Date of Award

2023

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Master of Education (MEd)

First Supervisor/Advisor

Peter Kajoro

Second Supervisor/Advisor

Fredrick Mtenzi

Department

Institute for Educational Development, East Africa

Abstract

This research looked at a public secondary school's mathematics teachers in Ajuri County, Alebtong district. To determine how mathematics teachers' activities from the standpoint of mathematics teaching and learning in secondary schools represent teacher quality, the research study used a qualitative method with a case study design. Purposive sampling was used to get the school of study and the data was obtained from two mathematics teachers who were also purposively sampled from the teachers in the school through the use of structured and semi-structured interviews, document analysis, and observations. The recorded data obtained were then transcribed into text, and classified into several themes, with analysis based on those themes resulting from the study questions. The findings revealed that the sampled mathematics teachers a) have low qualifications with insufficient horizon and specialized content knowledge that would enable them to vary contents according to different levels of difficulties, use counter-examples, and non-examples in their teaching, and encourage students to generate their examples, b) have low experience despite being aware of the roles that experience plays to help the teacher to be effective in teaching mathematics. Sampled mathematics teachers, therefore, revealed failing to (a) capture learners’ attention, (b) group and regroup learners according to their abilities, (c) select and vary contents according to the level of difficulty, (d) identify and correct learners’ mistakes, and (e) encourage learners’ interactions, and c) are aware of how they should prepare themselves to teach mathematics, however, they are yet to show evidence of their schemes of work, lesson plans, and lesson notes. It is, therefore, recommended that (a) mathematics teachers should carry out team teaching, have peer support supervision among themselves, do regular lesson study, and set up a mathematics learning community to help them improve their quality and to also encourage learners to generate examples and encourage the learners to interact with peers, teachers, materials, and content so that their knowledge base can grow. Secondly, the quality assurance officers should always organize regular refresher courses and CPDs where teachers share, unlearn, learn and relearn skills of handling the subject in their classes, and to carry out regular support supervision to mathematics teachers to enable them to uplift their quality, and finally, the preparation of teachers from the training institutions should be hands-on to enable these teacher trainees to acquire the required quality.

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