Magister Educationis - MEd
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Browsing by Author "Abrahams, Achmat"
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Item Promoting participatory teaching and learnig in the senior primary classroom.(University of the Western Cape, 1994) Abrahams, Achmat; Van Den Berg, O.C; Gray, B.VEducational change is perhaps one of the most difficult processes that teachers might experience in search of democratising their classroom practices. Being a traditional mathematics teacher who resorted to autocratic modes of teaching, I had come to realise that my mode of teaching was probably not facilitating the learning of mathematics by my pupils in the primary school . This thesis traces my attempts, via three projects, to change my style of teaching from a traditional to a more interactive and democratic mode of teaching. In an attempt to improve upon my own teaching practice I also wanted my pupils to benefit in the process. In my first project, I thus set out to improve my pupils' understanding of mathematics and to encourage them to verbalise their thoughts freely and confidently. For this purpose, in order to counteract a pupil passivity, I employed a collaborative process approach to the teaching of mathematics. In my second project I set out to learn from the failures of the first project. Project three , which was done at a different school , was largely a replication study of project two but deliberately carried out in a different setting. Wanting to democratise my classroom practice I needed to resort to a mode of research that was in line with democratic practices. I chose Action Research, which by its very nature of reflecting and acting within a collaborative process , it ends towards a democratic practice. It offers me the opportunity to do research in the class on those aspects of my classroom practice that I felt needed to be investigated. Action Research allows the teachers, together with other significant participants , to share their experiences with colleagues and in so doing to generate their own theory which will be open to scrutiny and change. In doing project three at a different school I also wanted to establish the possibity of duplicating this study via an Action Research approach in another setting. Through the process of Action Research I had undergone significant personal transfornation in that I have developed critcal thinking skills such as the ability to analyse, synthesize and not to take things for granted but to ask appropriate questions. My pupils , it seems, have also benefited from the process. The collaborative process approach which I employed towards the learning and understanding of mathematics served to empower the pupils in the classroom to voice their opinion and to substantiate their arguments. In t he process I also discovered that educational change was a painful but positive process for both participants and myself.