Shifting teachers’ practice in early mathematics classrooms in Ghana: A case study

Resource type
Journal Article
Authors/contributors
Title
Shifting teachers’ practice in early mathematics classrooms in Ghana: A case study
Abstract
Changing teachers’ practice is difficult, especially in low- and middle-income contexts (LMIC). Recently, with attention turning to improving early mathematics in addition to reading outcomes, donors, governments, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are grappling with the design of mathematics interventions and supportive policies. However, there is limited evidence showing how to change teachers’ practices in early mathematics classrooms in LMIC. For this exploratory study, the authors provided 15 kindergarten teachers in Ghana with sequenced mathematics activities, with some teachers receiving low-cost manipulatives (e.g., bottle-cap counters and number cards), and other teachers being asked to create or gather their own. The findings showed that teachers who were given the manipulatives were much more likely than teachers not given the manipulatives to use the activities provided. In addition, the character of the instruction was qualitatively different for teachers who were given the manipulatives. These results, while exploratory, suggest the need for classroom sets of manipulatives when designing an intervention that aims to change teachers’ practices.
Publication
PROSPECTS
Volume
52
Issue
1-2
Pages
157-171
Date
09/2022
Journal Abbr
Prospects
Language
en
ISSN
0033-1538, 1573-9090
Short Title
Shifting teachers’ practice in early mathematics classrooms in Ghana
Accessed
04/09/2023, 17:27
Library Catalogue
DOI.org (Crossref)
Citation
Sitabkhan, Y., & Ampadu, E. (2022). Shifting teachers’ practice in early mathematics classrooms in Ghana: A case study. PROSPECTS, 52(1–2), 157–171. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11125-021-09578-2
Country