CROSS CURRICULAR RELATIONS IN TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION AT LOWER LEVEL OF SECONDARY EDUCATION IN SLOVAKIA

Following the changes after the curricula reform, introduced to the primary and secondary schools in Slovakia in 2008, an important task is to find out linkages among the content of the particular school subjects curricula and to support utilization of the cross curricular relations in particular subject teaching. The paper is focused on possibilities to use the cross curricular relations in teaching technology. The authors analyses the State Educational Program and possibilities which it offers to the subject integration. To use the cross curricular relations they propose a set of learning sources for teaching technology within a focus on history of technology. At the same time the authors present results of a survey which aim was to find out opinions of in-service teachers on application of the cross curricular relations in teaching practice. The results of the survey proved approximately only 50% qualification of the technology teachers. But in general both the qualified as well as unqualified teachers stated their positive approaches to the application of the cross curricular relations in teaching technology. As to the technology teaching the teachers, regardless of their majors, use dominantly the technology relation to natural sciences and at a significance level also to history. A negative finding is the fact that the teachers do not consult mutually the particular application of the cross curricular relations in teaching. Such kind of co-operation with the colleagues, teachers of other major subjects, stated almost 70 % of teachers teaching technology as only occasional or even rare (app. 20 %). To implement cross curricular relations into the technology teaching the teachers utilize different nonstandard sources and almost 40 % of them feel a lack of them. The results of the survey showed that the approach to focus the planned learning sources on history of technology is a new one supporting interdisciplinary relations of technology also to humanities and education sciences.