TRAINING PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS FOR TEACHING THE MATHEMATICS AND ENVIRONMENTAL EXPLORATION SUBJECT

In 2012, in Romania, it was approved the Framework Plan for Primary Education, the Preparatory Grade, the First and Second Grades. An important change was the introduction of the Mathematics and Environmental Exploration (MEE) subject. The novelty consists of the integrated study of mathematics with elements of natural sciences within the same subject. The following issues have been outlined: How did teachers adapt to these profound changes in the curriculum? What should be done to improve teacher training for integrated content approach? In this paper, we analyse the training that the teachers benefited from in order to teach the MEE subject, as well as their needs in the integrated approach of this subject. We collected data using the survey method based on a Google Drive questionnaire. The survey was voluntarily and anonymously completed by 131 teachers for primary education. Respondents consider the decision to introduce the integrated study of Mathematics with Environmental Exploration into primary education as a fairly good one, giving it a score of 3.31 on a scale from 1 to 5. Although more than 75% of the teachers benefited from more than 25 hours of MEE integration training through different training programmes courses, they mostly need printed materials (lesson projects, MEE didactics books, methodological guides). (c) 2018 Published by Future Academy www.FutureAcademy.org.UK