Benadette Aineamani, Director of Products and Services for Pearson Africa was interviewed on Channel Africa by Zikhona Miso. Aineamani discussed some reasons for the decline in mathematics performance in South Africa, and why mathematics is important. Through her research, and in writing her PhD thesis on the subject, Aineamani investigated the role of the teacher in developing learners’ mathematics discourse and understanding. She offers a few solutions around teacher and learner competency and tips for improving mathematics teaching and learning.
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Teaching mathematics is more than the sum of its parts
Coding. Robotics. Artificial Intelligence. Data analytics. These are just some of the words that might flash in the mind of a young high school learner as they dream of their future career. In this fourth industrial revolution, the digital age has flung wide the doors of possibility. For many young South Africans, these doors remain shut tight as their inability to pass mathematics holds them back.
According to Benadette Aineamani, Director of Products and Services for Africa at Pearson, the state of mathematics education in South Africa is declining. In 2019, only 54% of matriculants who wrote a mathematics exam passed it. This is down from a pass rate of 58% in 2018. Adding to this, only 2% of the 2019 mathematics passes were distinctions.
Aineamani explains, “The way that mathematics as a subject is scaffolded means that learners need to progress from one concept to another. If they don’t grasp a concept, they are then left behind with little hope of catching up on their own. So they fail.”
Aineamani believes too many of our learners are already one or two grades behind. “With the time lost to the COVID-19 lockdown, the South African education system is in dire need of helping its learners to catch up if they ever hope to qualify for admission into higher education. Mathematics is so important, and every year it becomes more so,” she says.
Through her research, and in writing her PhD thesis on the subject, Aineamani investigated the role of the teacher in developing learners’ mathematics discourse and understanding – the topic of her thesis.
“There is an issue around teacher and learner competency in mathematics and most of it comes down to teaching mathematics with and for understanding. If a learner doesn’t understand mathematics, then the teacher will need to draw on various strategies in order to help the learner to grasp concepts in a way that leads to conceptual understanding.”
Through Pearson, Aineamani uses her knowledge of mathematics teaching and learning to provide much-needed training for teachers and schools across the country. In her extensive research, she has discovered three critical problem areas that may be taken for granted, but are a reality in many mathematics classrooms.
Begin with the intended object of learning
In all the hundreds of lessons that she observed in doing her research and training teachers, the biggest issue seems to be one that takes place right at the beginning of every lesson.
“I have seen so many teachers walk into a classroom, open the textbook and just start teaching. And they do this without actually introducing the lesson objectives. With no context, the learners struggle to focus and generally don’t understand what is being conveyed to them. It is not easy to believe this but it is the reality on the ground.”
Aineamani believes that lesson preparation is crucial, and lessons should be taught in relation to the learners’ prior knowledge.
She says that all lessons should begin with an announcement of the intended object of learning to avoid confusion on what learners need to focus on and what they need to ignore. She says there is a need to make mathematics teachers aware of the impact of starting a lesson without announcing their intention(s). In a discovery lesson, the teacher should find an appropriate way of ensuring that the intended object of learning is embedded in the discovery activity and hence kept in focus during the lesson,” says Aineamani.
The power of examples is found in translation
Aineamani says that teachers should embrace the power of examples and what they bring into the classroom. She says, “Teachers should not just open a text book and start going through the examples written in the text book, without considering the learners and their realities in relation to the prior knowledge that is needed to engage with the examples in the textbook.”
According to her, some of the examples provided in some text books often do not engage the learners exhaustively. “Teachers should use all available resources to customise examples for their learners and translate that knowledge in a way that their learners will understand.”
Many voices in the mathematics classroom
“If you are a teacher in a mathematics classroom, are you the only voice in the room?” questions Aineamani. “If you are the only voice that is heard in the classroom and provide absolute authority, are you really allowing learners to engage in a subject in a way that they understand?”
Part of the problem Aineamani has discovered in our mathematics classrooms is the use of the teaching method which she calls ‘presentation mode’. “Mathematics teachers need to engage with their learners and allow learners to communicate their mathematics reasoning. Let the learners get the answer wrong and then guide them by drawing on their prior knowledge and experiences, to assist them to ‘see’ why their answer is wrong.”
An educator on a mission
With a passionate history for education, Aineamani has dedicated her life to improving education at a school level. Through Pearson, she has been working with educators in different provinces in South Africa to find ways of identifying and helping schools improve their mathematics competencies.
