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Teaching and Learning Theories Applied in Mathematics Classroom among

Primary School Teachers

Conference Paper · November 2017

DOI: 10.1109/WEEF.2017.8467070

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 Teaching and Learning Theories Applied in
Mathematics Classroom among
Primary School Teachers

Hamidreza Kashefi Zaleha Ismaila, Fariba Mirzaeib , Chan Choon Taka,

Department of Mathematics, Sharifah Nasriah Wan Obenga, Tan Yee Chinga
a
College of Basic Sciences, Kermanshah Branch, Department of Educational Sciences, Mathematics and
Islamic Azad University, Kermanshah, Iran Creative Multimedia, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia,
[email protected] Malaysia
b
Department of Basic Sciences, Shahid Sadoughi Campus,
Farhangian Universit, Kermanshah, Iran

Abstract—This study aims to investigate the teaching and students from other countries. Likewise, teachers are
learning theories applied by primary school mathematics anticipated to achieve world class capabilities and able to
teachers in the mathematics classroom and also the challenges facilitate students outcomes.
that faced by teachers in their teaching and learning process. For
this research, the open-ended questionnaires have been In a mathematics classroom, improvement of mathematics
distributed to 72 primary school mathematics teachers. The learning is closely related to development in teaching and at the
finding revealed that most of the primary school teachers still same time teaching thrives through a learning process which
comfortable using behaviourism as their teaching approaches in teachers and students are engaged into the practices [3]. To
21st century in teaching mathematics. Measuring mathematics make this into a reality, teachers must first acquire the
teachers’ teaching and learning approaches by these instruments knowledge and skills to teach and encourage students in their
help to identify typically practice of teaching approaches in 21st thinking processes. Learners have different learning styles
century mathematics teachers and find the ways for improving which makes it hard for a teacher to accommodate the learning
their teaching approaches mathematics. styles of the minorities in a class. The teacher need to have the
ability to choose and apply the most suitable strategies which
Keywords—21st century; challenges; primary school can suite different learner background, abilities and styles for a
mathematics teachers; teaching and learning theories lesson to be deem effective. However, in our Malaysia
Education Blueprint, it states that “a 2011 research study found
I. INTRODUCTION that only 50% of lessons are being delivered in an effective
Being a 21st century mathematics teacher is not easy, he or manner” [1]. It means that teachers do not provide lessons
she must be able to teach using different strategies and be able which are sufficiently engage students in their learning yet
to guide students in their learning. In Malaysia, our Ministry of teachers only follow a passive and traditional content delivery.
Education [1] aimed to produce students who acquire 21st In order to make some changes in current mathematics
century skills that are “balanced, resilient, inquisitive, classroom, first teachers have to accept the responsibilities to
principled, informed, caring, patriotic, as well as an effective change, re-education must be carried out to reform teachers and
thinker, communicator, and team player”. Hence, teachers’ role lastly, teachers have to play their new roles as researchers [4].
is no longer merely information providers yet facilitators in By theory and research informed to teachers, it will affect the
acquiring information and using the information meaningfully. development of teachers’ teaching and learning practices.
In the new structure of teaching and learning, teachers act as There are so many teaching and learning theories developed
learning catalyst who directing and facilitating classroom from the past such as behaviourism, cognitivism,
activities that can spark the students’ ideas [2]. constructivism until the present theory which is connectivism.
With the changes in the curriculum for primary and Various theories are suggested and learnt by teachers when
secondary school in Malaysia [1], teachers need to rethink and they received their training in teachers’ training college.
