Teachers' Attitudes towards Lesson Study as a Viable Strategy to Improve the Teaching and Learning of Mathematics

Abstract

The emphasis on high-quality education and professional development of teachers in order to improve the performance of learners in schools continues to be a topic of discussion worldwide in the 21st century. A series of workshops and programmes are therefore being organized for most of the teachers in South Africa in order to prepare them for quality teaching and learning in schools. However, in the interim, learners' performance in mathematics continues to be unsatisfactory in South Africa when compared to learners in other nations. A qualitative approach was used for this study and the article draws data from participatory action research, with a focus on teachers' attitudes towards lesson study as a viable strategy to improve teaching and learning of mathematics in South African schools. A combination of interviews and observations was used to gather data from thirty-five purposefully-selected teachers who participated, together with thirty learners in a lesson study workshop in one of the Universities in South Africa. The study found that teachers displayed a positive attitude towards lesson study even though they had limited time to engage in daily preparation, hence inadequate performance on the part of their learners. The implications drawn from the researcher's findings were that failure to address teacher professionalism, especially regarding the use of lesson study to improve their methods of teaching mathematics, which is likely to derail all other attempts to address learners' poor performance in mathematics. Participants therefore recommended that lesson study be enforced by the national Department of Education to improve teachers' methods of teaching mathematics in South African schools through innovative approaches.