Search

The life quality of society and the stability of national economy is largely connected with science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The complex character of STEM education demands informed teaching/learning strategies in order to make the 21st century youth interested in learning. The aim of the research was to find out the views of prospective pre-school teachers on Grade 9 students' STEM learning, thus addressing the topical principle of continuity in education. A survey of 261 prospective pre-school teachers of the University of Latvia was performed. The obtained results show that in general the prospective pre-school teachers have some notion about the level of teaching/learning requirements in Grade 9 of the basic school, the integration of STEM and teaching/learning strategies. They acknowledge cognitive interest, inquiry-based learning and the importance of STEM knowledge and skills in the national development as significant, but little value is given to the exploration of nature in out-of-school time and to the importance of mathematical skills. More experienced respondents assess STEM learning higher. The given research raises the issue of the principle of continuity in education and gives a possibility to understand better the needs of prospective teachers in order to improve teacher education programs at the University.

The use of Open Educational Resources (OERs) in higher education is becoming increasingly urgent. Therefore it is essential to find out students' views on the opportunities and challenges gained by applying OERs. In the current research there were 127 students involved from different faculties of the University of Latvia. In order to find out their views on the OERs an explorative qualitative research was carried out using online structured e-interviews. The obtained data were processed with qualitative data processing software AQUAD 6.0. The code system was created by the author of the article based on the latest insights on OERs. The model of generalisation was applied. For probing the generalisability of the findings the qualitative data were transformed into quantitative and hidden relations were revealed as Spearman rank correlation by the use of SPSS 11.0. Constructed linkages were checked. The results show that the majority of students do not have a clear understanding of Open Educational Resources, although they are essentially using OERs in the study process. They have different views depending on the level of study. Thus an opportunity could be effective usage of different types of OERs as a challenge for students to develop their computer literacy, foreign language and information literacy skills to become more informal learners, bridging formal education with complementary resources and making learning more self-organised and self-directed, focused on active learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]