“With so much school time already lost to COVID-19, we now have an even more desperate need to develop targeted interventions that will help our teachers and our learners to catch up. This is our mission at Pearson and one that we hope schools across the country will take us up on” says Aineamani.
Take your assessments online
Katherine McEldoon and Emily Schneider
If your preference is to use a traditional summative exam, these research-based tips can make the online experience better for you and your students.
Here are some research-based tips on how to make the online assessment experience better for you and your learners
Create clear and specific rules and instructions so students know exactly what to do.
- Online assessment is new for your students. Reduce anxiety by clearly communicating the rules and instructions before the exam so there are no surprises. For example, if you would like them to write their essays in paragraphs or to show their work for problem sets, be sure to explicitly state this.
- The rules may include how many opportunities students have to complete the exam, if they can or cannot save and come back later to finish, if they need to put away all mobile devices, and whether it is an open or closed book exam.
- Provide other details such as the list of learning objectives the exam will address, how many questions to expect, the amount of time they will have to complete the exam, how many points each question is worth, and so on. A study guide or a practice test can also help your students prepare.
Reduce the opportunities for cheating
- Password protect your exam and limit students to one login attempt.
- Require students to complete a statement of honesty before beginning the exam (this can be done through a digital form or added as the first item of the exam).
- Open and close access to your exam session within a predetermined time period.
- Shuffle items or create multiple versions of the exam to randomly assign to students.
- Create a pool or item bank to pull random questions from (many platforms allow for this and most learning management systems.
- Ask students to justify or explain their answers by adding an open response field after each selected-response question.
- If you don’t have the capabilities listed here, use more open-ended question types instead of true/false or multiple-choice questions.
Make sure students can reasonably complete the exam within the time allotted
- Unless you are assessing how quickly your students can complete the exam, allow them ample time to complete it. It is important to keep in mind that your students don’t know the knowledge and skills as well as you do, so be sure to cushion each item with more time than you would expect to take to complete it yourself.
- If possible, have an assistant or colleague proofread your exam before it is time to administer it.
Align your exam questions to learning outcomes
- Regardless of whether the exam is online or on paper, if you are creating it from scratch, make sure you use the objectives as your guide as you develop the questions.
- Determine which types of questions or items best reflect the learning objectives. For example, if the objective requires a student to critique a poem, then an essay question would be a more logical and efficient choice than a multiple choice question.
Base scoring and point values on the complexity and difficulty of the questions
- For instance, if you have a multipart question, consider assigning partial credit for each part of the question if the system allows. For math or science problem sets, allow students to show their work such as by sending in a photo of their workings or describing the steps they took to solve a problem or complete a process.
About the authors
Katherine McEldoon, PhD
Katherine is a Senior Research Scientist at Pearson. Trained in cognitive science research labs across the country, she has worked to connect insights from the science of learning to educational practice throughout her career. Katherine earned her PhD in Cognitive Development and was an Institute of Education Sciences’ Experimental Education Research Fellow at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College of Education. Her postdoctoral work at Arizona State University centered on a research partnership between The Learning Sciences Institute and ASU Preparatory Academies, incorporating a theory of active learning into middle & high school teacher pedagogy. Since then, she has continued to bridge research and practice outside of academia, working with educational technology start-up companies, state governments, and more. Katherine firmly believes in the power of enabling educators with insights from research and incorporates this mindset into her work at Pearson.
Emily Schneider, PhD
Emily has spent more than a decade researching and designing learning experiences for higher education. As a Senior Learning Designer at Pearson, she helps product teams create effective and engaging digital learning experiences at scale. Emily believes that we should take advantage of technology for what it offers but never forget the power of the embodied human experience. She holds a PhD in Learning Sciences and Technology Design from Stanford University.
Tips on creating hybrid classrooms
Katherine McEldoon and Emily Schneider
The hybrid model of teaching and learning combines online and in-person learning into one cohesive experience. Although the model has been around for many years, interest has been on the rise because it gives instructors the flexibility to design their courses in a way to reduce the risk of exposure to COVID-19 and give students ownership over their learning.
Another advantage of the hybrid classroom model is that it can be the “best of both worlds” by giving students and teachers the in-person and social interactions they crave while also taking advantage of the benefits of technology.
