Search

Teacher quality in primary schools in South Africa is a serious concern, and how best to prepare teachers in initial teacher education—with regard to mathematics—remains an open and vexing question. There is a confluence of challenges facing the mathematics education community in South Africa: poor conceptual understanding of mathematics amongst teachers; poor attainment in Primary Teacher Education mathematics tests at both first and fourth year levels; and few initial teacher education programmes having evidence of improving knowledge for teaching mathematics. In addition, few lecturers in initial teacher education make explicit the theoretical tenets informing their course design for mathematics. In response to the latter challenge, this paper makes explicit the design choices made in the Emergent Number Sense first year mathematics module in Bachelor of Education degrees, used across six universities in South Africa. It then theorises the choice to commence the B.Ed mathematics programmes with two pathways into number knowledge: (1) a counting pathway, making use of discrete objects or events which can be quantified by counting in ones; and (2) a measurement pathway, making use of continuous extents which can be quantified by introducing a unit of measurement. Each has a distinct metaphor, strategy for the reification of the 10 and supporting representation. This offers the lecturers using the course in their own design trials, and initial teacher educators beyond the Maths4Primary Teachers collective, a conceptual framework for this design choice, which can now be critiqued and further improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses, empirically, on the developments seen in a group of South African early grades' mathematics teacher educators in the course of a university-provincial education department partnership project. This project sought to support the district Mathematics Subject Advisers to support, in turn, teachers to implement an intervention consisting of a sequence of four lessons focused on multiplicative reasoning. Outcomes based on pre- and post-tests administered by the Subject Advisers suggested substantial pre- to post-test improvement at the student level. Subject Adviser observations and reflections pointed to successes in engendering more dialogic conversations between mathematics teachers and mathematics teacher educators focused on mathematics and its teaching and learning. The 'double move' of increasing overlap between the subject adviser and teacher communities, coupled with evidence that implementing the intervention had enabled the Subject Advisers to develop their mathematical and pedagogical understandings, provides a useful way of considering development in the capacity of mathematics teacher educators to support mathematics teaching and learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study reported on here was conducted to explore four Grade 7 mathematics teachers' understanding of the relationship between the objectives indicated in the CAPS for teaching different topics/concepts and instructional time stipulated for doing so. Seven lessons were studied in 4 primary schools in the Vhembe district of the Limpopo province, South Africa. A constructivist philosophical approach was used. The data collection methods included interviews and classroom observations. The main finding indicates teachers' understanding of instructional time as either a regulatory or a teaching tool. The ability to translate instructional time into social time depends on the level of teachers' curriculum literacy. Consideration of how CAPS objectives could be fulfilled based on the topic/concept to be taught and the stipulated instructional time, influenced the learners' conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, and competency in mathematics. The conclusion underscores the importance of instructional time as both an essential authoritative regulatory tool and signal of a pedagogic device and communication required to advance the instructional objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Participating in classroom mathematics conversations, particularly engaging with the opinions of others, can improve learners' mathematical comprehension. Teachers can use a variety of invitation and follow-up moves to encourage student engagement. The study aimed to explore teacher follow-up on learners' initial responses to teacher questions and building on learner ideas in Grade 9 mathematics classrooms. A qualitative approach and descriptive case study design were utilised. Data were collected from three schools in the same circuit in South Africa through classroom lesson observations, face-to-face teacher interviews and researchers' field notes. Three Grade 9 mathematics teachers, one from each school, were purposively selected, and the selected teachers' already established Grade 9 classes, with a maximum of 30 learners each (owing to the COVID-19 health protocol), were automatically involved. Cognitively guided instruction, a learner-centred approach that uses social constructivism as a research paradigm, guided this study. The exploration was supplemented by Brodie's conceptual framework on teacher follow-up moves. The findings revealed that the three teachers followed up on learner contributions and used different follow-up moves, namely insert, elicit, press, maintain and confirm. The study showed hybrid teacher moves. Although more teacher moves were skewed towards elicit and insert, which are closer to traditional practices, there is an indication of moving towards the press, maintain and confirm, which are reform-oriented moves. In addition to these moves identified by Brodie, acknowledging or praising the learner for responding was another move that emerged in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Girls performing well in mathematics at school do not necessarily enrol for mathematics courses at South African universities. Teachers could be transferring beliefs about the nature of mathematics favouring boys. This paper compared male and female pre-service teachers’ beliefs about the nature of mathematics. A quantitative, descriptive research approach was adopted. One hundred and twenty-six mathematics pre-service teachers, enrolled for an undergraduate teaching training programme at a South African university, completed a questionnaire. While both genders hold the same Platonist and instrumentalist beliefs, females embrace lower experimentalist beliefs than males. Research on differences between male and female pre-service teachers’ beliefs about the nature of mathematics could promote gender equity in mathematics teacher training and better facilitation of the subject, which might consequently encourage more girls to opt for mathematics-related careers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is consensus in the international mathematics teacher education literature that teachers should, at the most basic level, have mastery of the content knowledge they are required to teach. In this paper we test this assumption empirically by analyzing the South African SACMEQ 2007 mathematics teacher test data which tested 401 grade 6 mathematics teachers from a nationally representative sample of primary schools. With items matched to curriculum grade bands, findings indicate that 79% of grade 6 mathematics teachers showed content knowledge levels below the grade 6/7 band, and that the few teachers with higher-level content knowledge are highly inequitably distributed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws on the notion of epistemic agency to illustrate how the enactment of shared epistemic agency is enabled or hindered in a mathematics classroom for student teachers. I used data from an ethnographic study that was conducted in a third-year class of mathematics for educators. Data was drawn from verbal interactions that took place between mathematics student teachers, and between student teachers and myself as their lecturer, as they worked on class tasks. A narrative mode of analysing data was employed to synthesise data from critical incidents, while excerpts of these incidents represented data. From this analysis, I argue that, with extended wait time by a facilitator, students' disposition of epistemic virtues and vices may enable or hinder enactment to epistemic agency, respectively. In article, those vices presented themselves as epistemic stinginess, prejudices against answers by peers and epistemic disclaimer. The epistemic virtues were presented as impartiality and intellectual courage. I further suggest that the recommended wait time of 1–3 during classroom questioning and answering should be extended for classes where epistemic practices are encouraged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many learners with different learning challenges are accommodated in the same classroom in South Africa, which could result in poor performance in mathematics. By reinforcing or disregarding certain goals, a teacher can influence the way in which learners learn mathematics. This study compared the achievement goal orientation of Grade Nine mathematics learners in a conventional classroom. The two groups studied were learners experiencing attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and learners without ADHD. A quantitative, exploratory research design was used. Twenty Grade Nine learners, of whom 10 experienced ADHD, were purposefully selected from one school in Ekurhuleni-East, South Africa. Data was collected with an existing questionnaire. The results revealed that while learners without ADHD compare themselves against their peers' behavioural and cognitive engagement, as well as the level of their mastery goal orientation, learners with ADHD rely more on their personal performance-avoidance goal orientation and the goal orientation of their parents. Differences between the achievement goal orientation of mathematics learners with or without ADHD could assist teachers in recognising methods to direct learners' goals for better engagement with and improved results in mathematics, which could support learners to develop to their full potential in the subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]