Teachers’ understanding and use of visual tools in their numeracy classrooms: A case study of two primary schools in Gauteng

Abstract

hose accessories, tools and items used by the teachers to assist learners in understanding the concepts of the lesson. The authors further declare that there are many types of teaching aids that go beyond a traditional teaching format. (p. 448) These include, but are not limited to, visual, audio and audiovisual media. Based on the different types of teaching aids mentioned, this study is about the use of visual aids or tools in numeracy classrooms. The authors define visual tools as physical objects that are designed to represent explicitly and concretely mathematical skills that are abstract. The study pays particular attention to the teachers' understanding and their practical use of the visual tools to teach early numeracy.The importance of using visual tools is not new in the field of education. Previous studies have shown the significance of visual objects in facilitating teaching and learning in different subjects. Mohamed and Ahmad (2016) focused on the secondary learners' perceptions of the use of visual tools by history teachers and observed that the learners' perceptions were positive and the use of visual tools facilitated their understanding of the history concepts. In another study, King (2018) explored the use of visual objects as tools to understand subject-specific terminologies in life sciences. The results indicated that visual tools helped to facilitate students' understanding of life sciences. These two studies are of different fields and are cited to testify that the use of visual tools facilitates the teaching and learning processes in various subjects. The focus of this Background: Previous studies have shown the significance of visual objects in facilitating teaching and learning in the numeracy classrooms; however, what we do not know is how South African teachers negotiate the use of visual tools. Aim:The aim of this study was to explore teachers' understanding and the use of visual tools in their numeracy classrooms.Setting: This study was conducted in two rural primary schools in Tshwane District, Gauteng. Methods:The study was qualitative in nature and a case study design was followed. Five Foundation Phase teachers were purposively sampled from two primary schools. Open-ended questionnaires were administered to solicit information from the sampled teachers. The collected data were analysed thematically. Results:The findings revealed that the majority of teachers had a limited knowledge of visual numeracy tools, and as such their implementation was restricted to a few familiar ones. This manifested itself in the fact that the majority of teachers (three out of five) mentioned the general use of the visual tools without clearly relating them to their own classroom experiences. Finally, the findings of the study revealed that all the teachers were desperately in need of training on how to use visual tools in their numeracy classrooms. Conclusion:The authors concluded that the teachers' limited knowledge about a variety of visual numeracy tools restricted their utilisation of such tools...

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