plan their teaching according to the redesigned curriculum. In However, theories only help us to analyse or explain the
the blueprint, it mentions that as Malaysian education system teaching and learning situation, they rarely provide the direct
transformed to be more effective and tenable, teachers and guidance for teachers’ practices [3]. Hence, suitable theories
students should understand the critical roles played by each of and practices should be chosen finely in order to fit well in
them. Students are expected to have world class knowledge and their mathematics classroom. In this paper, teaching and
skills, possess good moral values and able to compete with learning theories applied by mathematics teachers in the
mathematics classroom among primary school teachers and Connectivism is considered a teaching and learning theory
also the challenges that faced by teachers in their teaching and used in 21st century. Downes [11] found that experience and
learning process will be investigated. action of teachers and students can form by connection
between group knowledge. The group knowledge is knowledge
II. TEACHING AND LEARNING THEORIES IN MATHEMATICS that interactions within the network. While, Siemens [12]
CLASSROOM defined connectivism theories as individual mind and outside
the world rather than to traditional teaching and learning
Through the years, the development in learning and paradigms that individual should what to do (Behaviourism),
teaching theories has influenced on how teacher teaches in the how to make (Constructivism) and what to think
mathematics classroom. It starts with Behaviourism, (Cognitivism). In the connectivism, the teachers’ roles has shift
Cognitivism, Constructivism and the latest theory is from expert “input or answer giver”, “spoon feeder” or known
Connectivism. Behaviourism theory is considered one of the as traditional mathematics practices such as repetition and
traditional learning theories but most of the teachers nowadays memorization to facilitator, listener, observer and organizer for
continue to apply a behaviourist view of learning in their the collaborative classroom.
teaching.
In the mathematics classroom, students with different level
Behaviourism emphasizes on behaviour that can be of ability and intelligence learn in different ways. The use of
observed and leads itself naturally to rote learning method. variety strategies helps the student to understand more on
Behaviorism also focuses on the changes in the student mathematics. Different approaches in teaching and learning
behaviour whereby stimulus-response occurs. Learning occurs makes it a highly complex to the teacher or educators. Being a
when pupils response to the stimulus given by the teacher. In good teacher, 4 components must occur such as variation in
supporting mathematics development in the effective methods in teaching, hear and skillful in questioning, lead the
classroom, teacher also needs to build the pupils’ passion in student on how to learn and know the reason why the objective
mathematics by giving interesting examples of daily life of teaching is achieve or not [13]. Teacher need to encourage
activities [5]. Besides, teachers nowadays like to give extrinsic the student to do investigating and hands on such as group
motivation and as a result the positive habits which will project and teamwork.
develop and the learning process will continue. The incorrect
behaviour that obviously be seen in the class must be warned
and replaced by the correct behaviour [6]. In Malaysia, the III. METHOD
mathematical culture still focuses on the ‘doing’ rather than For this research, the open-ended questionnaires have been
‘thinking’ mathematics [7]. distributed to 72 primary school mathematics teachers from
Johor states. There are three parts in the questionnaires which
After the era of behaviorism theory, the learning theory are background of respondents, teaching approach used in the
shift to cognitivist learning theory. Cognitivism stresses on the classroom and challenges and suggestions to improve teaching
mental processing activities such as thinking, knowing and mathematics. The teaching approach questions are about how
problem solving. It also focuses on how information receives, the teaching is conducted, whether the teachers use traditional
organize, store and retrieve by mind. Cognitive theories method like behaviourism or 21st century teaching method like
emphasize on making the knowledge meaningful and help the inquiry-method. The last part of questionnaire is about
student to organize and relate new information to existing challenges or suggestion to improve teaching mathematics.
knowledge in the memory. According to cognitivism, teacher Questions like problem faced in preparing teaching materials,
must arrange the teaching practice that suitable and effective the ways of collaborative with parents, challenges they face
for students’ cognitive structure. Besides, teacher must when using technology in teaching mathematics and suggestion
understand that student will have different learning experiences to improve teaching are investigated through the
that can impact the learning outcome in the classroom. So, questionnaires. For analysing qualitative data, open-ended
teacher must find the most effective manner to organize new questionnaire data, Miles and Huberman [14] guidelines are
information that related to prior knowledge and blended with used. According to Miles and Huberman [14], a qualitative
the experiences of the students. data analysis consists of three stages: data reduction, data
Aside from behaviourism and cognitivism, constructivism display, and conclusion drawing.
