TRANSFORMATION PROCESS IN SCIENCE AND MATHS TEACHER EDUCATION (EXAMPLES FROM SLOVAKIA)

Slovak universities have had the chance to gain money from the pre-admission funds as well as from the European social fund (ESF) since 2004. In the framework of the several challenges of the Ministry of Education of the Slovak Republic all universities out of capital Bratislava region could submit the projects dealing with the educational activities. The article describes the experience connected with the implementation of the ESF´s projects of the Faculty of Natural Sciences of Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra. It introduces one of the activities of the project A – CENTRUM: Academics training and monitoring centre of human sources which was realized by the faculty during 2004-2005 and following project: A-CENTRUM for 21 century: From present to distance education, which is realized now. Faculty of Natural Sciences in these projects has prepared the educational modules for teachers in practice named: Natural sciences dealing with the further education of teachers of mathematics, computer science and natural sciences´ subjects at the elementary and high schools. The introduced projects and their activities are the example of the real ability of the faculty to communicate with teachers effectively and offered them interesting programme for using at schools. Engagement in these projects reflects also the possibility of an academic space to realize the activities with the positive response in practice. Two examples of activities for teachers in practice are given in the article: • modern didactic computer teaching programmes in biology, • graphics calculators in mathematics education.