Bulgarian Journal of Science and Education Policy (Nov 2010)
From the Secondary School to the Technical University, Or One Difficult Year for the First-Year Students [In Bulgarian]
Abstract
The transition from the secondary school to the university has been always a problem period, linked to the various changes and difficulties for the most first year students in different universities. Lack of experience of self-training and weak knowledge base and skills of the students on one hand, and the higher level of mathematics and new organization of the teaching process on the other hand, provoke serious difficulties. Some of the prospective students do not know what they really know and what they need to know. It is not clear why they should learn exactly these math topics and they do not know how to learn what they should know. The present paper attempts to clarify the key problems and their possible reasons and sources in the learning and teaching process. A set of measures is identified that would contribute to overcoming the difficulties during this transitional for the students period. The results are based on the review of foreign experience and as well as the Bulgarian one demonstrated by extensive interviews with lecturers in mathematics of three technical universities. We believe that this situation is similar (maybe with minor differences and additions) in almost all tertiary schools where mathematics is learned as a basic subject.