is vital in teaching and learning mathematics too. Basically,
constructivism is a process whereby pupils construct their IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
knowledge and understanding through active learning in the
classroom. According to Scrivener [8], the main role of a From the data collected, most of the respondents’ major
teacher is to help students to learn to work at their own speed, option in academics is mathematics. 67 out of 72 mathematics
by encourage them to participate, talk, do thing and by not teachers are major in mathematics option (93%), 2 out of 72
giving long explanations. Besides, constructivism leads the mathematics teachers’ major option in Chinese language
pupils to find many ways in searching for new knowledge and (2.8%). Mathematics teachers from different major option of
make the learning meaningful [9]. Obviously, learning Physics, Account, and English academics represent 1 (1.4%)
mathematics through constructivism involves several factors for each option respectively. From the analysis, some of the
such as pedagogical factors, individual factors and social teachers teach one to two classes (52.8%), three to four classes
factors [10]. (29.2%), five to six classes (13.9%), and more than 6 classes
(4.1%). For teaching experience in mathematics, less than one
year (19.4%), one to two years (15.3%). Meanwhile 18.1% of
them with three to four years experiences, 20.8% of the TABLE II. FREQUENT AND TECHNOLOGY USING IN MATHEMATICS
CLASSROOM
teachers have five to six years experiences and 26.4% of
teachers have more than 6 years teaching experiences in No. Frequent Frequency E.g. Responses
mathematics. 1 Always 31 E02: “…every lesson…different
approach different technology.”
Most of the respondents claimed that they are using E17: “…every lesson, Laptop,
behaviourism theory in teaching mathematics (61.1%). They LCD, PowerPoint.”
believed by giving motivation, rewards and punishment will 2 Sometimes 19 E14: “…once a month, PowerPoint
presentation...”
make the teaching more efficient. Besides, most of the E64: “…twice a month …using
respondents claimed that they give exercises and drilling in LCD and laptop to show video.”
their mathematics lesson. Half of them respondents (50%) 3 Seldom 10 E18: “…Seldom…only using
stated that using constructivism theory in teaching. Meanwhile, speaker in teaching...”
47.2% respondents claimed that using cognitivism in teaching E67: “…seldom...using Frog VLE
mathematics by giving questioning. For teachers who have in teaching.”
4 Never 4 E19: “Never use”
claimed that using connectivism theory only 9.7% by asking 5 No 8 -
students to self-explore the knowledge in technology. Only one comments
teacher (1.4%) claimed that using cooperative theory in
teaching by using group activities and group discussion. Most of the teachers encourage the student in learning by
Table 1 show that major of the teachers (70.8%) will use giving them motivation such as praise, rewards and
traditional approaches visual aids such as mah-jong paper, flash encouragement (59.7%). Some of them believe that by giving
card, manila card or mini whiteboard in teaching mathematics. the students group activity (16.7%) or keep questioning and
Meanwhile, 56.9% of teachers were using the technology such practising (11.1%) can boost up the level of student interest in
as laptop, LCD or PowerPoint presentation in teaching learning mathematics. Teachers believed provided games
mathematics. Some of traditional approaches respondents (9.7%), prepare attractive activities related to real life situation
believed that using learning tools (20.8%) such as marker pen, (6.9%) and using technology such as internet Frog VLE
colour papers or abacus and book (16.7%) [e.g.: textbooks or (6.9%) will inspire the student to learn and love Mathematics.
activity book] will help them in teaching mathematics in Other suggestions in encouraging students to learn are using
classroom. Several teachers claimed that using worksheet different teaching aids, self-exploring and diverse the teaching
(13.9%) or concrete material (15.3%) such as puzzle can used strategies is present as 4.2%. See Table 3.
as teaching aids for teaching mathematics in classroom. The
teachers use the audio like song as teaching aids and don’t use TABLE III. METHOD USING IN ENCOURAGE STUDENTS LEARNING
any teaching aids in teaching mathematics represent 1.4% and
2.8% respectively. No. Methods Frequency E.g. Responses
1 Motivation 43 E07: “Encouragement the students
and give some presents”
TABLE I. TEACHING AIDS USING IN MATHEMATICS CLASSROOM E69: “…motivate them when get
low mark in exam...”
