Throughout the world governments and other education stakeholders advocate quality
education and education for all. Among others, mathematics education is seen by
governments as essential in the advancement of the development of countries. Lesotho
is no exception in this regard hence mathematics is one of the core subjects in
Lesothoâs education system. Though Mathematics education is seen as pivotal to the
development of countries, analysis of mathematics Junior Certificate (JC) examination
results in Lesotho indicates that performance in mathematics is not good. This study
therefore aspired to investigate teaching strategies predominantly employed by primary
mathematics teachers and assess their effect on learnersâ meaningful learning of
fractions. In order to meet this aim the study attempted to determine what literature said
about effective learning and teaching of fractions, the level of training given to
mathematics teachers and determine whether effective learning and teaching
materialised in the three classrooms that were studied.
The existing literature proposed different teaching strategies that resulted in significant
learning of fractions. To investigate dominant teaching strategies that teachers used in
the teaching of fractions, class observations of three teachers were conducted.
Teachers were observed in their classrooms over a period of time and follow-up
interviews were conducted. Samples of the teachersâ documents and the learnersâ work
were analysed to evaluate the extent to which effective learning and teaching of
fractions were taking place in these respective classes. Literature indicates that
effective learning, of fractions, entails meaningful construction of the concept through
handling of concrete materials and formation of relationship between concepts. Effective
teaching on the other hand entails the ability to create situations in which learning is
facilitated. Teachers are said to possess both mathematical knowledge for teaching
(MKT) and Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) in order to be able to teach
effectively.
In order to fully understand the level of training that the teachers received teacher
trainers were interviewed. It was found that teachers did not engage learners in high
order reasoning and problem solving, instead they gave close-ended questions which learners answered by practising rules and procedures that teachers taught. Learners
therefore did not use their own strategies when writing solutions to questions. It was
recommended that teachers should use readily available materials like paper and
papers and when planning lessons they should think of possible errors, misconceptions
and difficulties that learners were likely to have.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ufs/oai:etd.uovs.ac.za:etd-07232013-102606 |
| Date | 23 July 2013 |
| Creators | Marake, Maphole Georgina |
| Contributors | Prof GF du Toit |
| Publisher | University of the Free State |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | en-uk |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.uovs.ac.za//theses/available/etd-07232013-102606/restricted/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University Free State or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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