after developing the initial form of lesson plan model via the interview instrument.
The main focuses of the interviews were as follows: (i) Fundamentals What do you think about the fundamentals (five level of affective domain and eleven principles) of the model?Does that make sense to you? Why?  (ii) Parts and Steps What do you think about the main parts and steps?(Are the instructions clear to understand/ easy to follow, applicable, feasible?(iii) The suggestions for making the proposed model better Besides, the researcher also interviewed once more some participants who made suggestions on the model in order to make it better.

Data analysis
As a qualitative study, the data gathered through the interviews were subject to content analysis.Firstly, the researcher transcribed the interviews notes without making any change on them.Then, the researcher reviewed the transcripts and determined the codes according to frequentness, emphasis and focuses of the interview questions.After that the researcher reviewed the transcripts once more using the code list and so the last code list was formed.The categories were generated by common features founded among the codes.Last the researcher defined data and arranged quotations and findings in accordance with categories.

Introduction
The part A is formed from two steps namely; (1) lesson overview, (2) analyzing students.

A1. Lesson overview
In this level, the teacher writes the focus character, age of the target population, suggested time and materials.

A2. Analyzing student
The aim of the part is to conduct needs assessment in terms of students" input level of focus character.In detail, the planner determines the level at which student has the focus character.These levels are the level of affective domain namely; receiving, responding, valuing, organizing and internalization.Teachers make decision of students" input level by using the ultimate aim of the level stated at each step of part B as criteria.After completing phase A, teacher proceeds to phase B level determined by the students" input level of character.For example, if the teacher determines that student has achieved the ultimate aim of the B1 level" the student is aware of focus character" the teacher will proceed to B2 level after completing the phase A.

Body
The part B was formed from five levels namely; (1) receiving, (2) responding, (3) valuing, (4) organizing, ( 5) internalizing.Each level has an aim named as "Ultimate aim of the level."The ultimate aims are used for satisfying two needs of the model.First, as it was explained in previous phase, the aims are used to determine the students" input level of character.Second, the aims are used to plan effective and efficient activities in order to get successful learning outcome.Moreover, the teacher using the model does not need to determine or write any aims or objectives because the model presents the aim for each level on the basis of the affective domain.The main task for teacher is to plan activities in order to make the student to achieve the ultimate aims.Teachers must be sure that they prepare activities touching all multiple intelligences, individual differences so use various methods of teaching.

B1 Level: Receiving
In this level, the teacher prepares activities to make the students recognize the importance of focus character.After completing the activities, the student is expected to be aware of the character.For this aim, the activities must direct the students" attention to current character.For example, an activity at this level for the character "animal welfare" may be watching the TV series "Lassie" which was released in1954-1973, its story was the ongoing life of the Martin family and their beloved dog, Lassie.

B2 Level: Responding
In this level, the teacher prepares activities to provide the student with an opportunity to subscribe to the character.After completing the activities, the students are expected to be comfortable with presence of the character and feel uncomfortable about absence of the character.For example, an activity at this level for the character "animal welfare" may be finding something is not right on the visual cards or video or case story.For the activity, teacher prepares material including more than one wrong and shows the material to the student and asks her or him to find the wrongs.If the student does not find the wrong cases related with the animal welfare, the teacher helps the student out via Socratic Method.

B3 Level: Valuing
In this level, the teacher prepares activities to provide the

B3. Level: Valuing
Ultimate aim of the level: The student shows definite involvement and commitment and reacts to anti-character situations in somehow.
Prepare activities to provide the student with an opportunity to stand up for the character.

B2. Level: Responding
Ultimate aim of the level: The student is comfortable with presence of the character and feels uncomfortable about absence of the character.
Prepare activities to provide the student with an opportunity to subscribe to character.
Figure 1.The lesson plan model.
student with an opportunity to stand up for the character.
After completing the activities, the student is expected to show definite involvement and commitment and react to anti-character situations in somehow.For example, an activity at this level for the character "animal welfare" may be establishing a club for the prevention of cruelty to animals and being a member of the club.

B4 Level: Organizing
In this level, the teacher prepares activities to let the student express personal views, beliefs, opinions proofing s/he engrafts the value to her/his existing alliance of values.After completing the activities, the student is expected to integrates the value into her/his general set of values.For example, an activity at this level for the character "animal welfare" may be writing personal opinions about possessing the character "animal welfare."

B5 Level: Internalization
In this level, the teacher prepares activities to be able to observe the student whenever a situation related with the character emerges.At this level, the student is expected to automatically behave as required by the character.Therefore, the teacher prepares the activities for her or him own purpose of observing the student.Actually, this level also serves as formative evaluation in terms of student internalization level of the character.If the student does not behave as required by the character, the student does not internalize the character and so the teacher goes back to previous levels to find what make the student repudiate the character.After finding the gap, the teacher fills the gap related with the student accomplishing character process.Besides, Multiple Intelligences Theory (MIT) is implicated over all the part B. The reason is the positive implications of MIT on teaching and learning.

