FutureTeach 2025: Vzdelávanie učiteľov v 21. storočí. “Vzdelávať pre budúcnosť – reflektovať pre kvalitu“

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Božena Velebná

The following material has been created during the two years of teaching English for Chemists at the Faculty of Science of the Pavol Jozef Šafárik University and is therefore designed to meet the needs of this course. The main motivation was the lack of appropriate materials, especially as the groups generally comprise students with a very diverse level of English. This diversity therefore became the main criterion determining both the form and the content of this text.

In the ten units that provide material for a one semester course, the emphasis is put on teaching the students vocabulary and terminology, which is introduced via authentic texts, depending on the topic of each unit. Students are encouraged to learn the meaning of new words in context. Grammar is included too, with the aim of demonstrating and explaining grammatical rules by means of examples taken directly from the texts. For the more advanced students, grammatical exercises in this material can serve for revision while the beginners might need more supplementary materials.

I hope that this material, the preparation of which has been a challenging as well as enjoyable experience will be useful for future teachers and the students of this course.

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Ján Sabol

Literary, but especially film production has entered new, so to speak culturally anthropological contexts over the past period. As the technological base of this new art evolved, its position and character changed in the socio-cultural context of human existence and society.

Film and the media world in a broader context are no longer just the domain of art or media disciplines but are entering a wider framework of socio-cultural-anthropological scientific disciplines. Increasingly, people are confronted with a new phenomenon of virtual worlds, virtual dimensions that influence real reality through their actions and thoughts.

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Dušan Šlosár - Vladimír Lichner

This university textbook aims to provide readers with knowledge of the philosophical foundations, meaning, and purpose of mediation, based on research and analysis of mediators' activities. In countries where mediation services operate, their staff often include graduates of social work departments.

An individual approach to both the perpetrator and victim of a criminal offense requires knowledge and skills from social work, psychology, sociology, communication, and related fields tied to social work. The principles of social work apply not only in social policy and social care but also in justice. A mediator’s mission is to facilitate alternative resolutions to unlawful acts while preserving the purpose of legal proceedings as defined by valid legal norms. They fulfill this mission through specific methods of individual social work applied in the justice sector. The mediator’s focus extends beyond the current conflict to uncover related issues, activate parties to resolve disputes, and prevent new conflicts.

Special attention is devoted to the philosophical foundations of mediation in Slovakia. We provide an overview of mediators’ core activities and mediation types used to uphold justice in Slovakia. We analyze mediation goals, the roles of parties involved, and procedural steps. In applying mediation, we explore its potential and implementation in both legal and social work contexts.

As indicated, mediation cannot be understood solely as a specialized activity in criminal justice, as it has broader applications in non-judicial dispute resolution, such as family or community work, which are often overlooked by the public. The mediator’s approach to diverse target groups is grounded in theoretical frameworks. From this foundation, we derive activities expected of mediators in the future. Expanded activities arise from concrete situations encountered during mediation.

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Ján Hvozdík

With great interest, I read the proposal for the reissue of the monograph by Prof. PhDr. Ján Hvozdík, DrSc., Základy školskej psychológie (Foundations of School Psychology). It was an honor for me to be part of the editorial board for the new edition of the textbook.

The reissue comes at a time when school psychology seems to be experiencing a renaissance in its application. This is no coincidence, as the professor’s conception of school psychology as a theoretical-applied and integrated psychological discipline strives not only directly but also indirectly, through the pedagogical practice of teachers, to influence specific situations in educational practice within the school environment. From my perspective, I also appreciate the attention given in the textbook to the ever-relevant topic of self-directed learning, that is, the autodidactics of pupils and students. School psychology has become a core subject, within which its specializations are also realized.

It is worth mentioning the fact that, under the conditions of totalitarianism, the professor was not a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, and yet he made significant contributions to the development of school counseling, both in theory and in practice, which commands respect and admiration. The reissue of the textbook is not an apology but rather a celebration of his positive contributions.

prof. PhDr. Ján Grác, DrSc.

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Vladimír Lichner

The scientific monograph focuses on the analysis of radical and extremist groups, movements, sects and cults and their activities in the Slovak Republic.

It provides a theoretical insight into the issues of specific organizations and movements that have been characterized in the past, or are currently characterized by belonging to ideologies that we might call anti-social.

