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Towards empowering learners in a democratic mathematics classroom: To what extent are teachers’ listening orientations conducive to and respectful of learners’ thinking?

Pythagoras

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Towards empowering learners in a democratic mathematics classroom: To what extent are teachers’ listening orientations conducive to and respectful of learners’ thinking?
 
Creator Mhlolo, Michael K. Schäfer, Marc
 
Subject Mathematics Education; Mathematics; Education empowerment; democratic classrooms; hermeneutic listening; learner novel contributions
Description In an effort to make education accessible, to ‘heal the divisions of the past and establish a society based on democratic values’, the South African Department of Education claims that a series of mathematics reforms that has so far been introduced is underpinned by the principles of ‘social justice, fundamental human rights and inclusivity’. Critics however argue that the system has remained ‘undemocratic’ in that those groups of learners who were supposed to be ‘healed’ continue to underperform and hence be disempowered. In this study, we conceptualised a democratic and mathematically empowering classroom as one that is consistent with the principle of inclusivity and in which a hermeneutic listening orientation towards teaching promotes such a democratic and mathematically empowering learning environment. We then worked with three different orientations teachers might have towards listening in the mathematics classroom: evaluative, interpretive and hermeneutic. We then used these orientations to analyse 20 video-recorded lessons with a specific focus on learners’ unexpected contributions and how teachers listened and responded to such contributions. The results were consistent with the literature, which shows that teachers tend to dismiss learners’ ways of thinking by imposing their own formalised constructions.
 
Publisher AOSIS Publishing
 
Contributor Department for International Development
Date 2012-12-11
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — Design Research
Format text/html application/octet-stream text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/pythagoras.v33i2.166
 
Source Pythagoras; Vol 33, No 2 (2012); 9 pages 2223-7895 1012-2346
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://pythagoras.org.za/index.php/pythagoras/article/view/166/282 https://pythagoras.org.za/index.php/pythagoras/article/view/166/283 https://pythagoras.org.za/index.php/pythagoras/article/view/166/284 https://pythagoras.org.za/index.php/pythagoras/article/view/166/281
 
Coverage — Historical coverage Gender
Rights Copyright (c) 2012 Michael K. Mhlolo, Marc Schäfer https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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