Abstract:

After gaining the independence, well-grounded, qualitatively new and intensive changes took place in the education system of Lithuania. The issues of science education became even more burning and though more complex. One of the directives requires solving the problems of science education on the grounds of a general culture rather than separately as the questions should be treated as a part of culture. A teacher of sciences must fully master different training technologies and have a thorough preparation for teaching sciences. Obviously, science pedagogical education undergoes serious changes. The majority of the recent international studies face an alarming situation in the field of science education. A critical situation has been encountered by the ROSE project (Sjøberg, 2004). It is obvious, that preparation of the qualified science teachers is actual and difficult task.� In conclusion, we can maintain that: • After restoring independence, the new teacher training curricula using experience of Western countries and considering national needs were developed. • The teachers of natural sciences mainly have to meet new social, pedagogic and subjective requirements. They are treated not only as providers imparting knowledge and facts but also as those helping the learner with choosing the required information on an individual basis. The changes in society and the process of teaching show that higher schools must take into account these facts while training would-be teachers. • The training curricula of teachers of natural sciences are designed on the basis of the regulations of the field of studies and standards of teacher training and are aimed at training teachers able to teach a few subjects of natural sciences. • The curricula focused on preparing teachers able to teach natural sciences integrated into other subjects taught are designed. • The curricula of natural sciences include education management, an introductory course on Educology, didactics and hodegetics that are involved into the process of competence development; however, it is not enough to gain general competence in pedagogical practice. • The training curricula of teachers of natural sciences encounter a problem pointing to the recession of the parallel teacher training model. In this case, the prospects of professional studies that proceed receiving a bachelor’s degree are confirmed by the new curricula of professional studies scheduling a general core section of the subjects developing pedagogical competence and didactical subjects of different fields of science that will be applied for the purposes of improving didactical competence of a certain subject.` • Lack of specific methodology, examples of good practice and recommendations for solving the problem of integrated education can be noticed in Lithuania. • No detailed systemic recommendations and methodical and organizational tools of how to integrate modern Information Communication Technologies (ICT) into the processes of teaching/learning natural sciences are created. • The teachers of natural sciences are not experienced enough in the field of general competence in modern ICT and suffer from shortage of methodical experience of how to effectively apply ICT in the educational process. The teachers should gain relevant experience in the seminars in methodology, training courses and accepted pedagogical practice at school using the latest Lithuanian versions of natural science training aids based on ICT.

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