Krešimir Pavlina

Digital Competence of Future Teachers.

Future teachers are members of the digital generation so the authors are interested to find out what students (future teachers) consider as essential digital competence necessary for their future teaching profession. We are also interested in knowing if they think that competence, which is developed in existing curricula, should be further developed according to modern educational trends. We studied a sample of the students in the humanities and social sciences who are studying at the undergraduate and master’s levels for teachers in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at University of Zagreb, the largest teaching faculty in Republic of Croatia. Research was conducted using a survey with opened and closed questions. Students were asked to rate their attitudes toward the necessary digital competence of future teachers who will educate future generations of digital students using Likert scales.

STUDENTS' ATTITUDES TOWARD COMPUTER SCIENCE IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Digital competence belongs to a group of eight key competencies that modern educated person should possess. The presence of digital competence is evident in the private and business environment of human life. Todays students belong to the generation of digital students that devote private time to use different software applications which indicates that among todays digital students there is great interest in digital technology. Although modern students are intrinsically motivated to acquire knowledge and skills in the digital sphere, digital competence cannot be developed only through informal learning. Its importance was recognized by employers who feel that employees should be formally trained for digital competence needed in their future work. Permeation of the private students interests with the requirements of the modern labor market, created an adequate basis for the formalization of the subject that train contemporary students for successful mastering of digital knowledge and skills. Digital competence is primarily acquired through the school subject computer science. However, despite the requirements arising under the students personal interests and the interests of contemporary employers, school subject computer science in Croatian elementary school still does not have the status of compulsory school subject. In the lower grades of elementary school (1st to 4th grade) school subject computer science belongs to extracurricular activities which student can enroll if he/she has interest in this topic. Curriculum is developed through 35 school lessons on an annual basis, which means that a student in elementary school enrolled in school subject computer science listens to one lesson per week. In the higher grades of elementary school (5th to 8th grade) school subject computer science is an elective school subject which means that the student chooses from offered various elective school subjects. Curriculum is developed through 70 school lessons per year, which means that the student in higher grades of elementary school enrolled in school subject computer science have two school lessons per week. If the student has no interest in this subject he is not obliged to enroll it and during the elementary school student does not have to attend any lessons in computer science. This paper presents research about students’ attitudes toward school subject computer science. Survey was conducted on 94 students enrolled in various studies for future teachers in primary and secondary education on Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences University of Zagreb. Students have declared the importance of this school subject, classification of knowledge and skills that students need for future professional work and their opinions about appropriate amount of school lessons dedicated for teaching curriculum of school subject computer science.

Markov model of mathematical competences in elementary education

In this paper, the authors defined mathematical competences for the 7th grade of elementary school. The basic objective was to measure the mathematical competences or mathematical knowledge, skills and abilities in mathematical education. Mathematical competences were grouped in following areas: Algebra and functions, Space and shapes and Measurements and Data. Statistical set for the research consisted of 48 children from the Elementary school Dr. Ivan Merz in Zagreb, Croatia. Authors measured 15 variables together with the evaluated results of described tasks. Using statistical set of variables which measured mathematical competences the authors created representation of distribution by the Markov network (undirected graph with information about conditional independences between mathematical competences). Statistical analysis were conducted using software Tetrad and Statistica. In the results authors describe Markov model between the mathematical competences for 7th grade elementary school children. This paper is result of our previous research on causal modelling of mathematical competences in kindergarten and in elementary school.

Information Competences – University Professors’ Perspective

The constant advancement of information technologies had begun to affect information handling requirements, commonly recognized as information literacy, which has been widely and increasingly cited as an essential competency. This is congruent with tendencies in contemporary educational systems that recognize the need for a harmonious development of the human being characterized by the development of generic as well as specific competences. Capabilities like identifying, finding or using relevant information for critical thinking fall in the spectrum of generic information competencies. We consider that creating an adult information competent person is based on three key factors; university teachers, students and the world of work. The final goal of the higher education system and university teachers is to prepare students for the labor market. This paper represents the views of university professors on the development of student’s information competencies during the study itself and the importance of the development of information competencies for future student’s professional work.

Using Google Search engine for word frequency analysis

This paper presents results of research which examined correlation between frequency of 100 most commonly used words in three corpora of croatian language and number of web pages returned by Google Search engine which contain those words.