Assessment and evaluation
Although the part C can be seen as separate and the last part of the model, it is not a separate part of the model, it is actualized as formative evaluation via observation, case sand scenario studies etc.The teachers will observe their students" acquisitions as it happens and monitor and adjust accordingly during and after implementation of the model.

Fundamentals of the model
As it was explained earlier in the text, the fundamentals of the model are affective domain grounded by Krathwohl et al. and eleven principles of Character Education Partnership.In this regard, the analysis of the answers to the interviews showed that one of the categories was fundamentals of the model because there were common strengths and weaknesses of them.Therefore, related results are under the following subtitles namely; strengths of the fundamentals and weaknesses of the fundamentals.

Strengths of the fundamentals
The analysis of the interviews indicated that the participant teachers conducted character education in social sciences course.Also all of them expressed that they had not seen any lesson plan model specialized for character education before.Because of that they stated it is strength on its own in such a case.In this regard, the following excerpts are taken from the interview transcripts; I have not seen any lesson plan prepared for only character education before.For me, this attempt is valuable.(TB) The draft model is a powerful attempt because there is no or rare such a model in field of application.(TE) Besides, the strengths of the model in terms of its fundamentals stated by the participants were namely; familiarity of the affective domain, opportunity to understand what is happening in the world in terms of character education.All the participants thought pressing affective domain into service was a good idea because affective domain was familiar to educators, and the domain was like character education, the hearth of the domain was combined attitude, value, belief, emotion.In this respect, the following excerpts are taken from the interviews;

Weaknesses of the fundamentals
Actually, the analysis of the participants" answers to the interviews indicated that the participants did not think any serious weakness in terms of the fundamentals.However, two teachers worried about the eleven principles because of foreign origin.In this regard, the following excerpts are taken from the interview transcripts, Actually, I do not know the eleven principles very well.Thus, the principles may be a weakness because they were produced by foreign culture (TA).
We talk about culture factor when character education is at stage, however we do not have our own principles about character education.I do not know the eleven principles fit in with our character education.I am not sure of this issue (TD).
The researcher presented the eleven principles of Character Education Partnership after the teachers expressed the views.Then, the teachers read the principles and stated this reading removed their worries because one of the eleven principles indicated cultural differences and their importance.

Parts and steps of the model
The analysis of the answers to the interview indicated that one of the categories was parts and steps of the model because there were common strengths and weaknesses of them.As it was explained earlier in the text, the parts and steps of the model are namely; (A) Introduction including (A1) Lesson overview, (A2) Analyzing the student"s input level, (B) Body including (B1) Receiving, (B2) Responding, (B3) Valuing, (B4) Organizing, (B5) Internalization, and (C) Assessment and Evaluation.Therefore, related results are under the following subtitles namely; strengths of the parts and steps, weaknesses of the parts and steps.

Strengths of the parts and steps
The analysis of the data showed that there were two Temiz 137 views about the A1 step of the part A1.The view about the subtitle "suggested time."The participant teacher TB and academician AA stated that the subtitle was strength because it indicated there could not be a limited and strict time for character education.Also they emphasized that the usage of the word "time" instead of the word "lesson hour" was pertinent choice because the word indicated character education was a process and could not be expressed lesson hours.After the comments, the researcher added the emphasis on the plan model (Figure 1).For the part A, 2 nd level, the analysis of the data displayed that all participant gave positive feedback except one teacher (TC) and one expert from the field of psychological counseling and guidance (PA).The participants giving positive feedback stated that the level gave importance on individual differences and also enabled students to take appropriate education for their character.In another saying the step helped students not to be bored with activities aimed at the potential they have already gained in that character.The following excerpts are taken from the interviews, Actually, if learning-teaching activities are under the level of students, the students get bored of the activities thus the activities are ineffective.Such an analysis prevents students from being boring.(AB) We often talk about individual differences; however we could not actualize activities taking the differences into account properly.This step is very well, very good for taking individual differences into account.(PB) The analysis of the participants" answers to the interviews indicated that all participants gave positive feedback about part B all steps except the last step B5.When conducting deep analysis of the feedbacks for first four step of part B, it was found out that the order of the steps, including ultimate aims and activity instruction were seen as strengths of the model.In this regard, the following excerpts were taken from interview transcripts, I think the main and most powerful part of the model is part B. First, the steps were ordered according to affective domain which was familiar to us; educators and we have known and accepted the validity of the affective domain for years.For us, it was easy to follow the order.(TA) I haven't seen such a detail and user-friendly plan before for not only character education, but also all courses.I mean that all the steps of the part B include goal and instruction for activity and it is easy to conduct for any teacher.(TC) Part B seems to be the brain of the model because the part guides teachers to make plan step by step.I think the order is good and the instructions are clear to understand and follow.(AA)

