Secondary Mathematics Development Case Study 2022

Critical Reflective Paper
Secondary Mathematics Development
1. Introduction
Teaching is both a profession and a calling. Many people that I have encountered in
my life say that. On one side teaching mathematics can sometimes be challenging
because a teacher’s work station involves dealing solely with other human beings-
students. On the other side, though, teaching can be a blessing as it entails dealing
with other human beings. It is enjoyable creating relationships and making friends
on top of impacting other people’s lives at first hand. Being a teacher offers this.
This is in stark contrast to working in manufacturing industries and other industries
where a great junk of work life involves dealing with virtual things, robots and
sounds of running machine motors.
As a secondary mathematics teacher, I decided to do self-assessment on
knowledge, skills and attitudes, in relation to the secondary mathematics content
and Working Mathematics processes of the relevant Syllabus. This was aimed at
analysing my strengths and weaknesses on how well am conversant in mathematics
for secondary students in grades 7, 8, 9 and 10. This study was just like self-
analysis, self-reflecting, self-judgement and self-motivation to learn and improve in
delivery and teaching of mathematics for the upper graders. I have been practicing
teaching mathematics for two years now and thought it was the best idea to
evaluate and examine myself on the progress I have made as a mathematics
teacher so far. With a couple of downsides like slow and tedious readjustment of
sleeping and waking schedules and time management with positive feel-good
scenarios such as solving students’ academic challenges making friends in both
sides: fellow teachers and students. So far, I can say the experience has been
punctuated with both downs and highs.
As a teacher of secondary mathematics, some of my objectives include imparting
knowledge of mathematics to students, assessing the students on each and every
unit of the syllabus covered in class, engage the students in group work and
practical activities, help them develop critical thinking ability in solving
mathematical problems and testing them on their ability to grasp and apply
mathematical knowledge learnt in class in practical and daily life situations. This
sounds like a walk in the park until one starts implementing the objectives.
Therefore, it requires a lot of dedication and commitment from a teacher for his or
her students or learners to be a success story in terms of academics.
In this paper I will be discussing the challenges I encountered, my development in
this short period of two years, how my attitude towards teaching mathematics to
secondary students has been affected, students’ reaction to my teaching strategies
and capabilities, and my strengths and weaknesses in relation to secondary
mathematics content.
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Critical Reflective Paper
2. Description
To do this research I requested one of my friend-a colleague in Millennium
Academy-to formulate research questions and perform the assessment on me. His
name is Mr Aggrey Henderson. In addition, I asked Mr Henderson to formulate some
assessment questions to the students in classes that I teach to answer so that they
can be able to share their experience and judgements on me, both a person and a
teacher.
In the assessment Mr Henderson used various questions to interview me. They
questions included: the number of students am teaching per class, my perception
on the scheduling mathematics lessons for secondary grade students, how I assess
the capability of my students on units learnt, learning tools am using in teaching
mathematics, criteria I use in grouping students in class during group work lessons,
analysis of the students’ performance in mathematics for two years, sacrifices made
during my teaching career, my take on the syllabuses of grades 7,8,9 and 10 and its
impact, my take on the general environment in Millennium Academy and its impact
on learning and my recommendation on the syllabus in secondary mathematics.
Other questions included: 1. How have you encouraged your students to think
differently about their learning of mathematics? 2. What changes to your pedagogy
are you considering to enhance the way you teach mathematics? 3. Explain how
your thinking about mathematics teaching and learning is different today from
yesterday, and from what it could be tomorrow? On the case of students, Mr
Henderson asked a sample of students to write on their experiences about me as a
mathematics teacher in their classes.
Some of the questions caught me off-guard as I had not figured out that they could
form part of my critical reflective write-up. But they proved to be indispensable. I
realized that at the end of the assessment the questions formed a strong basis for
myself to evaluate myself, reflect on myself, evaluate on challenges I face in
teaching students, my weaknesses and how I can use my strength to better my
career as a mathematics teacher. The student’s insight on me and my teaching
style and my conduct taught me a lot on how students perceive on my personality,
teaching ability and character in Millennium Academy.
3. Discussion
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Critical Reflective Paper
After the assessment exercise I did a study on my answers I gave to the assessment
questions and tried to analyse them. I also analysed the responses of my students
toward the research questions and got great insight on how others perceive me as a
mathematics teacher. I come up with various conclusion on best teaching and
delivery strategies, my strengths and my weaknesses.
In relation to the study that was done, some of the appropriate teaching methods
includes engaging students in class while teaching, making class groups to engage
in group activities and discussions, making individual assessment of students, and
giving students tests and examination for student capability analysis. Due to the
questions that I answered in the assessment paper, I come to realize that making
sure to engage students in lesson delivery is important. These interactions between
teacher and student helps the student to understand the lesson more and makes
them feel at easy to seek clarification and more details on the topic being studied.
This in addition, improves their content grasping ability in relation to mathematics.
Secondly, I realized that students are better positioned to get a better picture of
mathematics unit being studied if he or she gets more detailed and other trivial
information from fellow students as compared to teachers. This is probably because
they feel more at easy asking their desk mates, friends and classmates. This also
helps those students that are challenged academically as they are able to get better
when clarification and more information is given to them by their colleagues.
Thirdly, as a teacher it is profound if at times individual student’s personal
academic problems are solved at individual level especially mathematics problems.
Some students are not at easy to ask questions in class or group discussions. Some
are shy. Therefore, as a secondary mathematics teacher, dealing with student’s
mathematics cases at personal level, sometimes, can help in improving individual
grades of the students. Lastly, testing students’ capabilities cannot be precisely
done if unit exercises, tests and examinations on mathematics is not done. By
testing the students, as a teacher, am able to get the clear picture of the student
capabilities and abilities when it comes to mathematics. This will help the teacher in
many ways including formation of class groups for discussions, topics to put more
emphasis and how to deal with the academically challenged students.
Going through the responses from the assessment I determined my own strengths
towards development of secondary mathematics. One is that I am good at
developing interpersonal relationships with students. The interviewed students
indicated that am at easy to be approached by students concerning secondary
mathematics problems. They also indicated that due to my ability to deal with
students especially those below average in secondary mathematics has led to
improved class means in secondary math. This is because I have been able to
identify areas to put emphasis on, and helped below average students to improve
their grades in mathematics subject. Due to engaging students in proper group
work activities, another strength was syllabus coverage rate. Due to cooperation of
students in addition we have been able to cover the syllabus within the stipulated
time by the government and school timetable.
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