ACE MATHEMATICS CURRICULUM B ASSIGNMENT

Student: Faiq Salie Student no.: SLXMOG013 Lecturer: Derek Gripper

FAILING BY EXAMPLE: INITIAL REMARKS ON THE CONSTITUTION OF SCHOOL MATHEMATICS, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF MATHEMATICS IN FIVE SECONDARY SCHOOLS In their 2007 research paper Davis and Johnson have formulated what they call a methodological framework to develop analytical descriptions for the teaching of mathematics. This serves as an attempt to describe what can be termed as mathematics in schools today. According to Davis and Johnson: Mathematics teaching and learning mainly happens through the use of worked examples to demonstrate the application of standard procedures. Students struggled to reproduce the application of the standard procedures they were expected to learn. Teachers and students worked at a slow pace.

The following hypotheses are presented by Davis and Johnson which sums up their findings in the mathematics classes that they observed. Contrasting In contrasting we find some positives emerging from Davis and Johnsons research exploring the fact that we might not be giving the proper basics. The goal Systematically defines the research problem and the production of research hypotheses. The revelation With their observations they reveal that the pace of teaching and learning is slow but that students fail to learn the content adequately. The problem The problem centres on the absence of explicit operation of mathematical grounds to support the elaboration of standard procedures. The findings According to the researchers these hypotheses open up a series of lines of investigation that are being pursued currently. These hypotheses formulate The constitution of mathematics in the teaching and learning of high school mathematics.

Designing Intervention Strategies by raising questions based on their observations. With this they aim to generate a general description of mathematics teaching to inform the design of intervention strategies aimed at improving the quality of mathematics teaching in the schools. They consider as interrelated questions: (1) What is constituted as mathematics in the five schools? (2) How is it constituted? Mathematics lessons were observed to generate analytical descriptions of the teaching of mathematics in each school. With findings such as that, teaching and learning was happening almost exclusively through the elaboration of worked examples to demonstrate the application of standard procedures; students struggled to reproduce the application of these standard procedures they were expected to learn; and both teachers and students generally worked at a slow pace. Poor exposition of principles and little explicit ideas, being rehearsed. Examples that were used are sited in this regard are: (1) Exposition by teachers demonstrating the worked examples. (2) By students working at a slow pace. (3) Classroom time spent on activity not related to the topic of a lesson. What became apparent was that the bulk of classroom lessons were spent on the elaboration of mathematics through worked examples. Distinctions made between individual classes as well as between individual teachers, revealed that the time spent on worked examples and time spent explicitly on the elaboration of ideas, principles and definitions, from which it became apparent that the way in which time is used in the different grades across the schools is very similar. The question that arose in response to their observation of the use of time in schools was: Why should it be the case that students struggle with mathematics? To them a disturbing trend in average time spent per problem in schools where the average time increases might be indicating that the deficiencies in the students knowledge of mathematics becomes more apparent at grade 12 level where they start working on typical problems found in school leaving examination papers. According to Davis and Johnson the average time per worked example per grade for each school in terms of the use of time, does not enable them to understand what is happening in the teaching and learning of mathematics or explain why students struggle even though they apparently have sufficient time to learn the content.

The reflection. Their reflection on the question as a result of the research has enabled them to comment on the relation between teaching and learning time and student failure in the context of the education of working class children. A number of research studies that attempt to reveal the pedagogic conditions contributing to successful learning outcomes for working class students indicate that a slowing of pacing is a commonly occurring theme. One conclusion derived from the extensive body of research produced by the ESSA group is that the control of pacing should be weakened so that students can slow pacing when they need to do so. According to Davis Johnson a weak pacing and coherence that limits students opportunities to learn persistently characterize many of the systems high-poverty schools (Smith, Smith & Bryk, 1998: 27). Therefore strictly speaking, weakly framed pacing allows pace to speed up and slow down as dictated by students needs. This however, indicates that a slowing of pace is essential for working class students. Davis paraphrases, Morais Bernsteinian language, the first part of her statement asserts that it is essential that students are able to vary the pace when they need to, approach teachers when they need assistance, shift between academic and nonacademic (everyday and metaphorical) expressions of knowledge, and be able to interact with others, including the teacher, freely. They conclude that reflection arrives at a point indicating that the further pursuit of their study demands a focus on investigating the relations between evaluative criteria and pacing. In order to do so, they need to develop the use of the notion of evaluative criteria. Stating that mathematics is constituted through the operation of evaluative criteria, as is the particular specialisation of consciousness that might be vaguely referred to as mathematical thinking? Evaluative criteria are productive of what comes to be mathematics in a pedagogic context as well as productive of the particular manner of thinking mathematics in that context. They also suspect that the absence of explicit attention to mathematical grounds in evaluative criteria will produce a series of negative effects that slow pacing because the mathematics constituted will be generally inconsistent and hence unstable.

