Improving Teachers’ Pedagogical Knowledge of Teaching Mathematics: Metacognitive Skills and Strategies Application

Abstract

The study aims to ascertain the actions of the rural school teachers’ application of metacognitive skills and strategies in their teaching, and how it supported or improved, their pedagogical knowledge of teaching mathematics. The researcher developed the discussion by reporting and referring to the research that was conducted amongst forty-eight participants (N=48 teachers: males=21 and females=27) through cluster sampling technique. Explanatory sequential mixed-method design was used. These participants were rural mathematics teachers in South Africa. Questionnaires were used for data collection. Classroom observations and interviews were used for additional data collection. A statistical package (R software) for quantitative and content analysis for qualitative were used for data analysis. This research showed that teachers could actively foster metacognition in a variety of ways to improve their pedagogical knowledge. However, a noteworthy point of interest in this study was that, prior to this, the teachers claimed that they applied metacognition, yet teachers’ results year after year had not been improving. Does the fault lie in their training, the application level, or accountability level? The study revealed that there was a misunderstanding beforehand; the participants, in fact, did not understand the concept (metacognition) or application thereof in their teaching practices that is why they indicated that they applied metacognition as evidenced in their qualitative response. Recommendations are made for the above findings.

Keywords

• metacognition
• pedagogical knowledge
• rural schools
• skills and strategies
• teachers