LESSON STUDY AS A PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT MODEL FOR IMPROVING TEACHERS’ MATHEMATICS INSTRUCTION

Abstract

The poor state of mathematics education in South Africa is well documented. Few learners are graduating from the school with high quality passes in mathematics in order to enter university. There has been intervention in mathematics education system in an attempt to improve it. Yet, more than ten years after the first democratic election, South Africa is still grappling with poor performance in mathematics and how to change this situation. Much has been done about this inadequacy. South Africa has developed models to update teacher skills as an attempt to intervene. One of such professional development models is a lesson study. In this study, the researcher employed qualitative case study design to explore mathematics teachers’ views on lesson study as a professional development model for improving their instruction. Based on the data collected, lesson study is one of the professional development models that teachers would be happy to enlist in as they (teachers) believe that the lesson study provides opportunity for collaboration hence assisting in the improvement of their mathematics instruction.