In presenting the effects Davis and Johnson expects to find as hypotheses that: (1) Procedures will tend to constitute mathematical notions as effects rather than being grounded by such notions, resulting in inconsistent notions that, therefore, cannot be generalised successfully; The image of the various solution procedures students are exposed to will function as the chief supporting ground for student work on problems, because what step to do next according to worked examples.

(2)

(3)

The lack of stability of the notions constituted as mathematical notions combined with the use of worked examples as the chief ground support for the production of solutions, will produce mathematics as highly contextualised, making it difficult for students to transfer knowledge gained in the context elaboration of one class of solution.

Kallaways findings on the failing of OBE Kallaway makes a good argument against the current educational system. His analyses of the current state of education are insightful in terms of OBE constructivist knowledge (knowledge crafted in your own back yard) which in my opinion have now become back yard knowledge. In his analyses of the problem Kallaway very skilfully takes the reader through the changes of the old apartheid CNE educational system to our current OBE system of education. He shows a good understanding of the motivation behind the abandoning of the old system albeit throwing the baby out with the bath water in desperation of changing what was thought to be a mind suppressing and oppressive system of education. His analyses of not only the difficulty of educators coping with a system that like the youth of today feeds on resources but also lack of understanding and training to coping with large classes and unruly learners while corporal punishment have been abolished is very well crafted. I like that he mentions the fact that educators are no longer rulers of their domain but facilitators facilitating learners who have a wealth of rights but remain irresponsible and unmotivated. My problem with his reasoning on what is to be done is that he assumes that the government is unaware of the fact that Rome is burning! If educators are aware of this fact and by virtue of being in the employ of the Department of Education and very rarely are able to affect policy, what then is to be done if an educator has to follow DOE policy and practice?

CAPS (CURRICULUM AND ASSESSMENT POLICY STATEMENT) The CAPS document essentially does not propose to change the current curriculum by a very large degree and therefore cannot be taken seriously in light of the shortcomings of the current curriculum. The CAPS do not address mathematics as a field on its own but tries to integrate it with the learners social environmental, cultural an economic relations, recognising mathematics is a creative part of human activity. This idea of integrated mathematics has seriously damaged the subject as a science and has confused learners and educators alike. The document tries to improve the content understanding and delivery by reintroducing the laws of mathematics eg. axioms, formulating conjectures and definitions.

Conclusion The findings of Davis and Johnson make for good research and are helpful in identifying the problems experienced in teaching mathematics specifically and teaching in general. Their research however do not offer much in solving the current crises in mathematics teaching and learning. In reply to Mr. Kallaway who still has faith in changing the system via change in policy. My theory is that education falls in line with any governments macroeconomic policy; it is therefore motivated and ruled by economic practices. South Africa have become part of the western capitalist global economy and the trend most of the major western countries i.e. The U.S. and Britain are following, is to cut down on health and education. No capitalist country can survive without a viable and reliable labour force. The curriculum (that) was (therefore) manipulated in ways which intended to promote apartheid ideology 1 is now being used to create a viable and reliable workforce for our new capitalist masters. My challenge to educators is this. Given the fact that we moan and cry often that what we see and experience is detrimental to education as a whole and learning in general, what are we prepared to do? If our assessment of the problem compels us to work outside the DOEs framework are we prepared to do so openly or secretly and as a united front? Bibliography Zain Davis, Yusuf Johnson , School of Education, University of Cape Town, Peter Kallaway, Emeritus Professor of Education, UWC, Research Associate, UCT, This is no this is no time to fiddle as education is burning; Cape Times 7 Sept. 2009 CAPS (CURRICULUM AND ASSESSMENT POLICY STATEMENT) - Mathematics Senior Phase

1. Peter Kallaway: This is no this is no time to fiddle as education is burning; Cape Times 7 Sept. 2009