The Contemporary Curriculum and Teachers’ Competence Profile

Journal of Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Split, No. 6-7, 2016

Review article

Ines Blažević   ORCID icon orcid.org/0000-0001-6735-2922 ; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Split, Split, Croatia 

pages 189-210

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Abstracts:

The contemporary curriculum, in response to the many requests of different character arising from modern society, defines the core values and goals of education and provides a framework for the acquisition of basic and professional students’ competences. The bearers of the design and implementation of educational practice based on the set values and goals are teachers, and are aimed at ensuring the acquisition of defined competence. In this sense, teachers are expected to have multiple roles: from being the role models for their students, through reflecting the educational practice, to acting in accordance with the contemporary curriculum. In order to properly realize all this, modern teachers should have a number of competences and participate in permanent education and self-improvement regarding the development of these competences. By analyzing various dimensions of teachers’ competence, this paper will reflect on those most frequently cited as necessary to make the competence profile of contemporary teachers: pedagogical, psychological, methodological, communicational, social, informational and communicational, intercultural, organizational competences, as well as the competence to work with children with special needs. The results of the empirical part of the research, which was conducted through an anonymous survey among primary school teachers of Split-Dalmatia County and Dubrovnik-Neretva County, will demonstrate what competences teachers, according to their own opinion, consider necessary for a better realization of the modern curriculum as well as what competences teachers consider to be the most and the least developed of the teachers themselves. Furthermore, the results will show, according to the teachers’ opinion, a competence profile of today’s teachers and the level of development of teachers’ individual competences. Contribution to the results of empirical research is reflected in pointing out the current competence of today’s teachers in relation to the desired competence as well as pointing out the areas of competence that should be further developed by teachers. This data can be useful to the institutions that take continuous and systematic care of the professional development of teachers through their professional improvement as well as to those who train future teachers in designing their programs.

Keywords:

curriculum; competences; teachers; educational practice

URI:

https://zbornik.ffst.unist.hr/?p=1157&lang=en