Educational Effects from the Work with a Project Curriculum with Hearing Impaired Children

Abstract

Abstract The reform of the special education is directed towards creating preconditions for a more massive inclusion of children with developmental difficulties in the mainstream educational system (inclusive process), but also towards improvement and change of the concept of work of the special schools, especially the change in the internal organization of the educational work through introducing contemporary models and methods of learning. The modernization of the educational process asks for a modernization of the curriculum, but also of the modus which they are realized with, so therefore the goal of this research was to confirm the educational effects of the innovative models and methods of working in the educational process with the hearing impaired children. In this article we showed the experimental check up of the efficiency from the application of the project curriculum in relation to the traditional teaching, regarding the level of the gained knowledge of the hearing impaired pupil. The sample is consisted of 49 hearing impaired pupils, from the fifth to eighth grade from primary schools for children with impaired hearing. The results that we got show statistically significant difference between the accomplishments confirmed in the subjects with an applied traditional model of work and the application of the project curriculum. Key words: project teaching, traditional teaching, hearing impaired children, cooperative learning, frontal work (ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.) Introduction The new way of thinking and acting of the people in the society, the social and life conditions influences the learning process in the organized school teaching, both in the regular and the special education. Therefore, we are searching for new, more efficient learning paths that will be based on the needs, interests and the goals of the new generations of pupils of all ages. The modern approaches in education present a system of new methods and behaviors (that have been formed for the past two decades of the 20-th century), but also didactical systems that change the technology of the educational process in direction of removing the contradictions between the education goal on one side and the organization of the contents and the teaching process on the other side. (1) Pointing out the active forms of teaching is introducing the pupil in a position of an active subject, which together with the teacher gains and develops knowledge, habits and skills, prognoses and summarizes the results from the work and the learning. This approach in the work represents the best way in the fight against formalism and routines, but also a way of humanization of education. In the new pedagogical and methodological literature different models of educational work are being explained in which the active participation of the pupil in the knowledge gaining process is accented. (2). But, the theoretical processing, as well as the application of innovative models are mainly connected to the regular schools. Lately, as a part of the reforms in the whole educational system directed towards creating preconditions for a more massive inclusion of children with developmental difficulties in the system of the regular education (inclusion), but also for enhancing and change of the concept of working in the special schools, especially the change of the internal organization of the educational work through introducing innovative strategies and models of learning and teaching, the researches of this kind receive a significant place also in the area of education of the hearing impaired children (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 2). Working on a project or a project work that is commonly defined in the pedagogical literature, actually presents one of the educational models that interacts with the concept of contemporary education. The project work presents a common try out of the teacher and the pupil to connect life, learning and work, so the problem that is significant for the society and connected to the interests of the participants is processed together (=process) and to have a result (=product) that will have a significant value for all the participants (9). …