Abstract:

Spatial imagination is an important part of a person's ability in everyday life. It is also part of human intelligence and therefore part of various intelligence tests. Spatial imagination is, of course, essential for technical students. Without the ability to ‘see’ students would not be successful either in study or in practice. This ability is possible to improve through training. Geometry, which is a discipline dealing with relationships in space, has a unique opportunity. Geometry is an integral part of mathematics. This opportunity is available during education in primary and secondary schools. Thus, a Maths teacher has a unique opportunity to increase these pupils’ competencies already during primary and secondary school. There are seven universities in Slovakia, which prepare future mathematics teachers. Each of them offers a college degree in this field (of course in combination with another subject). However, the study varies from school to school in the subjects that are part of it. The aim of this paper is to analyse the representation of structural geometry (by the term structural geometry we mean the part of geometry for which it is necessary to grab a ruler and a compass) in the preparation of future mathematics teachers at Slovak universities. It is also interesting to compare the representation of structural geometry in the subject of mathematics at different primary and secondary schools.

Keywords:

Spatial imagination, geometry, mathematics teacher.