Abstract:

The conducting of competence-based learning is challenging for mathematics teachers in Bulgaria. Although the European and Bulgarian regulations describe the competence that students should acquire, often the teachers do not further develop their students in this aspect. Furthermore, during last years, other problems are noticeable as decreasing students’ interest in mathematics and an outflow of students interested in the natural sciences. Mandatory teachers’ trainings, which are not always concern of raising the qualification of the mathematics teacher, also have an impact as does the ongoing COVID19 crisis.

In the Bulgarian educational system, the educational content in the mathematics textbook has not changed as well as the teaching approaches - in the regular and extracurricular classes the traditional teaching methods are applied. In addition, the teaching staff is aging and mathematics teachers have established habits. It is difficult for them to accept new ideas in pedagogy and they adapt slowly to the changes. In addition, the qualification courses, that teachers need to attend, are short and general in nature. Courses applicable in the classroom or related to competence in mathematics and mathematics teaching methodology are rarely offered.

They are different approaches to deal with the presented problems. The choice of a particular method and its application should take into account the available circumstances. The authors explore the possibility that the national curriculum in mathematics provides for real consistent development of students competences at different age. They illustrate them by practical examples providing smooth gradual development of a particular set of competences over several school years.

Possibilities in the direction of overcoming the outlined difficulties are substantiated and further developed, and ways for forming the students’ mathematical competences are presented. In the paper authors show examples of the stages of the development of the competences within the mathematics curriculum in Bulgaria as well as opportunities for the application of project-based learning and the use of STEM methodology.

Keywords:

Competence-based learning, school curriculum, project-based learning, STEM, connection of competence and curriculum.