UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MALAYSIA

MATHEMATICS TEACHING IN PRIMARY AND

SECONDARY SCHOOLS

INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT: Micro Teaching

PREPARED BY:
USHA DEVI A/P LINGAPPAN
MPP101735

PREPARED FOR:
Prof Dr Zaleha Binti Ismail
TABLE OF CONTENT

Page

1.0 Introduction 1-2

2.0 Background Problem 3-5

3.0 Lesson Plan 6-7

4.0 Students Output and Analysis 8

5.0 Conclusion and Reflection 9

6.0 Reference 10

Appendix
1.0 INTRODUCTION

In November 2006 the DCSF published its manifesto 'Learning outside the Classroom'.
The NCETM actively promotes the learning of mathematics outside the classroom, this
part of our web portal features projects that demonstrate good practice from many parts of
the country. We hope you will find these projects inspiring, and be encouraged to share
your ideas and projects.

The 'Learning outside the Classroom' manifesto leads with the statement, “We believe
that every young person should experience the world beyond the classroom as an
essential part of learning and personal development, whatever their age, ability or
circumstances.” Such experiences “help us to make sense of the world around us by
making links between feelings and learning. They stay with us into adulthood and affect
our behaviour, lifestyle and work. They influence our values and the decisions we make.
They allow us to transfer learning experienced outside to the classroom and vice versa”.

Getting out of the classroom facilitates authentic or experiential learning (the engagement
of learners with the world as they actually experience it) and gives better access to the
main pathways to learning (Visual, Auditory and Kinaesthetic). Pupils not only
experience mathematics in concrete and novel settings, but can be liberated from the
sometimes restrictive expectations of the classroom. As a result, we can expect to find the
following benefits:
 higher levels of motivation
 almost limitless resources
 an opportunity to see maths as cross-curricular
 greater curiosity leading to more effective exploration
 creative ideas driving investigations
 meaningful application of problem solving strategies and thinking skills
 a heightened sense of purpose and relevance
 the all-important bridge between theory and reality
 greater independence and an improved attitude to learning
 greater enjoyment and achievement (one of the five every child matters
outcomes)
 a realisation that our environment offers opportunities for learning and
 enjoyment. Learning mathematics outside the classroom is not enrichment; it is
at the core of empowering an individual understands of the subject.

Mathematics plays a role both in our daily and professional lives as individuals and
members of society. People, therefore, need to be able to apply basic mathematics to their
everyday lives, a skill that is termed as ‘mathematics literacy’ from Organisation for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 1999. In the educational context,
mathematics activities should provide the opportunity for students to experience the
subject in a meaningful way that they can well understand (Freudenthal H, 1991).
Furthermore, students should be offered real-world situations that are relevant to their
role as citizens or their areas of interest (Ojose B, 2011). Taking mathematics outside the
classroom allows students to experience it (Dubiel M, 2000). This can show them that
mathematics is all around and not merely in their textbooks. Recently, in some countries,
there has been an increased interest in the development of outdoor and adventure
education programmes (Fagerstam E 2012). Various activities outside the classroom have
been specifically designed to increase student engagement.
2.0 BACKGROUND PROBLEM

Curriculum and Pedagogy - One of the challenges faced by students in school is the
large amount of content with too many subjects that they have to plough through in order
to pass examinations. Those who are less academically inclined and prefer outdoor
activities find it burdensome; many give up totally. Often non-academically inclined
students (from Form Two to Form Five) are merely in school because of parental
pressure. This has led to numerous discipline problems.

Discipline problems - Many disciplinary challenges arise partly because pupils

completely lose interest in what goes on in the classroom. Schooling becomes
meaningless. They play truant and choose to spend hours playing computer games in
cybercafés, loitering in parks or getting involved with gangsters and drug pushers outside
the school perimeters. It is the responsibility of the Ministry of Education to see how
education can best be carried out on this group of youth, and how curriculum can be
tailored to cater for their needs. High dropout rate is likely to lead to increased social ills.
Perhaps subjects that require hands-on activities may be of greater relevance and interest
to them.

