Concept 7: Assessment How is your supervision assessed/
4.2 Findings and discussions
4.2.4 What resources do you use during the supervision visits? (materials and resources)
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account is in agreement with the general aims of the National curriculum on accommodating inclusivity organisation, planning and teaching.
From the SAs‘ reflections it may then be concluded that, SAs were rigid in following CAPS content and time allocation. They were, of course, consistent with Mathematics CAPS, however, disregarding other thorny implementation issues such as the teaching methods/
strategies that educators use. Following curriculum in a rigid manner, according to Berkvens et al. (2014), does not allow for individualised learning. However, they transformed and identified a crucial need to involve educators in coming up with strategies of teaching that will help in their classrooms.
4.2.4 What resources do you use during the supervision visits? (materials and
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“As a Subject Advisor, I have tools like the general tool, we also have the lesson observation tool for Mathematics and again the school based assessment tool. Lastly we have the national tool that we use to monitor the utilisation of workbooks.” SA8
“I use my school support tool, which I use to record all my findings.” SA1.
“I have my Maths monitoring tool that I use for Mathematics lesson observation and the other one that I use for just general information from the educator’s portfolio.” SA6.
From the data generated it may be concluded that the Mathematics monitoring tool is also used as a powerful tool to supervise the implementation of Mathematics CAPS and that SAs must not fail to use the tool. In this respect, the SAs indicated that they use the school support and the Mathematics monitoring tools provided because there is no way one can provide school support and monitoring without completing those tools. There is also a DBE workbook utilisation monitoring tool which the SAs also mentioned in their reflections.
Mathematics specific resources
Reflections revealed that SAs have the necessary Mathematics resources, and during supervision and support they expect educators to have the necessary resources in their classroom. They can either be commercial or handmade resources, but they need to have them.
“I have my Maths kit which I use during workshops to demonstrate to educators how they can use the resources in the maths kit to support their teaching. I also deliver Mathematics charts for them i.e. 100 number chart, shape charts, colour charts and sample of money,”
SA3. Others agreed.
“…you also need resources like textbooks relevant to Mathematics.” SA7 and SA2 and SA6 added.
“I expect educators in a Mathematics class to have a maths kit, posters displaying numbers, a calendar, a birthday charts and also a maths corner,” SA8, others agreed and added that educators should have their learners DBE workbooks and class workbooks.
Other resources
“We also use the Japanese, International Cooperation Agency (JICA) document to assist the educators in teaching mental maths and word problems,” SA8.
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“…you must also have your laptop.” SA2 and SA5 added that during workshops, “I use a laptop and projector for my presentations because we do not have enough funds to make copies for all the presentations, educators are many”.
The issue of transport as an essential resource, to access schools that SAs are supporting, was also reflected upon during focus group by SA4: “Not all of us have vehicles to visit schools and it is important that each one of us have transport to enable easy access to schools”.
4.2.4.2 Software resources
During the first cycle of reflections, SAs did not reflect on this theme as they did not understand what software resources are and how to use them. After learning about the different software resources like social media applications (WhatsApp, Facebook, Wechat and Youtube), other educational mathematics applications and the hand-outs they received during the presentation that they can utilise in Mathematics; they reflected differently.
SA6 indicated that, “…after your presentation I created a WhatsApp group for my educators who are on WhatsApp messenger and it is very helpful as we discuss a lot of Mathematical issues that really need our attention. Educators also enjoy using it (WhatsApp) as [a] group”
SA7 had a different opinion about chatrooms and social networking; however she changed in the second phase and agreed with her other colleagues. She explained that “…I used to think that WhatsApp is waste of time, but now I use it for my educator to discuss Mathematics related issues. Those who do not have it, I use sms’ (short messaging system)”.
SA3 added: ―… not only does it help in reaching many educators, but it also saves time as it is sometimes difficult to reach as many educators at once, unless it’s a workshop”.
The findings from both cycles of reflection reveal that some of the SAs had misconceptions about chatrooms and social media, but now they are using it as a powerful tool to support the teaching of mathematics in Grade 3.
4.2.4.3 Ideological ware resources CAPS Policy and other NCS policy documents
All the SAs indicated that when they go to supervise Mathematics, or when they are conducting workshops, they always ensure that they have their Mathematics subject CAPS document.
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“The very first one and the most important one is policy document. You cannot visit the school if you do not have your CAPS document.” SA2
“I take along my CAPS policy document. It always serves as a reference.” SA8
In the second phase of reflection, SA8 indicated that she also uses mathematical theories and other references, but did not indicate where she gets them and how she is using them. This indicates that, in her reflection, she saw it fit to engage in mathematical studies and theories that will help in improving her practice.
From the generated data, the findings reveal that in the first phase of reflection, SAs were comfortable utilising a variety of resources from the hardware and ideological ware categories (Mathematics CAPS document) but that the most commonly used were hardware resources. In the second phase of reflections they became more comfortable to also use software resources. They were able to access these software resources from social media and used them as powerful tools to support educators in a way that enable them (educators) to be actively involved. They also emphasise and ensure that the educators have resources and that they utilise them. Their submissions are relevant and consistent with literature because Labane (2009) concurs that effective curriculum implementation depends on availability, control and the monitoring of resources.
4.2.5 How are you supervising the implementation of grade mathematics caps