No. Frequent Frequency E.g. Responses 2 Group 12 E05: “…compete with their friends
1 Visual Aids 51 E13: “…flash-card…” Activity in group activity.”
2 Technology 41 E08: “…using laptop and LCD to E14: “…by group activity.”
showing PowerPoint ….” 3 Questioning/P 8 E02: “giving students stimulate
3 Learning 15 E01: “…marker pen, colour ractising through good question…stimulate
Tools paper...” to think.”
4 Books 12 E18: “…textbook and activity E03: “Do practice at home.”
books.” 4 Games 7 E10: “Playing games such as
5 Concrete 11 E63: “…puzzle…” Poisson Box…”
Material E15: “Give them more games which
6 Worksheet 10 E14: “…worksheet…” can explore what they have learnt.”
7 No use 2 E60:”…don’t use any teaching 5 Real life 5 E16: “…do outdoor activity.”
aids…” activity
8 Audio 1 E70: “…song…” 6 Technology 5 E20: “…do demonstration by
showing video.”
7 Other 3 E17: “…self-explore…”
In Table 2, the respondents who claimed that always [every E44: “…use teaching aids.”
lesson] (43.1%) used technology such as laptop, LCD, E30: “...diverse teaching strategies.”
PowerPoint in teaching mathematics classroom. Some
respondents argued sometimes [twice week, twice a month] From the data collected, most of the teacher informed that
(26.4%) use PowerPoint as technology in teaching contact parents personally (41.7%) are the easiest way to
mathematics. For some school may lack of technology collaborate with the parent regarding on the students’ learning
facilities, teachers was seldom [depend on situation] (13.9%) progress. See Table 4. Activities held by the school such as
using technology in teaching mathematics. Respondents whose Open Day or Parents’ Day (33.3%) also play important role
never use any technology in classroom is 5.6%. There are and suitable time for the teacher and parents to meet. This is
11.1% respondents dint give any responses. the day whereby the teacher and parents discuss and disclose
on the student attitude, assessment and progress by showing the constraints syllabus.”
report cards, homework cards and book record. Meanwhile, 5 Teacher 6 E4: “…it’s hard to explain the
13.9% of the teachers like to communicate parents using chat skills basic concept.”
E19: “…Im not creative and varies
group or social media like WhatsApp, telegram and Facebook in teaching.”
to understand students’ behaviour beyond out of classroom. 6 Teacher 4 E66: “…lack of facilities and
Surprisingly, 9.7% of the teachers never or don’t want to resources materials in school.
collaborate with parents concerning on their student learning 7 Assessment 1 E34: “…assessment KSSR.”
progress. Only 1.4% of the teachers collaborate with parents in approaches
students learning in using writing comments or suggestion on
communication or diary books. Table 6 below indicates the challenges in preparing
teaching and learning materials. Most teachers argued that
TABLE IV. METHODS TO COLLABORATE WITH PARENTS IN STUDENTS’ challenges faced are time constraints (72.2%), lack of teachers’
LEARNING PROGRESS skills, knowledge and ideas (16.7%), lack of resources and
No. Method Frequency E.g. Responses facilities in ICT (15.3%), student abilities (9.7%), cost of
materials (2.8%), not suitable teaching contents (2.8%) and no
1 Contact 30 E16: “…contact parents and ask their
personally- behaviour at home.”
comment (2.8%).
telephone
2 Activity 24 E68: “Open days… discuss about TABLE VI. CHALLENGES IN PREPARING TEACHING & LEARNING
held by students achievement and upgrade MATERIALS
school their performance.”
3 Social 10 E67: “message with parents….discuss No. Challenges Frequency E.g. Responses
media students problems in class.” 1 Time 52 E02: “…time
4 Other 1 E03: “…write comments in constraint consuming…”
communication/dairy book.” E16: “Lack of time”
5 Never 7 E20: “Never collaboration with 2 Teacher 12 E11: “…lack of skills in
parent.” skills operative some
technologies.”