This article serves as a primer for those who are ready to try hybrid teaching and learning. Drawing on the research literature, it covers where to start, a model for integrating technology, how to plan hybrid interactions with students, what a learner-centered approach is and how to support it, advice for online assessments, as well as an example of a hybrid implementation.
Where to start
Successful hybrid courses fully integrate online and face-to-face instruction, planning interactions in a pedagogically valuable manner. Build around what you want students to learn:
- Don’t: think of your hybrid class as a direct translation of your face-to-face course. Common pitfalls are to directly translate the online or to add online components onto a face-to-face class.
- Do: build your course by starting with the learning objectives in your syllabus. Then, as you’re building your course, select and align the delivery method, technology, and assignments that will best help students learn the objectives and content.
Consider three things during this process:
- What needs to be done in-person versus online
- What needs to be in real-time versus giving students flexibility
- What needs to be instructor-facilitated versus facilitated by the learning resources
Integrate the experiences
Melding in-person and online classes doesn’t need to be disjointed. You can incorporate them in such a way that they support each other. For example, assign challenging and engaging online learning activities and then discuss them in-person, inviting questions. If you’re encouraging online discussion, reference these discussions in class to confirm their value.
Choose the right technology for you
Technology also has benefits that can improve learning, such as immediate feedback and monitoring progress. Rather than starting by shopping for educational technology, start by understanding the problems you experience. Then evaluate whether educational technology can help solve those problems. We have provided examples in the complete guide, available for download.
Plan effective interactions
After you’ve identified the learning objectives, think about the interactions you’ll use to facilitate learning and which mode you’ll use. Hybrid learning enables a lot of flexibility in how the students interact with each other, with you, and with the learning materials. Interactions can be categorised into three types.
- Instructor-Learner: Instructor interaction is a major driver of successful learning. Examples include emails and discussions.
- Learner-Learner: These interactions can either happen online, with learners interacting but not necessarily in real-time, or in person. Examples include discussions, collaborative group work, and peer-review activities
- Learner-Content: The SAMR Model is one way of thinking to make the most of student interactions using technology. Examples include lecturing via Zoom instead
of in the front of a classroom or instead of studying a static diagram of a physics concept, students watch a video and predict what happens next.
Craft a learner-centered approach to learning
In a hybrid model, encourage students to take control of their learning. Start by enabling students to choose how they engage with the materials. Hybrid models allow students to chose in when, how, and what they engage with. Although there are real-time aspects of a hybrid course (either face-to-face or online), much of the learning occurs on the students’ own time.
Their own independence should be encouraged and they’ll need support to take ownership of their work. Importantly, prompt them to monitor and reflect on their learning, and then act on their new understanding.
Take your assessment online
If your preference is to use a traditional summative exam, these research-based tips can make the online experience better for you and your students. Here are guidelines for taking your assessments online.
- Create clear and specific rules and instructions so students know exactly what to do.
- Reduce the opportunities for cheating.
- Make sure students can reasonably complete the exam within the time allotted.
- Align your exam questions to learning outcomes.
- Base scoring and point values on the complexity and difficulty of the questions.
Methods and tips on each of these points can be found in the complete guide available for download.
Continuously improve
Keep your approach simple at first and aim for continuous improvement, not perfection. We encourage you to try something, get feedback from your students, and keep improving your course. And, you’re not alone. Your colleagues may also have advice too. You can build an informal or formal learning network. This is a learning experience for everyone.
About the authors
Katherine McEldoon, PhD
Katherine is a Senior Research Scientist at Pearson. Trained in cognitive science research labs across the country, she has worked to connect insights from the science of learning to educational practice throughout her career. Katherine earned her PhD in Cognitive Development and was an Institute of Education Sciences’ Experimental Education Research Fellow at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College of Education. Her postdoctoral work at Arizona State University centered on a research partnership between The Learning Sciences Institute and ASU Preparatory Academies, incorporating a theory of active learning into middle & high school teacher pedagogy. Since then, she has continued to bridge research and practice outside of academia, working with educational technology start-up companies, state governments, and more. Katherine firmly believes in the power of enabling educators with insights from research and incorporates this mindset into her work at Pearson.
Emily Schneider, PhD
Emily has spent more than a decade researching and designing learning experiences for higher education. As a Senior Learning Designer at Pearson, she helps product teams create effective and engaging digital learning experiences at scale. Emily believes that we should take advantage of technology for what it offers but never forget the power of the embodied human experience. She holds a PhD in Learning Sciences and Technology Design from Stanford University.