Innovation in professional training within the future teachers' preparation

Abstract

The paper is aimed at an analysis of the educational needs of Primary school teacher training students of the Faculty of Education, Department of mathematics. The purpose of the analysis was to identify the educational needs of the students with respect to their mathematical and didactic competencies, examine the under-training students’ knowledge in other fields such as psychology, and to encourage innovation in  pedagogical activities . The data were obtained by the means of a non-standardized questionnaire assigned to them. The questionnaire comprised 20 items, which could be categorized into three basic groups - teachers’ subject-specific content knowledge, subject-specific pedagogical content knowledge and subject-unspecific psychological-pedagogical content knowledge. The questionnaire was handed out to 116 first-year students and to 44 students in the second year of the Primary school teacher training study program. The results of the study proved that final  year students were more open to innovating their own pedagocical activities than first year students. The research recommends ways of providing adequate training to primary school teacher trainees, at the end of this research.