3 Lack of 11 E01: “Lack of facilities
According to Table 5, the most challenging part in teaching resources in school.”
mathematics is dealing with students’ attitude (37.5%) such as 4 Students’ 7 E63: “…hard to fulfil
abilities students’ need.”
lack of interest, not attentive, lazy, lack of awareness, reuse to
5 Teaching 2 E20: “Some topic does
think and learn, naughty, passive and lack of confident. content not suitable to use of
Moreover, the large numbers of students in the class affect the teaching aids…”
classroom control (22.2%) especially disrupted by noisy 6 Cost 2 E68: “…no money to
student. The different and mix students’ ability (19.4%) in the prepare.”
classroom like Linus and non-Linus, careless and weak or 7 No mention 2 -
remedial student that cannot master the basic concept and
syllabus listed as one of the challenge in teaching. Other Most of the respondent faced problem with students’
challenges are time constraint such as rushing in finishing the abilities (58%) when they dealt with students learning. The
syllabus (15.3%) and teacher skills in teaching (8.3%) for respondents claimed that the students do not pay attention in
example hard to explain concept, understanding the Malay the class; they are lazy; they do not complete the exercises
terms in Mathematics, not varies and creative in teaching and given; they have disciplinary problems/ they have no interest in
language problems especially teaching in English. Teacher find learning; they are passive; the students are too dependent on
it hard to use teaching resources (5.6%) due to limited teachers and most of them are not motivated in learning. On the
teaching aids provided, lack of facilities and do not know how other hand, 35 % of teachers faced difficulties with students’
to use computer contribute to the difficulties in teaching. 1.4% abilities. The respondents argued that the students are too
of the teachers believed that the challenges moment is when weak; they are slow in learning; their basic are poor; they
using the new assessment approach. always forget what is taught; the students are found hard to
understand the mathematics concept; they are careless in their
TABLE V. CHALLENGES IN TEACHING MATHEMATICS calculation and they cannot solve problem. Other barriers that
challenged teachers are the language problem (3%) and
No. Challenges Frequency E.g. Responses
1 Students’ 27 E5: “…not interested to learn.” different students’ abilities in a class (7%).
attitude E11: “…not attentive in class.” When the respondents are asked how to solve the problem
2 Classroom 16 E8: “…large number of students.
control 40 pupils in a class”
stated above, 29% of them agreed to change their teaching
E27: “…students noisy and distract strategies. Teachers gave suggestions such as to use concrete
others…” materials; to try different approaches to suit the students; to
3 Students’ 14 E52: “…weak and careless in provide more interesting activities; to set up group activities; to
abilities doing work.” promote active learning and to try to teach in a way that
E67: “…cannot master the basic students found easier to understand. 24% of the respondents
concept.”
4 Time 11 E28: “…rushing in finishing the still believed that motivation is the best solution to fix these
problems. The teachers would guide and facilitate the students;
counsel those students with poor learning attitude; try to be There is always a need to collaborate with the parents in
closer to them to understand them; give them more chances to students’ learning processes. However, there must be some
improve themselves and give them rewards if they perform problems when trying to communicate with the parents.
well. There is still 11% of the respondents chose to believe According to the result, it indicates that most of the
practise makes perfect as they will give students extra classes, respondents felt hard to cope with parents’ attitude (62.5%).
drilling, exercises and revision. Only 4% of teachers tried other Responses from teachers are parents always claimed that they
approaches like checking the students’ exercises, homework are busy with their works; parents do not response and do not
and guide them personally. However, there are 26% of the cooperate with teachers; parents do not want to accept teachers’
respondents did not share their solutions. opinions; they do not want to face their children’s problem;
they push the responsibilities to teachers and so on. In addition,
Teachers always face problems while dealing with there are 3% of teachers felt that parents are lack of awareness
technology even though it is now 21st century. Table 7 shows on students’ education. Some teachers never collaborated with
the responses and excerpts of the problems faced by primary parents (5.5%), felt time consuming to collaborate (3%) and
school teachers in using technology in their mathematics did not comment (11%). Other respondents did realise any
classroom. problem aroused (15%).

