The study analysed the management constraints in the distribution of qualified mathematics and science teachers in a post-1994 education system of South Africa. The study was qualitative and 14 participants were purposively sampled and semi-structured interviews were used to collect data from the identified participants. The interview transcripts were constantly compared and analysed and the data was classified into three main categories of management constraints and patterns: beliefs, experiences on management constraints and strategies for the elimination of management constraints. Turning vision into practice (TVP) framework was used to explain the relationship between its seven pillars of managing teacher recruitment and the links in the development, adoption, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of a teacher deployment system, focusing on mathematics and science. Findings of this study suggest that the current hybrid post establishment model is generic and focuses more on cost curtailment than on the supply of qualified mathematics and science teachers. The shortcomings of the model are exacerbated by the transgressions of the Employment of Educators Act. Contrary to the Employment of Educators Act, entry-level vacancies are not advertised in the province. In addition, the appointment and service conditions of qualified teachers are differential. While teachers from government bursary schemes are appointed immediately on permanent status and without probation, other qualified and long-serving mathematics and science teachers remain on temporary status for almost two years and without fringe benefits. The differential treatment leads to job insecurity and facilitates the exit of these qualified mathematics and science teachers from the profession. Moreover, schools horde and use qualified mathematics and science teachers in subjects they are not qualified to teach. It is recommended that through the suggested TVP framework, the current teacher recruitment and deployment strategies be revisited regularly to ensure effectiveness of teacher usage in mathematics and science. It is further recommended that school principals and other educational leaders should be provided with personnel management skills to ensure maximum effective recruitment and deployment of qualified mathematics and science teachers, particularly to the impoverished schools. / Educational Management and Leadership / D. Ed. (Education Management)

The study analysed the management constraints in the distribution of qualified mathematics and science teachers in a post-1994 education system of South Africa. The study was qualitative and 14 participants were purposively sampled and semi-structured interviews were used to collect data from the identified participants. The interview transcripts were constantly compared and analysed and the data was classified into three main categories of management constraints and patterns: beliefs, experiences on management constraints and strategies for the elimination of management constraints. Turning vision into practice (TVP) framework was used to explain the relationship between its seven pillars of managing teacher recruitment and the links in the development, adoption, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of a teacher deployment system, focusing on mathematics and science. Findings of this study suggest that the current hybrid post establishment model is generic and focuses more on cost curtailment than on the supply of qualified mathematics and science teachers. The shortcomings of the model are exacerbated by the transgressions of the Employment of Educators Act. Contrary to the Employment of Educators Act, entry-level vacancies are not advertised in the province. In addition, the appointment and service conditions of qualified teachers are differential. While teachers from government bursary schemes are appointed immediately on permanent status and without probation, other qualified and long-serving mathematics and science teachers remain on temporary status for almost two years and without fringe benefits. The differential treatment leads to job insecurity and facilitates the exit of these qualified mathematics and science teachers from the profession. Moreover, schools horde and use qualified mathematics and science teachers in subjects they are not qualified to teach. It is recommended that through the suggested TVP framework, the current teacher recruitment and deployment strategies be revisited regularly to ensure effectiveness of teacher usage in mathematics and science. It is further recommended that school principals and other educational leaders should be provided with personnel management skills to ensure maximum effective recruitment and deployment of qualified mathematics and science teachers, particularly to the impoverished schools. / Educational Leadership and Management / D. Ed. (Education Management)

This research investigates the relationship between the attitude of senior secondary mathematics educators towards school and the achievement of their learners. A literature study examined research into the relationships between an educator's attitude towards his or her school management team, colleagues, learners, parents, the subject of mathematics and the factors influencing mathematics achievement. An empirical investigation used a quantitative research design to collect data from selected senior secondary schools in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. A questionnaire was used to gather data and a statistical data analysis was conducted to calculate frequencies and test hypotheses. Findings indicated the existence of a relationship between educators' attitudes towards school and the achievement of their learners. It was therefore recommended that school managers should be very sensitive to the climate prevailing in their schools in order to encourage mathematics educators and thus, indirectly, learners in this vital subject. / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (Didactics)

