Highly Effective Learning and Application Thereof to Roma Pupils Elementary Education System in Slovakia

Fragmentation of educational content, caused by the scientific-subject structure of the traditional school, in many cases inhibits the motivation and activity of pupils in the educational process. The saturation of knowledge, skills, and competencies— especially of roma pupils in elementary education—is thus underestimated and in many cases lags behind the standard level of the majority of pupils. It follows that the effectiveness of elementary education—especially for roma pupils—increases proportionally with the relevancy and a certain attractiveness of teaching organizational forms and methods whereby it is implemented. One of the alternative solutions for increasing the level of effectiveness of elementary education (inter alia) of roma pupils is the pedagogical concept of highly effective learning based on an integrated thematic teaching system. It turns out that in this context this concept can be considered as a motivating and activating element expanding the knowledge level of pupils, while at the same time enriching them educationally. It integrates strategies that are focused on the discovery, action, cooperative, authentic, and confluent learning of pupils. This paper deals with the issue of the educational concept of highly effective learning in terms of its application to roma pupils in the first grade of elementary education. It presents the current results of a pedagogical experiment as the elementary empirical method of research in the field of social climate, creativity, and the level of knowledge of pupils within the elementary first-grade educational environment.