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08/12/2016

Fifty (50) lead teachers from Foundation and Intermediate Phase and Multi-grade teaching in Motheo took part in a learning trajectory focused on strengthening their content and pedagogical knowledge for teaching maths. The trajectory started in September and this session on 5 and 6 December 2016 was the fourth and last session.

 

Participants ventured out of the field of numbers and operations, which formed the bulk of the learning trajectory, and moved into space and shape, data handling and probability. The workshop was facilitated by the Maths Connect Team from Wits University under the leadership of Prof. Hamsa Venkat.

As in the previous workshops, sessions alternated between combined and split sessions. Combined sessions served to illustrate that shape and space is a continuous process that runs from foundation phase to intermediate phase (and on to senior phase).

Familiar concepts from the course were applied to these topics:

  • the importance to introduce new content with concrete objects from learners’ daily life and
  • the need to use precise language and to introduce new mathematical vocabulary explicitly.
  • Examples are terms such as volume, vertices, edges and surface area.

The foundation phase teachers explored how spaces and shapes can be introduced in the early grades.

Intermediate phase teachers worked on how to teach the concepts of perimeter and area for various shapes.

On data handling, participants collected each other’s birthday months and made a tally table in order to answer questions such as in which term they had the most party outfits to buy. Probability can be introduced by letting learners think about discussing probabilities in daily life and (in intermediate phase) using playing cards.

I did not know data handling was so easy and one can be creative about it by using day to day examples like asking learners to use numbers that have a meaning in their lives for example.”

At the end of the workshop participants completed a post-test. Comparing the results of the pre-test and post-test will inform the facilitators, VVOB and the Department of Education about the effectiveness of the trajectory as well as identify areas where teachers still face challenges.

As indicated above, this was the last session of the series of workshops that took place since September. The participants indicated the big added value these workshop have for their teaching method.

More pictures can be found here.