TEACHERS’ OPINIONS REGARDING TEACHING AN INTEGRATED OPTIONAL DISCIPLINE (IOD) IN ROMANIAN SECONDARY SCHOOLS
Keywords:
competencies, integrated curriculum, obstacles, secondary schools, teaching an integrated optional discipline,Abstract
Curriculum integration is a necessity. In everyday life, problem solving requires
knowledge, diverse skills that cannot be acquired by studying only individual
disciplines, with no connections between them. This study explores the views of the
teachers in the secondary schools, in Romania, on teaching an integrated optional
discipline. We have designed and carried out a mixed research – quantitative and
qualitative, based on several objectives focused on teachers’ opinions to teach an
IOD, the required competencies to teach an IOD, their perceived barrieres in
teaching an IOD and possible solutions to overcome those barriers. We did our
research in 18secondary schools from Bucharest city and five counties, on a sample
of 153 teachers. The results of the research show that only few teachers teach IOD in
Romania. In order to teach an IOD, they need to have social skills and creativity
besides knowlege from different areas. Theachers state that there is a lack of
curricular resources and time to prepare the lessons. Also, they have difficulties in
making connections between the knowlege from different areas. Teachers consider
that in order to solve these problems, they need to help each other, to study more and
suggest that schools must support them with diverse curricular materials.
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