Exploring teaching strategies used by grade 8 mathematics teachers to teach probability.

Abstract

The reason why probability is being taught in our schools has been explained in many articles. This study presents the strategies used by grade 8 teachers to teach probability, adding different sources, which are, literature, interviews, and lesson observations. The assumption made in this study is that teachers do not have proper training in probability to successfully teach it to grade 8 learners. The study employed a qualitative approach to understand teachers’ insight into teaching probability to grade 8 learners. The study constituted of 2 participants, each from a neighbouring school from the same circuit in the Pinetown district in the KwaZulu- Natal province, South Africa. Two instruments; interviews and observations, were used to collect data in this study. The findings of this study indicate that the learning approaches of the participating teachers were limited. There was, for example, no use of a problem based approach to reinforce essential aspects that enable learners to understand probability. Code-switching and re-voicing were most frequently used practices seen in the findings to encourage learner participation. The study recommends that more research needs to be done on effective probability approaches and the study also recommends methodology courses especially of probability to be offered for high school teachers.