WSU ALUMNA DEDICATES CAREER TO PRODUCING GOOD QUALITY MATHS TEACHERS

WSU Alumna and Chief Executive Officer of Numeric, Sibonelo Nongcula said that good quality teachers supersede the use of technology when it comes to producing good results in schools.

This was during a four-day Numeric Professional Development workshop, where Nongcula was training Mathematics Department, Senior Phase and FET staff and students at the Mthatha Campus Sasol Library.

“Technology is an incredible tool and teachers should be able to use it to upskill themselves and to potentially use in the classrooms. However, there are not enough public schools that have proper access to technology, particularly in the Eastern Cape, and we seek to address the maths education crisis through teacher development,” said Nongcula.

The training focused on classroom management and learning tools, and maths games amongst other areas.

Numeric works with teacher education institutions across the country to provide student teachers with additional pedagogy and content training to help them excel in their careers as teachers.

“The Eastern Cape has been faced with a challenge of low pass rates, especially in mathematics. As a university that produces a large cohort of teachers, we saw it better to tackle the problem from the root and equip WSU’s student teachers with dynamic skills to properly prepare the next generation of maths and science teachers.”

The workshop was initiated by WSU’s Mathematics Education Professor Jogymol Alex in the Faculty of Education, with the aim of preparing for the School Based Experience which is scheduled to start from 19 July 2023. 

“The Mathematics Education and Research Centre at WSU is established for advancing rural Mathematics Education, as our rural mathematics education is confronted by many challenges like lack of resources and content knowledge of teachers.  To achieve this objective, we work with international, national, and local partners and Numeric is one such partnership which helps us to achieve our objectives in introducing progressive approaches into classrooms,” said Alex.

According to the professor, a baseline analysis conducted in Computer Aided Mathematics Instruction (CAMI), student teachers need to be supported with additional content and pedagogy in foundational mathematics to equip them to get a strong understanding of the subject matter they will be teaching in schools.

CAMI is an interactive software that helps learners better understand mathematics and language content.

“Our efforts have seen a great improvement in maths content for learners who have been taught by students trained through our program. We have managed to spark enthusiasm and interest, in the WSU students in their ability to engage with content and teach it to learners.” said Nongcula.

Sibonelo fell in love with mathematics in her grade 9 classroom, where she had heated debates with her father who was also her maths teacher. It was after this experience that she felt that every student should love and not fear mathematics.

In her final year of doing Bachelor of Science in Chemistry, Sibonelo started tutoring grade 12 students in Mathematics and Physics, and this is when she fell in love with working with young people. 

By Ongezwa Sigodi