It does not focus unilaterally on one type of violent extremism, but focuses on the issue of both right-wing and left-wing religious groups. In the final part it offers a brief suggestion of prevention procedures, which could significantly influence the increase of extremist manifestations especially in young people.

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Marián Bednár

The scientific monograph The Value of Human Life in the Connotations of Postmodernism presents a current issue of reflections on the value of human life. It sees in the broader connotations of postmodern society, where the approaches of applied ethics (bioethics), philosophy and Christian theology intersect. This issue is embedded in the historical, philosophical, sociological and cultural-social Postmodernism.

The monograph analyses the postmodern value system, the dominant postmodern anthropological concept, secular bioethics and civil law in relation to human life and its value. The key is the confrontation of the postmodern anti-life mentality and life in the most discussed bioethical issues: contraception, artificial insemination techniques, genetic manipulation, abortion, sterilization, (bio) technology, euthanasia. An alternative approach is offered by the theological vision of human and life presented in the Judeo-Christian context. In the light of modern theological disciplines, the personnel concept is enriched by theological anthropology culminating in an eschatological vision.

In this sense, the issue of the value of human life culminates, which is also inspired by one of the most important encyclicals of Pope John Paul II. Evangelium vitae (25th anniversary of its writing). It is she who calls for the acceptance and respect of every human life and for the practical development of a new culture of life.

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Eugen Andreanský

The presented monograph aims to critically map the understanding of the concept of possible worlds.

The first chapter describes the formation of the semantics of possible worlds, along with indicating some problems it brings, which were incisively revealed primarily by W. V. O. Quine. In the next two chapters, the work focuses on more modern views on the nature of possible worlds, with the main attention given to the dichotomy between the possibilist and actualist approach to the question of modalities, alongside which it is necessary to assess other distinctions (essentialism - anti-essentialism, realism - reductionism (or ersatzism or fictionalism), naturalism - non-naturalism, etc.). Increased attention in the work is specifically devoted to the possibilism of D. Lewis and the actualist concepts of S. Kripke, A. Plantinga, R. M. Adams, N. Rescher, D. Armstrong, and J. Hintikka.

An unconventional approach to the issue of possible worlds is captured in the fourth chapter. It is primarily dedicated to the significant concept of Jaakko Hintikka, which works with the notion of epistemic possible worlds and documents the inclination towards the modification and relativization of modal discourse. The conclusion provides an evaluation of the discussion that touches on the main problems associated with considerations of possible worlds.

In the presented monograph, some representative concepts of possible worlds, or possible individuals, are clarified, and the overall process is indicated from assessing possible worlds as ideal logical constructs through their relativization by separate domains of individuals for individual worlds and further through the relationship of attainability to financial, impossible, and non-standard possible worlds.

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Peter Fedoročko (eds.)

From June 14 to June 17, 2022, the 8th annual Spring School for Doctoral Students at Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice will take place in Liptovský Ján. The scientific program of the spring school will comprise 3 plenary lectures by leading scientific experts and 1 workshop. Doctoral students will present their research papers in two sections: 22 doctoral students of Faculty of Public Administration, Faculty of Law and Faculty of Arts, and 26 doctoral students of Faculty of Medicine and Faculty of Science. The scientific programme of the spring school will also include a panel discussion with the management of Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice.

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Ingrid Madárová - Lívia Barnišinová - Barbara Mitríková - Zuzana Kolaříková -  Veronika Pálová - Lucia Tóthová

This handbook is primarily intended for university teachers who regularly come into contact with international students. It focuses on supporting effective intercultural communication in the academic environment. Through examples of specific situations from everyday academic life, it offers recommendations on how to prevent potential misunderstandings arising from intercultural differences. It also includes practical advice aimed at building open, culturally sensitive, and respectful communication that enhances mutual understanding and fosters an inclusive educational environment.

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Adriana Jesenková

The textbook "Literary Story as a Tool for Moral Education" aims to contribute to the preparation of future teachers of ethical education, as well as students from other fields, particularly in the humanities. It focuses on an area that remains trivialized and marginalized—gender-sensitive education and training. The author operates under the assumption that applying a gender-sensitive approach in education requires an understanding of what a gender perspective entails.

