Enhancing Teachers’ ICT pedagogy skills and evaluating their impact on student achievement in grade 7 mathematics

Abstract

technological advancements in recent years have brought challenges for both teachers and students especially in the field of science and mathematics. This growing trend demands a pedagogical shift to address the learning needs of digital natives. It is now imperative to adopt innovative, interactive, and constructive methodologies to encounter the shortcomings leading to students’ low attainment in academics particularly in mathematics. Traditional teaching practices leading to memorization and recitation are still dominant in many parts of the world. In Pakistan, government schools are the main source of education in the country as compared to the private institutes. They are low cost and promote conventional practice. To compete in this digital environment, these schools need to transform their instructional practices. The purpose of this study is to enhance teachers’ ICT pedagogical skills and evaluating their impact on students’ achievement in mathematics. 12 teachers participated in the study from two government schools. Total of 231 students of grade 7 were part of this quasi-experimental study for three weeks. GeoGebra, dynamic software was used to in the intervention to provide an interactive and constructive environment both for teachers and students in this study. The study initiated by administering TIMSS (Ferraro, 2006) survey of elementary school mathematics teachers. 38 responses were collected from government school teachers. Survey results revealed that inclination towards collaboration for curriculum planning is quite low. Teacher to students’ ratio is too high and lecture based teaching style is dominant. In the past two years no professional development has been provided to the teachers related to pedagogy or curriculum, IT integration in mathematics or addressing the students’ needs. The training provided teachers a platform to refine their instructional practices and prepare themselves to adopt 21st century skills for teaching mathematics (Rotherham & Willingham, 2010). 21st century skills demand inclusive setting to bring diversity in learning process (Groff, 2013). Students’ achievement was tested on first three levels of Van Hiele Geometry Test (VHGT) based on Van Hiele Model activities (Vojkuvkova, 2012). Students’ outcomes in VHGT before and after the intervention demonstrated that integrating GeoGebra supports in better understanding of geometrical concepts and develops geometrical thinking in students.