TEACHERS’ OPINIONS REGARDING TEACHING AN INTEGRATED OPTIONAL DISCIPLINE (IOD) IN ROMANIAN SECONDARY SCHOOLS

Curriculum integration is a necessity. In everyday life, problem solving requires knowledge, diverse skills that cannot be acquired by studying only individual disciplines, with no connections between them. This study explores the views of the teachers in the secondary schools, in Romania, on teaching an integrated optional discipline. We have designed and carried out a mixed research – quantitative and qualitative, based on several objectives focused on teachers’ opinions to teach an IOD, the required competencies to teach an IOD, their perceived barrieres in teaching an IOD and possible solutions to overcome those barriers. We did our research in 18secondary schools from Bucharest city and five counties, on a sample of 153 teachers. The results of the research show that only few teachers teach IOD in Romania. In order to teach an IOD, they need to have social skills and creativity besides knowlege from different areas. Theachers state that there is a lack of curricular resources and time to prepare the lessons. Also, they have difficulties in making connections between the knowlege from different areas. Teachers consider that in order to solve these problems, they need to help each other, to study more and suggest that schools must support them with diverse curricular materials.