This study attempted to design and implement an intervention programme to improve the self-concepts and attitudes of prospective primary school teachers. The possible effects of the programme were researched by means of a combined quantitative and qualitative approach. A questionnaire to determine the effectiveness of the programme was also designed. Important findings of this study are that: (a) the Cronbach Alpha Coefficient indicated a 0,9 reliability of the designed questionnaire; (b) the average self-concepts of prospective teachers improved after the intervention programme was implemented, though not significantly and (c) the self-concepts of prospective teachers not majoring in Mathematics also improved after the intervention, though not significantly. A focus group interview was conducted to improve the intervention programme. On the basis of the responses of the participants in the focus group interview as well as of the quantitative study and of the literature reviewed, an improved version of the intervention programme was designed. According to the research, the programme should include: cooperative learning; everyday life contexts; manipulatives; hands-on activities, encouraging the asking of questions; a positive relationship between lecturer and student; writing assignments before doing a new topic; content relevance; a positive communication of assessment; games; various approaches to solving problems; understandable language; gender sensitivity and positive role modeling. The intervention programme implemented in this study was tested over a period of three months; hence the recommendation in this research for the replication thereof over a longer period. The study further recommends that since the study was conducted in one college of education only, there is a need for it to be conducted in a number of colleges, in order to elicit a broader and more representative picture of the impact of the intervention programme. The findings of this study advocate the need to combine both quantitative and qualitative research in studies: the results of the quantitative research did not conclusively indicate a positive impact of the intervention programme. However, the qualitative research saw respondents expressing improved confidence and attitudes. / Psychology of Education / D. Ed. (Psychology of Education)

