Page 9 - Professorial Lecture - Prof Kasanda

DEVELOPMENTS IN THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF

MATHEMATICS

Many theories of learning abound in the teaching of school subjects. Some
of these include behaviourism, situated learning, constructivism and
several others. There has been in recent times a renaissance of the
constructivist theory (Lerman, 1989). Constructivist theory regards
students as able entities, capable of constructing knowledge based on
their interactions with their environment, teacher and peers. In such an
environment the teacher should provide opportunities for knowledge
construction. Lerman notes that constructivism “has rich and significant
consequences for mathematics education” (p. 211), which would enhance
the learning and understanding of the mathematics content. Learner-
centred teaching method espoused by the Ministry of Education and
Culture (MEC) (MEC, 1993) and National Institute for Educational
Development (NIED), 2003) is an important aspect of constructivism. The
none use of learner-centred in the teaching of mathematics in our
country, deprives the learners the opportunity to meaningfully contribute
to the learning process through interactions with their environment and
their peers in the classroom. Kasanda (2007), Kapenda (2008) and Snyder
and Viogts (1998) provide a number of factors such as lack of instructional
materials, textbooks, and mathematical models as possible hindrances to
the effective use of learner-centred teaching in our schools. In fact, our
mathematics teachers continue using the teacher-centred methods due to
the above indicated reasons. For our mathematics teachers to make use of
learner-centred methods there is need for all stakeholders in education to
provide these desperately needed resources, since learner-centred
teaching is resource intensive.

The Guardian (2007) indicates that mathematics is not one of the
students’ favourite subjects in the United Kingdom’s school curriculum.
This is also true in Namibia. Previously before mathematics was made

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