TABLE VII. PROBLEMS FACED IN USING TECHNOLOGY

To deal with these problems, some of the respondents
(24%) chose to contact the parents personally. They will rather
No. Problems Frequency E.g. Responses meet them face to face, to call them to upgrade students’
1 Lack of 39 E43: “...there is no internet progress, to send letter to discuss the students’ problems and so
facilities connection…”
on. Some teachers (11%) suggested that activities like courses,
2 Time 11 E42: “It takes a long time to
consuming prepare and set up the facility.” talks and programs should be held to give guidance to the
3 Lack of skills 9 E52: “Lack of knowledge in using parents to increase their awareness on children’s education. 3%
technology.” of teachers expected to meet the parents during the meeting
4 Classroom 2 E63: “…hard to control the held by school. There is only 1 teacher will deliver the
control students when use technology.” message to the parents through the students by writing
5 Students' 1 E44: “Pupils hardly understand the comments on their homework card. Sadly, there are 57% of
abilities terms used.”
6 No problem 5 E68: “No problem.”
respondents did not want to comment about this problem and
7 No comment 5 - 1% of the respondents decided to let the problems unsolved.
In order to produce students who are competence in
From Table 7, it is clear that almost half of the respondents mathematics, teachers should put a lot of effort in their
(54%) faced the same problem which is lack of facilities when teaching and guiding their students to learn. Table 8 indicates
they dealt with technology. Likewise, 15% of the respondents the suggestions provided by the respondents concerning about
professed that it is really time consuming when they have to set teaching and learning in mathematics.
up the facilities. Besides, 12.5% of primary school teachers felt When teachers face problems in the teaching and learning
that they are not familiar with computer software and lack of processes, teacher will try their best in solving the problems.
knowledge in technology part. Only minority of teachers (3%) From Table 8, most of the respondents agreed to improve their
felt hard to control class when they intended to conduct the own teaching (33%). However, some of them requested for
lesson with technology. There only 1 respondent found that some improvement provided in the teaching and learning
students do not understand the English term used in computer resources and facilities (18%) and demanded to attend courses
so it is hard for him or her to adapt technology in mathematics to improve their pedagogical strategies (15%). Some teachers
classroom. There are 5 respondents claimed that they did not decided to give motivation to students (5.5%), collaborate with
face any problem in using technology and 5 other respondents parents and school (15%) as well as to collaborate with
did not comment. teachers (14%). Only a minority of teachers (4%) complaint
After knowing the problems, there are respondents refuse to about their work burden and asked to reduce the unnecessary
find solutions for the problems they faced (43%). However, works so that they can focus on teaching. Besides, there are
there are still 19% of them commented that they will find other suggestions provided (4%) to improve mathematics
alternative ways to confront with the problems such as borrow teaching and learning.
projector from others; use personal laptop; download the
materials first and make early preparation. Not only these, 17% TABLE VIII. SUGGESTIONS TO IMPROVE TEACHING AND LEARNING
of teachers will share the facilities or asked the students to MATHEMATICS
share the facilities if not enough. Minority of them (8%) No. Suggestions Frequency E.g. Responses
reduced the use of technology and continued with the 1 Improve in 24 E56: “Improve my pedagogical
traditional teaching methods. Only 5.5% of teachers are willing teaching skills.”
to learn more knowledge on technology. The other respondents E57: “Do action research to
found important to control the class (3%), made further improve teaching and learning..”
2 Improve the 16 E41: “Improve the ICT
explanation to students who do not understand (1%), let the
teaching facilities...”
problem remained unsolved (1%) and no problem occurred resources and E42: “Provide complete teaching
(1%). facilities and learning resources...”
 3 Improve 11 E49: “... do the pedagogical students’ learning problems with them. Most of the teachers
teachers’ course” realize that it is time to improve in their teaching skills in order
knowledge
to improve teaching and learning mathematics in 21st century.
4 Collaborate 11 E55: “...cooperate between
with parents/ parents, school administration...”
school ACKNOWLEDGMENT
5 Collaborate 10 E50: “...pair teaching...”
with teachers We are grateful to Universiti Teknologi Malaysia and
6 Motivate 4 E43: “...improve motivation Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) for financing this
students among students.” research through the grant 14H17.
7 Reduce 3 E17: “...reduce clerical works...”
teachers’
burden
8 Other 3 E59: “...reduce syllabus...teacher REFERENCES
suggestions can focus better...”

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