Declining Standard of Education - It is obvious that the standard of education has

dropped, particularly in public schools, giving rise to increasing demand for enrolment in
private schools. Many parents choose to send their children to good private schools if
they can afford it and if places are available. Others spend substantially on their
children’s tuition outside school hours. If Malaysia hopes to be a ‘regional education
hub’, change for the better has to take place. Brain-storming and consultation between
leaders and educators, innovative ideas, and pilot projects will pave the way for holistic
change for the better.

This program began to be implemented in Malaysia from 2013, as tailored to the

country’s situation. The implementation is motivated by the situation and problems in
mathematics education in this country. Based on the result of the PISA 2012 study, 15-
year-old Malaysian students were ranked 64th out of 65 countries, with a mathematics
score of 375, and 75.7% of them unable to reach level 2 (OECD, 2012). This means that
Malaysian students cannot extract the relevant information of a given task or use basic
algorithms to solve mathematics problems. An international survey also shows that only
approximately 20% of Malaysian eighth-grade (Form 2) students like learning
mathematics and only 3% are confident in their abilities in mathematics (Mullis I, Martin
M O, Foy P, and Arora A, 2012). To address the issues mentioned above, this micro
teaching aims to explore the potential of the program in promoting students’ intrinsic
motivation for the engagement in mathematics and mathematical outdoor activity in
particular.

The way students encounter geometry in elementary school tends to be quite different
from the approach to geometry in middle school that continues into high school.
Elementary school geometry often deals with identifying shapes and their properties, and
by high school has transitioned into proving and reasoning through complex relationships.
Allen and Martinie suggest in “Families Ask: Geometry: More than Just Shapes” that the
struggles students face with high school geometry may result due to a lack of transition
provided through middle school geometry (2006). Understanding some of the reasons
behind this difficult transition and ways to counteract it are important. After all, this
situation that students face in middle school will go on to influence their high school and
future geometry experiences as well.

Classrooms are continually changing and improving in order to reach more students and
to help student’s gain deeper understanding. To move away from lecturing, teachers are
implementing activities, group work, and discussions. Another way to break up the
routine is through the use of classroom games or outdoor activity. Math classroom games
or outdoor activity can provide a way into the mathematics “while by-passing the notation
for the time being” that engages students (Devlin 2015). When a quality mathematics
game is introduced in the classroom, it can strengthen students’ mathematical skills.

Watching and engaging with students in geometry, I saw students repeatedly struggling
when it came to transformations. The students who struggled appeared to lack a basic
understanding of rotations, reflections, and translations of points within the co-ordinate
plane. This inspired me to create a game that would allow students to explore these ideas
in a fun and engaging manner; to make connections between the definitions and the action
the transformation performs; and to recognize the relationships that exist between the
three transformations in the co-ordinate plane.
3.0 LESSON PLAN

DAILY LESSON PLAN

WEEK :9
DATE : 08 MAY 2019
DAY : WEDNESDAY
TITLE / OBJECTIVE / PdPc ACTIVITIES REMARK
Subject MATHEMATICS
Form 3 ANGSANA
Time 04.00 – 04.30 PM
Learning Area GEOMETRY
Title TRANSFORMATION
Learning Standard Describe the changes of shapes, sizes, directions and
orientations of an object under a transformation, and hence
explain the idea of one-to-one correspondence between
points in a transformation.

Learning Outcome At the end of the lesson, students will be able to:
/ Success Criteria
1. Describe transformation in terms of shapes, sizes,
directions and the orientations.
2. Complete the chart (situation) given with the appropriate
pictures.
3. Write down types of transformation on the chart.
4. Narrate an interesting story from the chart involving
transformations.

Teaching Aid Teacher’s notes, charts, pictures, ‘tack-it’.

