Search

This article discusses the growing attention and research activity surrounding early grade mathematics (EGM) in South Africa and Malawi. The introduction of curriculum reforms and policy-linked interventions, such as the Teaching Mathematics for Understanding model and the Primary Teacher Education initiative, have led to increased research in this field. The article highlights the importance of foundational understandings of mathematics in addressing low performance in the subject. It also examines different approaches to EGM research, including large-scale interventions and projects that engage with the mathematics education literature base. The article concludes by emphasizing the need for ongoing attention to both larger-scale and smaller-scale intervention studies in order to improve mathematical outcomes. [Extracted from the article]

This paper explores Grade R teacher expressions of themselves as teachers of numeracy, and as teachers working in the transition phase of schooling, after their participation in a research-informed numeracy-focused professional development (PD) intervention. The Early Number Fun (ENF) programme had 33 teachers from 17 Eastern Cape schools participating monthly over 18 months. Inclusion of Grade R to schooling is relatively new following policy changes in Early Childhood Development. In-service support tends to be subsumed within the Foundation Phase without attention to the specialised nature of Grade R that emphasises learning through play. ENF focused on the development of specialised teacher knowledge to support the development of early number sense through play, particularly with conceptual manipulatives. Data sources include three pre-, during, and post-PD questionnaires. Findings reveal that participation in ENF, and access to multiple research informed numeracy resources, supported teachers in their relationship with numeracy and the teaching thereof. Questionnaire responses indicate greater confidence in themselves as knowledgeable teachers of numeracy and that belonging to the ENF community supported navigation of positive professional identities within the mixed messages of policy. The findings contribute to the community-supported field of Grade R PD research and early numeracy teaching and learning. In concluding we discuss implications of this research for Grade R PD and for policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reflective practice is a crucial element of professional growth that is gaining in popularity in teacher education, yet the ability to reflect is a skill that is neither natural nor easy to develop. This paper reports on an investigation that sought to establish if pre-service teachers at a South African university – in the process of learning to reflect on practice through analysing video-recorded lessons – reflected differently when reflecting on their own practice from the way they reflected on the practice of other teachers. Pre-service teachers were introduced to the Six Lens Framework as a tool to aid reflection on mathematics teaching. The authors compared two sets of reflections written by four pre-service teachers (PSTs) who participated in the study. One set was based on a video-recorded lesson of another teacher's practice while the other was based on a video-recording of their own practice. The study found that the PSTs' reflections in both cases were generally at the lowest level of the reflection spectrum. They mostly described classroom events rather than analysing the lessons to provide explanation suggestions, or reflectivity. We found, however, that all four PSTs reflected at substantially greater length on their own lessons than on those of other teachers. Furthermore, three of the four teachers' reflections on their own practice focused on mathematical rather than general aspects and provided more suggestions for improvement than their reflections on the practice of other teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on patterns of post-apartheid learner migration between schools previously segregated along racial lines. South Africa’s shift away from cultural and linguistic isolationism and the ways this has impacted educational arrangements in this country, most particularly in relation to the language of learning and teaching, affects mathematics teaching and learning in complex ways. We focus on how changes in the demographic make-up of some schools have affected the teaching and learning of mathematics by drawing on two case study vignettes in historically different schools. The vignettes are used to illuminate our discussion and to raise key questions requiring further research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]