The Edinburgh Mathematical Society started out in 1883 as a society with a large proportion of teachers. Today, the member base is mainly academical and there are only a few teachers left. This thesis explores how and when this change came about, and discusses what this meant for the Society. It argues that the exit of the teachers is related to the rising standard of mathematics, but even more to a change in the Society’s printing policy in the 1920s, that turned the Society’s Proceedings into a pure research publication and led to the death of the ‘teacher journal’, the Mathematical Notes. The thesis also argues that this change, drastic as it may seem, does not represent a change in the Society’s nature. For this aim, the role of the teachers within the Society has been studied and compared to that of the academics, from 1883 to 1946. The mathematical contribution of the teachers to the Proceedings is studied in some detail, in particular the papers by John Watt Butters. A paper in the Mathematical Notes by A. C. Aitken on the Bell numbers is considered in connection with a series of letters on the same topic from 1938–39. These letters, written by Aitken, Sir D’Arcy Thompson, another EMS member, and the Cambridge mathematician G. T. Bennett, explores the relation between the three and gives valuable insight into the status of the Notes. Finally, the role of the first women in the Society is studied. The first woman joined without any official university education, but had received the necessary mathematical background from her studies under the Edinburgh Association for the University Education of Women. The final chapter is largely an assessment of this Association’s mathematical classes.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-27T16:57:45Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 EDM - Armando Traldi Jr.pdf: 2147430 bytes, checksum: 25b748586338a3af2807c9f19ae7b9a6 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006-10-06 / The purpose of this work is to understand the possibilities to construct a work group of the collaborative type, from a collective work group, constituted of formers of teachers who teach the discipline of Differential and Integral Calculus, in an institution that has the individualism as its scholar culture. The theoretical referential of the study integrates the areas of the knowledge of the professor, searching to understand how this is developed and clarified; of the school culture in the perspective to observe its interference in the professional development of the formers of teachers, and the didactic aspects of the area of knowledge of Differential and Integral Calculus that constitutes a source to know of the formers of Mathematics teachers. The research methodology follows a qualitative boarding, of the type case study . A collective work group was constituted, formed for seven formers of teachers, that teach Differential and Integral Calculus, in one determined institution of superior education. The main instruments of data collection had been the document comment, interviews and analysis and had happened during the period between April,2004 until August,2006. We define categories from our theoretical referential, that made us possible to organize and to understand the collected data. From this study it is possible to agree with Hargreaves (1998) that the contribution is one of the most promising paradigms for the professional development of the formers of teachers, therefore it makes possible to elucidate the doubts related to the learning practical , to argue concepts that had not been argued during the formal formation and recreate some teach-and-learn conceptions. Also we have analyzed the difficulties so that a collective work group pass to a collaborative form and we have concluded that the main ones are: the lack of the experience in organizing the guideline that will guide the works; the excess of unarticulated personal impressions with theories that lead to generating quarrels; a false expectation to find magical solutions; little knowledge on the possibility of the reflection on the action as a strategy of professional development; the lack of the habit to search the practical itself. Finally, we can affirm that in the group that we have investigated there are different possibilities of the transition from a collective work to a collaborative one; among them we focus: the objectives in common of the formers, the necessity of the exchange of experience and the quarrel of specific didactic knowledge of the area of Differential and Integral Calculus, the search of support to face the necessary curricular changes, the climate of camaraderie and confidence constructed throughout the meetings, the search of specific knowledge of the Differential and Integral Calculus / O presente estudo tem como objetivo compreender as possibilidades de construir um grupo de trabalho do tipo colaborativo, a partir de um grupo de trabalho coletivo, constituído por formadores de professores que ministram a disciplina de Cálculo Diferencial e Integral, numa instituição que tem como cultura escolar o individualismo. O referencial teórico da investigação integra as áreas do conhecimento do professor, buscando entender como esse é desenvolvido e explicitado; da cultura escolar na perspectiva de observar sua interferência no desenvolvimento profissional do formador de professores e, dos aspectos didáticos da área de conhecimento de Cálculo Diferencial e Integral que constitui uma fonte de saber dos formadores de professores de Matemática. A metodologia de pesquisa segue abordagem qualitativa do tipo estudo de caso. Foi constituído um grupo de trabalho coletivo, formado por sete formadores de professores que ministram a disciplina de Cálculo Diferencial e Integral, em uma determinada instituição do ensino superior. Os principais instrumentos de coleta de dados foram a observação, entrevistas e análise de documentos e aconteceram durante o período de abril/2004 a agosto/2006. Definimos categorias, a partir do nosso referencial teórico, que nos possibilitaram organizar e compreender os dados coletados. Deste estudo é possível afirmar com Hargreaves (1998) que a colaboração é um dos paradigmas mais promissores para o desenvolvimento profissional do formador de professores, pois possibilita que ele explicite suas dúvidas relacionadas à sua prática letiva, discuta conceitos que não teve a oportunidade de discutir durante sua formação formal e reelabore suas concepções de ensino-aprendizagem. Também analisamos as dificuldades que um grupo de trabalho coletivo enfrenta ao trabalhar de forma colaborativa, e concluímos que as principais são: a falta de prática na organização da pauta que irá orientar os trabalhos; o excesso de impressões pessoais desarticuladas com teorias que acaba gerando um esvaziamento das discussões; uma expectativa falsa de encontrar soluções mágicas; pouco conhecimento sobre a possibilidade da reflexão sobre a ação como uma estratégia de desenvolvimento profissional; a falta do hábito de pesquisar a própria prática. Finalmente, podemos afirmar que no grupo que investigamos aparecem diferentes possibilidades da transição do trabalho coletivo para o colaborativo e, entre elas, destacamos: os objetivos em comum dos formadores, a necessidade da troca de experiência e da discussão de conhecimentos didáticos específicos da área de Cálculo Diferencial e Integral, a busca de apoio para enfrentar as mudanças curriculares necessárias, o clima de camaradagem e confiança construído ao longo dos encontros, a busca de conhecimentos específicos do Cálculo Diferencial e Integral

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-27T16:58:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 marcelo.pdf: 418423 bytes, checksum: 6b6474695f37ac9ddac61b49e8063206 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2002-10-08 / This dissertation concerns the nature of mathematical knowledge of middle and high school mathematics teachers. In the beggining, a survey of academic studies suggests that their knowledge contradicts the present conceptions of Mathematics Education. It has gaps that depends on conceptions about Mathematics and/or about the learning of Mathematics, rather than on knowing more mathematics contents. To search a better knowledge of Mathematics for the teachers it was used a theoretical framework based on the idea that the knowledge as a whole can be regarded as a web of meanings a notion that has already been explored in Brazilian researches about education. From this notion it was derived a way of knowing Mathematics that is in harmony with the conceptions of Mathematics Education. This way of knowing includes a great deal of knowledge about Mathematics. In the end, it was considered how this way of knowing can be implemented in the preparation of teachers / Esta dissertação trata da natureza do conhecimento matemático dos professores de matemática do ensino fundamental e médio. De início, um exame de estudos acadêmicos sugere que esse conhecimento contradiz as idéias atuais da Educação Matemática. Ele tem falhas que dependem mais de concepções sobre a Matemática e/ou seu ensino do que da aquisição de mais conteúdos matemáticos. Para buscar um melhor conhecimento matemático para o professor usouse como referencial teórico a noção de que o conhecimento como um todo pode ser visto como uma rede de significados uma noção já explorada em pesquisas brasileiras sobre educação. Essa noção conduz a uma forma de conhecer matemática em harmonia com as concepções da educação matemática. Trata-se de uma forma de conhecer que inclui em larga medida o conhecimento sobre matemática. No final, considerou-se como essa maneira de conhecer pode ser implementada nos cursos de formação de professores

