An analysis of how geogebra can be used as a visualisation tool by selected teachers to develop conceptual understanding of the properties of geometric shapes in grade 9 learners: a case study in Namibia
- Authors: Mwiikeni, Eramus
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/6989 , vital:21207
- Description: According to Rosken & Rolka (2006), learning mathematics through visualisations can be a powerful tool to explore mathematical problems and give meaning to mathematical concepts and relationships between them. “Visualisation can reduce the complexity of mathematical problems when dealing with a multitude of information” (p.458). This case study focused on using GeoGebra as a visualisation tool to teach angle properties in Grade 9 geometry. This study set out to analyse how GeoGebra visualisations can be used by selected teachers to teach for conceptual understanding. The research is based on a constructivist view of learning and is oriented within an interpretive paradigm. The methodology used is a qualitative case study. The study was conducted in one school and involved 3 mathematics teachers who were purposefully selected because they showed willingness to use technology in their teaching. I used classroom observations and interviews to collect the data. The study identified a number of factors from the participants that related to using GeoGebra in teaching for conceptual understanding. These include the effective use of dynamic visuals to build on prior knowledge, using multiple representations through image generation and image transformation to make connections and using visuals to justify mathematics ideas. The results from this study indicated that GeoGebra can indeed be used effectively as a teaching tool to teach for conceptual understanding in mathematics.
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An investigation into the use of traditional Xhosa dance to teach mathematics: a case study in a Grade 7 class
- Authors: Mbusi, Nokwanda Princess
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: Mathematics -- Study and teaching (Primary) Teaching -- Aids and devices -- Research Xhosa (African people) -- Music Education, Primary -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Music in mathematics education
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1617 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003499
- Description: This study seeks to explore mathematical concepts embedded in traditional Xhosa dance and how these concepts can be incorporated into a learning programme for the teaching and learning of mathematics. The study seeks to gain insight into whether learners could benefit from the implementation of such a learning programme. Learners from a Grade 7 class in a rural school performed traditional Xhosa dances and their performances were captured through video recording. The video recordings were then observed and analysed to determine the mathematical concepts embedded in the dances. These concepts were then linked to those found in the Grade 7 mathematics curriculum. A learning programme integrating mathematical concepts from the dance activities with mathematical concepts from the Grade 7 curriculum was then designed. The learning programme contained mathematical problem solving activities that required learners to re-enact the dance performances in order to find the required solutions. The learning programme was then implemented with the learners over a period of three weeks. During the implementation, learners’ behaviour towards the learning experience was observed, their engagement with the problem solving activities as well as their strategies for solving the problems, were carefully observed. Also, their interactions with each other were noted. After the implementation of the learning programme, focus group interviews were held with learners to determine their opinions, attitudes and feelings about their experience of learning mathematics through traditional Xhosa dance. Key findings indicated that traditional Xhosa dance can be used as a medium for learning many concepts in the mathematics curriculum; the use of the dance gave learners an opportunity to learn mathematics from a familiar context and to participate actively and collaboratively in their learning. Also, it emerged that the use of dance to teach mathematics had potential to help improve learners’ attitudes towards mathematics. Conclusions were reached that the dance had potential for use as a means for the meaningful learning of mathematics. However, limitations and challenges with the study were identified, such as its limited replicability in other mathematics classrooms.
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Research portfolio
- Authors: Gontes, Karolina
- Date: 2004
- Subjects: Curriculum planning -- Namibia African languages -- Study and teaching -- Namibia Language and languages -- Study and teaching -- Curricula--Namibia Language and education -- Namibia Language policy -- Namibia Nama language -- Study and teaching -- Namibia
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1731 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003614
- Description: The purpose of the study is to investigate how mother tongue instruction influences the learner performance in the acquisition of reading and comprehension skills of Khoekhoegowab speaking learners in Grade 2 in comparison with foreign medium of instruction. (p. 1)
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Leaders' and participants' perceptions of the management of the Life Science Project in Namibia
- Authors: Kirkegaard, Niels Hugo
- Date: 2002
- Subjects: Life Science Project (Namibia) Educational leadership Educational leadership -- Namibia School management and organization School management and organization -- Namibia
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1662 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003545
- Description: After Independence in 1991, Namibia embarked on implementing a new and different educational system. This system was seen as a radical departure from the old apartheid system. The Namibian government approached Ibis, a Danish NGO, to support the change process by establishing and developing a new subject, life science, in Junior Secondary schools in Namibia through the Life Science Project (LSP). In a project of this nature, where a foreign (Danish) educational intervention in a relatively young and new democracy is the issue, cross-cultural aspects are likely to emerge, and these are the focus of this study. This half-thesis is an attempt to illuminate, not to evaluate, managerial as well as cross-cultural features of the project based on perceptions of selected Danish managers and Namibian advisory teachers from the former LSP expressed in the goal of the research: - To explore selected leaders’ and participants’ perception of the management of the Life Science Project. In line with this goal, I elected to conduct the research in the interpretive paradigm, using unstructured interviews as my chief source of data. The findings illuminate what would appear to be an inconsistency in the management of the project. The project seemed to be able to accommodate regional and even personal differences and to be flexible to internal changes. At the same time it appears that in its relationship to the external or task environment it did not show the same openness and flexibility to accommodate diversity. It is suggested that this could be a result of the apparent failure on the part of the project to clarify its own underlying values. The study also reveals interesting and unexpected perceptions of leadership, which may also be interpreted in terms of cultural values and beliefs. These two features of managerial issues could lead one to reflect upon the importance of recognising values in organisations which work across cultures.
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A phenomenological study of leadership in the Rhodes Unversity Mathematics Education Project (RUMEP)
- Authors: Michael, Vanessa Jane
- Date: 2001
- Subjects: Rhodes University -- Mathematics education project Educational leadership
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1701 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003584
- Description: Few terms in organisational studies inspire less agreement than leadership. It is a slippery concept and much that is written on the subject is confusing and contradictory. Early theories of leadership have, generally, reduced leadership behaviour to a concern for task balanced against a concern for the well-being of employees. This two-dimensional approach has proved to be a limited conceptualisation of leadership. In response, over the past thirty years, researchers have tried to highlight the less rationalistic, more intangible, aspects of leadership. However, there is still very little in leadership research that conveys a sense of the leader as a person. I have argued, in this study, that the reason for this lies in the fact that most leadership research has been conducted along positivistic lines and, therefore, cannot take into account the values, feelings, morals and life experiences of the human beings being studied. Thus, for the human being to take centre-stage in leadership enquiry, a different research paradigm needs to be explored. I have chosen to use phenomenological enquiry as an avenue for examining how John Stoker, the leader of the Rhodes University Mathematics Education Project (RUMEP), experiences being a leader. This is because phenomenology, in both theory and practice, privileges the nature of the meanings that people construct in their lives and that guide their actions. In adopting such a methodology my research findings have examined a number of issues that are of interest to current leadership researchers, however they have also highlighted a number of concerns that have not been explored thoroughly in the leadership literature. These include the importance of the individual leader’s action, intention and will in shaping an organisation, the complex nature of a leader’s creativity within the organisation and possible differences between educational leaders and business leaders. In adopting a phenomenological perspective the eccentricity and fulness of an individual leader’s action is expressed through the research, however, the research also focusses on how the researcher translates and evolving philosophical understanding into sound methodology. Therefore, interwoven into the discussions on leadership there are reflections on how I applied phenomenological theory. The purpose of these reflections is to deliberate on the appropriateness of applying such a methodology to the eclectic field of leadership and to show how my own developing philosophical attitude has transformed into practice.
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