5.2 MILTON’S TEACHING
5.2.4 Interview with Milton…
5.2.4.1 The philosophy of teaching
One of the questions that I paused to Milton during the interview was whether he knew about leaner-centred approaches in the teaching of Mathematics.
Milton responded by saying that he learnt about learner-centred teaching and how it is used whilst he was at college in both the Education and Mathematics departments. He elaborated that:
If I can recall what I got there learners teach each other by asking each other questions they derive their own way of learning and understanding dealing with each other.
What seems to be important here is that he was talking about learners questioning each other. I then asked him what exactly learner-centred teaching was. Below is his response to my question:
Learner-centred education is whereby learners, I mean the teaching is centred on the learners. The learners are given the opportunity to go over the content and come out with their own ways of understanding. They show how they
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understand and their teacher is there to monitor and guide other than just giving them all the information. The pupils have to discover the information.
Seemingly, Milton did have a firm grasp of the learner-centred approach to teaching. His definition of learner-centred teaching being centred on the learners fits well with the definition provided by Vavrus et al. (2011).
Furthermore, I asked Milton about the teaching methods that were used by his lecturers whilst he was still at college. In order for me to better understand his previous experiences with learner-centred teaching, I probed him on the kind of teaching methods he was exposed to whilst he was still at college. He responded by saying that:
They mostly lecture us. They conduct the lecture method.
His response was that the lecturers used the lecture method of teaching.
However, he acknowledged that the other methods were taught to them but in practice the lecturers used the lecture method. This means that the lecturers did not model the theories they spoke about in the lecture rooms. In fact, they actually did not transfer the learner-centred approaches into practice as they lecture the students. I then asked him of the teaching method he used in his lesson that was observed by the researcher. He said that:
It was an integration of strategies of approach. It was a teacher-centred, learner-centred because that is when I started demonstrating construction and that has to be demonstrated first. Then I asked one learner to come and show the other learners that these things that he can do it.
I noticed that when Milton introduced the lesson he conducted a question-and- answer method which developed into a demonstration method. He asked learners the meaning of construct and the meaning of triangle during his introduction. He then developed the lesson by asking volunteers to do constructions on the chalk board whilst the other learners were watching. He would now and again assist and correct the learner who had volunteered to do
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the construction. Milton led the class activity and his main focus was centred on volunteer learner doing the right thing as per his understanding of learner- centred teaching. He owned the information and directed the learners on what to do next. This is contrary to his submission during the interview that learners have to discover the information for themselves.
However, some aspect of his teaching was in line with his conception about learner-centred teaching. He believed that learner-centred teaching is centred on individual learner and that learners should be given an opportunity to go over the content and come out with their own ways of understanding. During his teaching he wanted learners to display individual understanding of the content.
Even though Milton mentioned that the role of the teacher in learner-centred teaching is to guide learners and encourage discussions during the interview, he never asked them questions amongst the groups such as: Did you all do this in the same way? Do you agree with this person? He missed the opportunity to allow learners to co-construct their knowledge. Learners were also not asked probing questions as a group by Milton. Instead he made explanations to individual learners among the small groups hence missing the opportunity to get them to consider answers to his questions as a group. For example, Figure5.9 showed instances where Milton was giving explanations to individual learners when in fact he was supposed to be directing them to the small groups.
An important issue that emerged during the lesson was Milton’s conception of
“working in pairs”. In his lesson he often emphasised that leaners should work in pairs. Furthermore, he said they should discuss with the person they are sitting next to. However, throughout the lesson, learners were sitting in their normal sitting arrangement. And they were observed working as individuals (Figure 5.8), in particular when Milton engaged them into some class exercise.
At some instance during the interview I asked him about the challenges of using learner-centred teaching.
Interviewer: Do you encounter some problems when using learner-centred teaching?
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Milton: There are because most of the time child-centred teaching, it needs you to make the groups in the class.
From the above conversation, Milton acknowledged that during learner-centred teaching, learners should sit in small groups. But in his class learners were not working with one another. Instead Milton was seen assisting one learner whilst the whole class was watching.
Milton insisted that learners should work in pairs and told them that they should discuss with each other and communicate. What I observed was that though the learners were sitting next to each other but they were doing individual work and were not discussing or communicating with one another. Throughout the lesson, Milton took the role of telling, explaining and giving directions.