Experience from interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research, along with teaching experiences where ethical questions and themes—such as those related to gender, gender equality, gender justice, and gender relations—are presented, taught, and explored through various media or texts (not only traditional scientific and professional ones but also artistic, especially literary), inspired the author to present such an approach in a relatively coherent form.

This includes summarizing existing knowledge and experiences on the topic so that they can serve as a suitable starting point for enhancing the competencies of future teachers (not only) in ethical education when applying a gender-sensitive approach in education and teaching issues related to gender and gender relations in the context of applied ethics and ethical education.

Autor

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Lukáš Šutor

Proceedings from the International Scientific Colloquium "The Folk Tale in Contexts" (December 12, 2022, in Košice)

We present the proceedings "The Folk Tale in Contexts" to the professional public as the outcome of the eponymous international scientific colloquium, which took place on December 12, 2022. Our aim was, among other things, to open a discussion on verbal folklore in broader interpretative, transcultural, and ultimately also interdisciplinary contexts—a goal that was achieved especially in the latter respect. Although the contributors primarily work in the fields of folklore studies and literary science, their methodological approaches from other—sometimes even more distant—disciplines expand the current discourse to a remarkable breadth. This is proof that research on the folk tale remains vibrant and open to new challenges.

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Magdaléna Hovanová

The monograph is devoted to social support, set in the adolescent's environment. Social support can also be described as relational support from the environment in which the individual lives, and thus increases his resistance to stress and the desire to overcome life's failures and crises. It is for this reason that social support was also defined in the context of social-ecological theory. An innovation in the relationship with social support was the "Push-pull" theory, oriented to the individual's motivation.

The defining anchoring of social support was built on its most famous theories. However, the greatest attention was focused on the possibilities of measuring social support, because its multidimensional measurement is necessary to determine the mechanism by which it works. The monograph therefore offered the author's validation processing and verification of psychometric properties of two separate methodologies Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) - (Zimet, Dahlem, Zimet, Farley 1988) and Social Support Survey (MOS) - (Sherbourne, Stewart 1991).

The monograph results in two validation-verified separate methodologies for measuring types and sources of social support, which are reliable for use in a group of Slovak adolescents (MOS-SK and MSPSS-SK).

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Jana Balegová

The university textbook „Cursus Latinus – exercise book“ is a parallel study material to the textbook „Cursus Latinus – textbook“. It is designed for practicing grammar at home. The content of the exercises corresponds in its focus to the lessons of the mentioned textbook, both in terms of the grammatical phenomena, as well as the vocabulary. For this reason, only vocabulary that was not included in the lessons of the textbook is included in the exercises. The Latin-Slovak dictionary at the end of the exercise book contains the entire vocabulary from the exercise book and the textbook. Part of the exercise book is a key that allows students to immediately check the correctness of their work. „Cursus Latinus - exercise book“ is available electronically in PDF format.

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E-publication

Štefan Jusko

This monograph aims at following the study of P. S. Loeb in which he presented a significant turning point in the issue of the interpretation of Nietzsche's idea of the eternal return of the same. What was that reversal? Despite prominent scholars of Nietzsche's philosophy of the 20th century who rejected the idea of eternal return because of its logical incoherence, Loeb eruditely proved the temporal identity of eternal return of the same, thus verifying the logical connection of the idea concerned.

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Drahoslav Magdoško (ed.)

Hlavný zámer zborníka, ktorý držíte v rukách, predstavuje práve vzdanie pocty historikovi, ktorý svojim úctyhodným vedeckým dielom výrazne prispel k utváraniu slovenskej historiografie, predovšetkým medievalistiky. Zároveň sa tu vyslovuje uznanie za rozsiahlu a v nemalej miere priekopnícku prácu archivára, ktorý pomáhal rozvíjať moderné archívnictvo na východe Slovenska. A v neposlednom rade ide o formu poďakovania za prácu vysokoškolského pedagóga, ktorého predmety absolvovali stovky študentov, a ktorý si svojim podnetným prístupom získal ich srdcia. Na všetkých týchto troch rovinách má cenné zásluhy prof. PhDr. Ferdinand Uličný, DrSc. (*18. 8. 1933, Ploštín), ktorý v lete roku 2023 oslávil životné jubileum 90. rokov.

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