Curriculum Cross Science and Technology
Element
HOTS / I-Think Map Applying
Activity 1) 3K programme.
2) Induction Set
- Teacher prompt question on previous lesson on
transformation.
- Students describe the changes of shapes, sizes,
directions and orientations for each transformation
3) Group Activity
- Students are divided into 3 groups.
- Each group is given a scenario (chart) and related
pictures; themes are marine, frozen, aquarium.
- Students need to paste the pictures on the chart
according to their basic knowledge on transformation.
- Then, they have to create a story according to the
scenario. When narrating the story, they have to
describe the transformation happen.
- Presentation.
 4) Enrichment Exercise
- A worksheet where students have to identify types of
transformation and describe it completely.
5) Discussion
6) Reflection
Reflection Objectives fulfilled. 11/11 of the students able to involved in Attendance:
group activity actively and had fun with the creative story 11/11
that they had created. Meanwhile, 9/11 of the students able
to answer enrichment exercises correctly. 2/11 of the
students had difficulties in describing the transformation.
Remedial exercises were given to them to improve
themselves.
4.0 STUDENTS OUTPUT AND ANALYSIS

Overall, the students able to participated in the activity by giving and sharing their ideas and
taught about transformation. Students able to communicate collaborate and think creatively to
create a short story. They able to solve the task given within the time provided. Their
understanding towards reflection, translation and rotation was clearly see when they explain
about their story by using the proper description of each transformation. Example, translation
(move right, left, up and down), rotation (direction, angle and centre of rotation) and lastly
reflection (axis of reflection).

Below is an analysis about students’ preference towards types of transformation. Due to time
constraints, teacher collects the data verbally while the students were doing their group
activity.

4.5

3.5

2.5 Translation
Rotation
2
Reflection
1.5

0.5

0
Group 1 Group 2 Group 3

The chart shows that most of the students like translation followed by reflection. The least
number of students preferred reflection. This maybe because rotation needs more elements
which are complicated compared to translation and reflection.
5.0 CONCLUSION AND REFLECTION

Strength

 Outdoor activity can be an excellent way for students to practice and explore
mathematics.
 Students can gain mathematical understanding and develop their mathematical
thinking.
 Outdoor activity can allow students to collaborate and to take risks and can foster
discussion.
 For teachers, creating own outdoor activity can also be a viable option and a
rewarding experience and to evaluate how students understand the mathematics.

Weaknesses

 Time constraint to prepare outdoor activities.

 Delay in finishing syllabus especially for exam classes.
 High cost in preparing materials that need to buy.
 Safety.

Students have gradually become more aware and more attentive to the mathematics that
surrounds them in everyday life, having this work served to awake their "mathematical
eye," sharing comments as "I will never look in the same way to a window or a floor" or
even "I should have learned this type of mathematics”. Overall it can be said that these
students have been very involved and willing to overcome the difficulties they
encountered, seeing the advantages of a work of this nature in addressing a significant
and motivating mathematics.

Non-formal learning contexts, like the math trails, have been given particular attention as
having the potential to trigger learning as well as positive attitudes towards mathematics,
involving students in a direct and active way. Regarding (future) teachers it allows them
to be aware of other learning possibilities that can be articulated with more formal
contexts like the classroom understanding the processes and difficulties involved in the
creation of tasks inspired in the local environment.
6.0 REFERENCE

Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development 1999 Measuring student

knowledge and skills: A new framework for assessment (Paris: Organisation for
Economic Cooperation and Development).

Freudenthal H 1991 Revisiting mathematics education, China Lectures (Dordrecht: Kluwer

Academic Publishers).

Ojose B 2011 J Math Educ 4 89.

Dubiel M 2000 Math trail in Beacon Hill Park (Victoria: SFU).

Fägerstam E 2012 Space and place, perspectives on outdoor teaching and learning
(Linköping: Linköping University).

Shoaf M M, Pollak H, and Schneider J 2004 Math trails (Lexington, MA: The Consortium for
Mathematics and its Applications).

Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development 2013 PISA 2012 results in focus
(Paris: Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development).

Mullis I, Martin M O, Foy P, and Arora A 2012 TIMSS 2011 International results in
mathematics (Chestnut Hill, MA, USA: TIMSS & PIRLS International Study Center,
Lynch School of Education, Boston College).
7.0 APPENDIX

Materials provided for group activity

Group 1: Ain, Zuri, Atie
Group 2: Aminah, Tanu, Azzah, Chua, Ila
Group 3: Joey, Carl, Aidah, Chia, Yanie