Abstract:

Interactive teaching and learning is when the teacher engages with students during teaching and learning using various approaches to accommodate and promote students’ learning. Engagement is an extent to which teachers and students believe in their ability to complete the tasks reach their goals. Studies indicated that the development of learning materials that are based on realistic Mathematics education approach contributes to promoting students’ engagement in problem-solving activities as well as increase self-confidence and self-efficacy. When students were engaged in productive processing activities that required the use of metacognition and motivational process, more involvement was observed. It is argued that the self-regulated learning strategy promotes conceptual understanding. Self-regulated learning was appropriate for promoting students’ level of engagement in the subject.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the interactive teaching and learning of Euclidean Geometry. A mixed-methods approach was utilized following the convergent parallel sequential design. Participants were 81 high schools mathematics teachers in South Africa, from Mpumalanga and North-West Provinces. About 50 of the teachers were male and their ages range from 25 to 58 years (M= 43.0, SD= 7.78%). Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected simultaneously, but the analysis was carried out separately. In collecting quantitative data, the Geometry Teacher Self-Efficacy questionnaire was used. For this paper, teacher engagement construct with 6 items was used. Data were analysed with the aid of SPSS version 25. In terms of reliability of this construct, the Cronbach alpha value was .75. In terms of validity of the instrument, with reference to Teacher Engagement, the structure coefficients consistent with 6 items representing Teacher Engagement. In this case, item 2 (I believe that many of my students will be mathematicians or scientists when they grow up) had a loading of .72. On the other hand, qualitative data with open-ended questionnaire was employed. Qualitative data were analysed using Atlas. Ti. Teacher were asked: How do you ascertain that students are actively involved during Geometry lesson?

The result shows that 96.3% of the teachers felt that the teaching methods they applied in the Geometry classes encouraged students to actively engaged, be involved and be able to learn from one another. It was also found that teachers indicated that they provide guidance through the work they give to students. This means that teachers facilitate learning and encouraged the student-centred approach. It is recommended that teachers incorporate the theory of social constructivism which views learning as a function of the interactions, where students actively engaged and also constantly constructing and reconstructing knowledge through environmental interactions.

Keywords:

Teacher engagement, interactive teaching, mathematics, Euclidean Geometry, high school.