Maths Clubs Project
Rationale
After-school Mathematics Clubs hold the potential for increasing student opportunity to learn and enrich their mathematical experiences in ways that are free from curriculum and assessment driven teaching practices.
As part of the work of the South African Numeracy Chair we plan to rollout mathematics clubs focused on Grade 3 and 4 learners.
The clubs are conceptualised as supportive inquiry communities where sense making, active mathematical engagement and participation, and mathematical confidence building are foregrounded. Individual, pair and small group interactions with mentors are the dominant practices with few whole class interactions.
These are some of the features of the clubs:
- Voluntary participation during out-of-school time
- More learner choice over the activities that they work on and engage with
- Curriculum as contextual guide for what is nationally expected of learners but individual learner numeracy levels guide content and activities
- Participation based, where participants are active and engaged
- Many interactions are learner led with few whole class-mentor interactions and many one-to-one interactions between mentors and learners.
- Assessment is formative and integrated and is used to guide individual learning experiences for the participants
- Negotiated sociomathematical norms (Cobb, 1996 and Hunter, 2008) which may differ from in-school time rules
Club Foci
During the establishement of the clubs during 2012, we have found that the clubs focus had been on:
- Remediation
- Extending and challenging beyond potential
- Individualised attention
- Strengthening mathematical dispositions, confidence and trajectories
- Establishing 2nd sites of learning using the "Pay-it-forward" concept and learner workbooks to take home
If you feel that your school would benefit from a club, then please have a look here: How to start a club at your school
Current Clubs
We currently run 9 clubs within Chair schools which include 82 learners. We are supporting another club run at a local school which includes 32 learners.
