Pre-service Teachers’ Secondary School Experiences in Learning Geometry and their Confidence to Teach it

Abstract

This paper presents the findings of a convergent parallel mixed methods research that was carried out to explore the views of student-teachers on how geometry was taught and the confidence of those student-teachers in teaching geometry to secondary school learners when they will become professionally qualified. Respondents were randomly selected from two Colleges of Education in Burundi. Although the study was predominantly quantitative, some qualitative data were also collected to gain deeper insights into the prevailing situation. Ninety-seven pre-service teachers of Mathematics from the said institutions completed the questionnaire whose items were closedended except for one that was open-ended. Results show that the teacher-centered approach had dominated geometry classes in their respective secondary schools. Nevertheless, studentteachers exhibited higher confidence in teaching geometry. These findings provide evidence on the need for teacher education programs to consider embedding instructional and assessment approaches designed for specific branches of mathematics.

Enhancing Students’ Attitudes in Learning 3-Dimension Geometry using GeoGebra

“…However, this improvement may depend on the teaching method. This finding is in agreement with Arbain and Shukor (2015), Mathevula and Uwizeyimana (2014), Niyukuri et al (2020), Ocal (2017) and Uwurukundo et al (2020), whose studies found that ICT, in general, could improve the way students perform in geometry, and that GeoGebra software is effective in improving students' achievement and attitudes towards geometry. In this study, the ICT factor had improved attitude scores in the experimental group, because the teachers of this group used GeoGebra in lessons, while the traditional class did not use this ICT-based software and showed no improvement in attitude.…”

“…For instance, students recall geometry experiences as unpleasant and often consider geometry to be a challenging topic in mathematics (Le & Kim, 2017). This was also revealed by Uwurukundo et al (2022) when conducting a study on students' achievement and attitudes toward geometry (Niyukuri et al, 2020). GeoGebra has been recognized as one of the teaching and learning tools that offers support for enhancing students' understanding of geometry-related topics (Doğan & İçel, 2010;Hanč et al, 2011;Murni et al, 2017).…”

“…Since mathematics is now a part of daily life, it has become crucial to include mathematics instruction from an early age in our schooling (Mollah, 2017).Mathematics is regarded as the mother of all sciences, and the universe cannot move without mathematical knowledge and skills (Mollah, 2017). At the same time, mathematics has proven to be a complex subject for secondary school students in different countries (Mukuka et al, 2021;Niyukuri et al, 2020) -not only in Rwanda (Ukobizaba et al, 2019). This difficulty is evident in the challenges that have been observed in teaching and learning mathematics at different levels of education in different contexts.…”

Developing a Constructive Conceptual Framework of a Pre-Service Mathematics Teachers’ Content Knowledge Instrument on Space and Shape

“…For instance, Kambilombilo and Sakala [17] reported teachers' inadequate content knowledge and some misconceptions in teaching secondary school geometry in Africa. Another study revealed that mathematics pre-service teachers already addressed some learning components, such as their experience in learning Geometry and their confidence to teach it [18]. However, there are still few studies focusing on mathematics pre-service teachers' knowledge on geometry in Indonesia.…”

College of Education Pre-Service Teachers’ Attitude in Terms of Usefulness, Confidence and Enjoyment towards Geometry by Gender

“…Also, Niyukuri, Nzotungicimpaye, and Ntahomvukiye (2020) examined Pre-service Teachers' experiences in learning geometry and their confidence to teaching it with convergent parallel mixed methods research. Niyukuri et al (2020) randomly selected Ninety-seven Pre-service Teachers from two Colleges of Education in Burundi. The results of their study indicated that the teacher-centred approach was what has been used in their respective secondary schools in teaching geometry.…”