Abstract:

The work presented in this paper is based on more than 30 years experiences in technology education in Slovakia concentrated to the new structures of state educational program and school educational program, study plans, curriculum changes made based upon teaching skills and the professional profiles derived from the studies to change the didactics in which the secondary vocational schools educational environment works. Universities of Zilina (Slovakia), and University Center of Further Education of Teachers, share the idea of how supplementary teachers’ education created a path to success for its workforce, and how Supplementary Education Study can fulfill its mission too. The Center for Further Education of Teachers was established in concord with long-term intentions of the University of Zilina in the field of education and in unity with the university mission. From pedagogic applications, information, communication, and multimedia technology are opening up new pathways to increase the efficiency of existing learning content modeling and adaptation through innovation in supplementary pedagogical study. However, the utilization and implementation of new educational technologies has been occurring at such a rapid pace that theory and research have been unable to keep up. In this way a convenient teaching style put into practice in creating teaching materials that is both effective for students and comfortable for the professors will develop naturally and relatively simple, with an important effect on the quality of student’s individual key competences with the respect to learning style insights to increase the quality of beginning teachers education in supplementary pedagogical study.

The objectives of the research were to find which learning styles are preferred by most students, and how individual student’s learning style on secondary vocational school works, and to investigate the influence of new ICT support concept in selected subjects accepting individual student’s learning style through an analytical separation of learning styles derived from the educational theory of Felder-Silverman. The current study was conducted in Kysucke Nove Mesto, Slovakia, included 129 students from two secondary vocational schools and 100 teachers from two groups of beginning teachers in Supplementary Pedagogical Education of the University of Zilina in the period of 2015-2016. The paper results indicate the distribution of learning styles of students, which creates the possibility of feedback to improve the educational process by focusing on the appropriate selection of organizational and didactic forms, teaching methods, teaching principles and educational technology (textbooks, slides design, dynamic projection, internet, multimedia) to streamline the learning process with a focus on extended development of secondary vocational schools students key competences for the 21st century.

This research goals can contribute formulated qualitative recommendations for the studied target groups of students and classified categories of learning styles, which could serve the teacher creative approach to the didactics of vocational subjects, effectively fulfill the objectives related to the development of school education programs with a particular focus on the individualization of learning and effective development of key competencies of each student respecting the specificity of the learning styles.

Keywords:

Innovation, learning styles, teaching styles, supplementary pedagogical study, didactics, secondary vocational schools, beginning teachers.