The Three Pillars Program For Mathematics Teachers

The three pillars of teaching-learning include, ‘Curriculum’, ‘Pedagogy’ and ‘Assessment’.

In this program, tailored to the level at which participating teachers might be teaching, we examine and explore these three pillars, with the intent of deepening our own subject knowledge, expanding the range of pedagogical practices in our tool-kit and broadening our perspective to the purposes of teaching and learning.

Some of the questions that we will be examining have been detailed below. 

Do we know the subject matter well enough? Or are we specifying rules and procedures without either knowing or describing why they work? For example:

• Why do we 'carry' or 'borrow' while adding or subtracting?
• Why is dividing by a fraction equivalent to multiplying by its reciprocal?
• Why do we claim that by following the steps of construction listed, the drawn angle will be bisected?

Can we reason out for ourselves, all that we teach? 

In the context of the methodology used in the transaction of our curriculum, here are some questions to examine:

• What are some of the modes of teaching apart from the traditional mode of 'chalk-and-talk'?
• How and when do we make our classrooms interactive?
• How do we find the right balance between individual exploration, collaborative work and lecturing?
• What is the role of models and manipulatives in the teaching-learning process?
• How do we judiciously integrate technology into our teaching-learning practice?

We start with the most fundamental of questions: what is the purpose of learning and why are we here? Thereafter, we dive deep into both subtle and practical aspects of assessment. For example:

• Do we distinguish between 'assessment of learning' and 'assessment for learning'?
• Is there a difference between 'assessment' and 'testing'?
• What are the various modes of assessment that can be undertaken apart from the traditional mode of testing?
• What might be the advantages and limitations of objective type tests?
• Are we assessing for thinking and understanding, or are we limiting ourselves to the testing of memory and recall?

We attempt a couple of crucial questions:

• How do answers to all these questions feed back into the planning and rationalisation of the Mathematics curriculum over the entire period of a child’s schooling?
• What sort of institutional and professional support do teachers need to fulfil the purposes of their endeavour?