Where the maths challenges begin
JOBURG – High school maths curriculum is too full and so goes too fast for many learners according to maths associate professor.
There are problems, challenges and difficulties that make learning and mastering maths a journey that many learners give up on.
Wits University associate professor of mathematics education Craig Pournara said there were many different reasons why learners struggled in this crucial subject and this needed to be recognised by learners, teachers, parents and education officials.
He said, “Some learners have difficulty with maths from Grade 1 but for many, the problems likely start when they are introduced to fractions in the Intermediate Phase. However, the learners, their parents and their teachers may not realise it at this stage.”
Pournara is also the director of the Wits Maths Connect Secondary project, a research and development project.
He has noticed that learners did not don’t have a good enough grasp of whole numbers and arithmetic operations on whole numbers. He said there was too much focus on getting the right answer and not enough focus on the relationships between the numbers when you add, subtract, multiply, or divide, which leads to similar problems with fractions and decimals etc.
“Learners need to have a good understanding of whole numbers in order to cope with algebra in grades 8 and 9. So many of the struggles with algebra can be traced back to primary school work on whole numbers.”
Having taught mathematics and information technology in high school, Pournara has seen and worked through some of the gaps in the knowledge these learners have when it comes to maths.
“The high school maths curriculum is too full and so goes too fast for many learners. Many learners come to high school without a good enough understanding of the basics. Their high school teachers don’t have enough time to consolidate the basics before moving onto the new content such as negative numbers and algebra.”
He believed that we needed to rethink some aspects of the curriculum if we wanted to help learners address such problems.
ALSO READ:
https://www.citizen.co.za/rosebank-killarney-gazette/376914/helping-matric-learners-overcome-failure/
