Twenty-six new grade two primary school teachers are now better equipped in teaching Mathematics following two weeks of training in numeracy.
The workshop which commenced on July 7th and ended on July 16 was organized by the Ministry of Education and funded by the Dominica Enhancement Program.
Assistant Chief Education Officer, Dr. Jeffrey Blaize, who was addressing the closing ceremony of the Grade 2 Numeracy Summer workshop, said the training exercise for grade 2 teachers is one of a number of sessions that the Ministry of Education has embarked on in the past year.
According to Dr. Blaize, particular emphasis have been placed the primary schools level, “because we recognize that it is a pivotal time for students to develop in incompetence’s, not only in mathematics but in other subject areas.”
He highlighted four areas that are important in ensuring that students build in competency’s within the classrooms.
“One of these is making Mathematics teaching practical and relevant,” he said. “Students need to understand why they are doing Mathematics. The other important area is the length of continuous practice, students and I must say individuals generally will learn very little when there is no practise and that goes for mathematics as well as all other areas.”
He stated that the more students practise, the better they become at developing the competency expected to be developed.
He mentioned further that another component is teacher’s enthusiasm in teaching the subject
“We expect to have teachers who are not only interesting in mathematics teaching, but to demonstrate the sought of interest in terms of the way they deliver the lessons,” he stated. “It’s no point teaching mathematics and displaying that sought of perception that I am just there doing it, but I don’t really like it…you need to show students that you are involved as well. We need to ensure that we adopt a whole school approach to mathematics teaching and learning, no longer should we allow one teacher or the teaching who is teaching mathematics to be the one who will educate the students in that manner.”
Meantime, Facilitator of the workshop, Clement Vital, said it was based on four modules taught by four facilitators including, “ teaching and learning strategies, assessments, schemes and work planning and how to use the national curriculum guide.”
He encouraged the participants to put into practise the knowledge of what was learnt during the summer workshop.
“We want to see you make a difference in your class and by extension in the culture of teaching of mathematics,” Vital noted. “Mathematics is not difficult to teach, it is your mind set. If you tell yourself you can you will, if you tell yourself I can’t you will not. How you teach is more important than what you teach.”
Other facilitators include; Robert Guiste, Leandra Laidlow and Simon Sharplis.
All teachers received participation certificates at the closing ceremony.
I hope that they are not doing “common core.” Go back to the basics. They always worked. Trying to rework math with the title ‘new math’ or “common core would be ridiculous and slow the kids down.
They are EQUALLY important.
HOTEP!