University of Macau / Faculty of Education

University of Macau / Faculty of Education

The study explores Mathematics educators’ use of students’ out-of-school experiences in the teaching of Transformation Geometry. This thesis focuses on an analysis of the extent to which students’ out-of-school experiences are reflected in the actual teaching, textbook tasks and national examination items set and other resources used. Teachers’ teaching practices are expected to support students’ learning of concepts in mathematics. Freudenthal (1991) argues that students develop their mathematical understanding by working from contexts that make sense to them, contexts that are grounded in realistic settings. ZIMSEC Examiners Reports (2010; 2011) reveal a low student performance in the topic of Transformation Geometry in Zimbabwe, yet, the topic has a close relationship with the environment in which students live (Purpura, Baroody & Lonigan, 2013). Thus, the main purpose of the study is to explore Mathematics teachers’ use of students’ out-of-school experiences in the teaching of Transformation Geometry at secondary school level. The investigation encompassed; (a) teacher perceptions about transformation geometry concepts that have a close link with students’ out-of-school experiences, (b) how teachers are teaching transformation geometry in Zimbabwe’s rural secondary schools, (c) the extent to which students’ out-of-school experiences are incorporated in Transformation Geometry tasks, and (d) the extent to which transformation geometry, as reflected in the official textbooks and suggested teaching models, is linked to students’ out-of-school experiences. Consistent with the interpretive qualitative research paradigm the transcendental phenomenology was used as the research design. Semi-structured interviews, Lesson observations, document analysis and a test were used as data gathering instruments. Data analysis, mainly for qualitative data, involved coding and categorising emerging themes from the different data sources. The key epistemological assumption was derived from the notion that knowing reality is through understanding the experiences of others found in a phenomenon of interest (Yuksel & Yildirim, 2015). In this study, the phenomenon of interest was the teaching of Transformation Geometry in rural secondary schools. In the same light, it meant observing teachers teaching the topic of Transformation Geometry, listening to their perceptions about the topic during interviews, and considering how they plan for their teaching as well as how students are assessed in transformation geometry. The research site included 3 selected rural secondary schools; one Mission boarding high school, a Council run secondary school and a Government rural day secondary school. Purposive sampling technique was used carefully to come up with 3 different types of schools in a typical rural Zimbabwe. Purposive sampling technique was also used to choose the teacher participants, whereas learners who sat for the test were randomly selected from the ordinary level classes. The main criterion for including teacher participants was if they were currently teaching an Ordinary Level Mathematics class and had gained more experience in teaching Transformation Geometry. In total, six teachers and forty-five students were selected to participate in the study. Results from the study reveal that some teachers have limited knowledge on transformation geometry concepts embedded in students’ out-of-school experience. Using Freudenthal’s (1968) RME Model to judge their effectiveness in teaching, the implication is teaching and learning would fail to utilise contexts familiar with the students and hence can hardly promote mastery of transformation geometry concepts. Data results also reveal some disconnect between teaching practices as espoused in curriculum documents and actual teaching practice. Although policy stipulates that concepts must be developed starting from concrete situations and moving to the abstract concepts, teachers seem to prefer starting with the formal Mathematics, giving students definitions and procedures for carrying out the different geometric transformations. On the other hand, tasks in Transformation Geometry both at school level and the national examinations focus on testing learner’s ability to define and use procedures for performing specific transformations at the expense of testing for real understanding of concepts. In view of these findings the study recommends the revision of the school Mathematics curriculum emphasising pre-service programmes for teacher professional knowledge to be built on features of contemporary learning theory, such as RME theory. Such as a revision can include the need to plan instruction so that students build models and representations rather than apply already developed ones. / Curriculum and Instructional Studies / D. Ed. (Curriculum Studies)