Kennis, oortuigings en klaskamerpraktyke van VOO wiskunde-onderwysers met betrekking tot meetkunde-onderrig

Abstract

Since 2014 the Grade 12 learners are once again being examined on Euclidean geometry. This means that teachers must teach Euclidean geometry again as part of the core Mathematics curriculum. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between mathematics teachers' knowledge, beliefs and classroom practices in the teaching of Euclidean geometry. To achieve this goal, an exploratory case study was undertaken to investigate the nature of the participants' knowledge and beliefs, as it came out in their classroom practices. The participants in the study were 20 mathematics teachers from five urban schools, three public schools and two private schools in the Eastern Cape. Afrikaans is the language of instruction for one of the five schools, while three of them are English medium and at one school the language of instruction is English and Afrikaans. The study was done from the interpretive, constructivist paradigm. In this qualitative study, various ways of data collection were used, namely questionnaires, semi-structured individual interviews and the obtaining of learners‟ geometry books. Content analysis was used to attempt to find the relationship between the beliefs and knowledge of a mathematics teacher and his/her classroom practice in the teaching of Euclidean geometry. More specifically, it appeared that teachers with a platonic belief about the nature, teaching and learning of mathematics, will have a traditional classroom practice. Teachers with a problem-solving belief about the nature, teaching and learning of mathematics, will have a more reformed classroom practice.