The Namibian curriculum favours knowledge with understanding and application of knowledge and skills, because facts that are learned with understanding are easier to remember. This made learners to be able to represent mathematical situations in different ways and for different purposes. It also motivates teachers to contextualise the content to make mathematics teaching and learning more interesting and enjoyable to teachers and learners. However, some mathematics teachers are challenged by being required to teach multigrade classes, due to a massive response to improved access to education.Multigrade teaching is seen as a difficult practice especially when teachers are not well prepared to teach combined grades. This case study focused on the teaching of mathematics at Upper Primary Phase. An Interpretive paradigm was used to understand the teachers’ experiences and their teaching ethods. Hence the study aimed to investigate how teachers deliver their mathematics lessons in multigrade classrooms, considering the good practices and challenges that may occur. The findings revealed that teachers mostly use their monograde pedagogical knowledge,resulting in using quasi-monograde with a common timetable approach when teaching mathematics in multigrade settings. Although learners have access to the common mathematics syllabus, the quality of teaching the subject in multigrade classrooms seems to be affected due to the lack of teacher training in multigrade teaching. Also, equity and democracy need to be considered more than it currently is in terms of resource distribution to multigrade schools. Good practice of multigrade teaching existed in building on lower grade competencies, introducing lessons with common activities, as well as the concentration on lower grades which make learners independent. However, insufficient time, lack of knowledge in multigrade and curriculum knowledge in particular seem to challenge teachers and learners. Therefore, multigrade teachers need to be part of curriculum development for them to master the syllabus. These teachers will assist in developing multigrade resources for integration, contextualisation and more enrichment activities for high achievers.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:rhodes/vital:1796 |
| Date | January 2011 |
| Creators | Kapenda, Loide Ndakondjelwa |
| Publisher | Rhodes University, Faculty of Education, Education |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Masters, MEd |
| Format | 199 leaves, pdf |
| Rights | Kapenda, Loide Ndakondjelwa |
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