Exploring teachers’ experiences of the teaching of Mathematics in the Intermediate Phase in (Grade 4-6) Nongoma Circuit)

Abstract

This dissertation presents the qualitative case study of three teachers teaching Mathematics in the Intermediate Phase. The study seeks to understand and describe what can be done to assist the teachers teaching Mathematics in the Intermediate Phase since some teachers have qualifications for teaching Mathematics while others are teaching Mathematics without having qualifications. Further to this, this study was conducted with an aim of exploring the teachers’ experiences of the teaching of Mathematics in the Intermediate Phase. Thus, the focus group interviews, one-on-one semi-structured interviews and document analysis were used to generate the data in order to explore the teachers’ experiences teaching Mathematics in the Intermediate Phase. In addition to this, convenience and purposive sampling were used to select the three teacher case studies because they were specifically teaching Mathematics in the Intermediate Phase. As a result, I conducted the interviews without any manipulation. The study was framed by the concept of curriculum spider-web to explore the teachers’ experiences. Furthermore, the literature reviewed teachers’ experiences in their teaching process. Moreover, the findings from the literature suggested three levels of experiences namely; attitude, skill, and knowledge experiences. In addition to the above, findings from the literature revealed that each curricular spider-web concept had three levels as per proposition of experiences. Further to this, findings from the data analysis revealed that most teachers were driven by both personal and societal rationale to teach Mathematics in the Intermediate Phase. Moreover, this dissertation finally recommends that the Department of Education should review the method used to appoint and allocate duties to Mathematics teachers and the school governing bodies and school management teams should support Mathematics teachers with software resources by using norms and standards for learners to procure and Department of Education organise and conduct workshops for equipping teachers about the expected roles to play during teaching and learning practice.