A novel high-tech approach to maths and science education – which has been boosting pupils’ knowledge and skills in Saturday classes across the province – won a R40 000 gold award at last week’s prestigious Impumelelo Social Innovations Awards for 2013. The award ceremony took place on 1 December 2013 in Cape Town.
The award-winning Maths and Science Incubator School Programme – run by Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University’s Govan Mbeki Mathematics Development Unit (GMMDU) – has been run in urban and rural schools in four districts of the province for the past seven years, reaching more than 2000 learners. They were handpicked for the programme having shown potential in maths and/or science.
This year saw the introduction of Android tablets and MXit self-assessment – as part of a successful one-year pilot study – to enhance the programme’s curriculum-aligned, video-based content, which acts as a 24/7 personal tutor for pupils. The constantly-evolving Saturday school programme reached 530 Grade 10 to 12 pupils from 80 previously-disadvantaged schools this year.
“We’re aiming to use the latest technology to close the gap between teaching and learning, in terms of the expectations of the new Generation Z, which is also called the ‘Facebook Generation’ or
the ‘Screen Generation’,” said GMMDU head Prof Werner Olivier, who also holds NMMU’s First First Rand Foundation research chair in Mathematics Education.
The model, which blends different technologies, is not dependent on Internet access or Windows skills and its material is “100% aligned” to the new CAPS curriculum.
Old exam papers and a glossary of maths and science terms are included on the MXit app, which is open to all learners in the country and not just those attending the incubator schools. “We’re aiming towards a much bigger support system.”
As part of the pilot, the touch screen tablets were also introduced in Grade 10 classes at schools in urban, rural and deep rural areas throughout the region, where research and development is taking place under the auspices of the FRF chair, and in collaboration with the Department of Basic Education and the Meraka Institute at the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).
“This research will continue for the next two years to determine the impact of the model on learner performance,” said Olivier.
The techno-blended teaching and learning model is also being utilised in accredited skills development programmes for teachers.
NMMU’s Incubator School programme was one of 25 projects to be recognised by Impumelelo Social Innovations Centre – and one of three Eastern Cape winners, the other two being the General Motors South Africa Foundation (GMSAF) Walmer Link Affordable Housing and The Hope Factory, an enterprise development organization.
Minister of Science and Technology Derek Hanekom (right) applauds after handing an Impumelelo gold award to Prof Werner Olivier (second from right), head of Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University’s Govan Mbeki Mathematics Development Unit and GMMDU’s Communications and Administration Manager Margot Collett (second from left), joined on stage by (from left) University of the Free State Vice-Chancellor Prof Jonathan Jansen and Liberty’s Lynn Husselmann and Maxwell Pirikisi.
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