Weaknesses of the parts and steps
The analysis of the data displayed that there was one main weakness of the entire model.That was assessment and evaluation part, part C. As it is expected that also 2 nd step of part A was seen as weakness a little bit because also the step required assessment and evaluation.In this regard, two participants criticized the A2 step.The teacher TC and the expert from the field of psychological counseling and guidance PA stated that the step A2 might be weakness because conducting assessment and evaluation in affective domain could be more difficult than what was thought.The data analysis showed that for the part C, all participants except teacher TB and academician AB worried about actualization of part C properly.In this regard, the participants worrying about the part C commonly stated that any assessment and evaluation method might be difficult in affective domain.The following excerpts were taken from the answers to the interviews, I think, affective learning requires alternative assessment and evaluation method and we are not good at these methods as teachers in Turkey.Therefore, I am worrying about the part C (TA).

I am not sure about the part C. It may not work properly. I do not imagine any assessment and evaluation material which can present exact score or result about affective behavior. Therefore, the part C is weak point of the model (TC).
It is difficult to assess affective acquisitions.The quick fix approach is useless for this situation.Affective teaching and learning is a process so an affective acquisition entails assessment and evaluation methods which originated from process approach.I am not sure teachers are patient as it is needed.Moreover, I am not sure they are qualified to use process approach in assessment and evaluation properly (PA).

Conclusion
The related literature review of the study indicated that character education is as old as education because it is a goal of education.In this respect, Young et al. (2013) expressed that the word character originated from a Greek word "engrave" and character education was old; Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates emphasized the importance of developing morals and values of younger generations in ancient Greece.In this connection, Thambusamy and Elier (2013) said that morals, virtues or character had been taught by all cultures in one or another way since the beginning of the recorded time.
Moreover, the literature review showed that although character education falls from grace time to time because of various causes, it is obvious that character education has been needed from past to present.At this stage, society requires character education and educators need routes, methods for implementing character education.However, there has not been one route for implementing character education because it depends on culture and society in which it is actualized.Therefore, there are more and more routes and methods might be and should be for implementation in the field of character education.In this regard, a lesson plan model was developed on the basis of the affective domain grounded by Kratwohl et al. and eleven principles of effective character education proposed by the Character Education Partnership in this study.
As it was presented in detail, the results displayed that the fundamentals of the model were appreciated by the participants.They expressed that the familiarity of affective domain and opportunity presented by the eleven principles to see what is happening in the world were strengths of the model.The underlying logic of that affective domain, one of the fundamentals, is that character education is an affective teaching-learning process and naturally the character education might be actualized by using affective domain steps.In this respect, Stiff-Williams (2010) stated that character education engaged in constructing "decision filters" defined by him as serving to balance thought processes and behave according to them; therefore character education involved both cognitive and affective process.
Moreover, the results indicated that most of the participants gave positive feedback about the parts and steps of the model.As strengths, they gave emphasis on process approach, giving importance to individual differences, order of the steps, ultimate aims and activity instructions.The process approach which was one of the strengths of the model is also supported by the literature.For example, Anderson (2000) expressed that character education is a part of school life; it is not a quick-fix program.The results displayed the weakness of the model.The weakness was assessment and evaluation part.Most of the participants explained that they worried about the assessment and evaluation of affective acquisitions.
Finally, the lesson plan model for character education in primary education was developed as a route for teachers who can make modifications on the model according to their teaching environment.The participants" feedbacks mainly were positive; however they also pointed out weakness about the assessment and evaluation part of the model.The weakness is important and will be taken into consideration during the follow up studies for this research.Moreover, Anderson (2000) emphasized that today"s effective lesson plan are not yesterday"s lesson plan so educators should be in continued improvement for character education.In this respect, educators involved in character education should always seek new approaches, better planning models for better character education.

Table 1 .
Details about the participants of the study.

B4. Level: Organizing Ultimate aim of the level: The
student integrates the character into her/his existing general set of characters.Prepare activities to let the student express personal views, beliefs, opinions proofing s/he engrafts the character to her/his existing alliance of characters B1.

Level: Receiving Ultimate aim of the level:
The student is aware of the character.

Level: Internalization Ultimate aim of the level
: The student automatically behaves as required by the character Prepare activities to observe the student whenever a situation related with the character emerges