Extended stay is a form of educational care, which is attended by students voluntarily or. depending on the decision of their parents, when school lessons end. Teachers, school management and parents, attach a different value to the role of the extended stay. Some think that the extended stay is meant only for eating lunch, doing homework and entertainment. Extended stay can be much more than that. How to organize quality time and activities, how to motivate pupils to write homework, how to motivate them for further learning and work and at the same time try to achieve that students enjoy staying in the extended stay. These are all questions that are raised by almost every teacher at the beginning of their work and in the course of teaching.
I set myself a goal, that I will try to motivate students in various ways, so they will write their homework diligently and at the same time try to further strengthen the mathematical contents of school lessons. Why these two contents? Homework is a part of everyday life and it is right that the students feel the importance of homework as soon as possible. With regular task carried out they learn and obtain the working habbits.
I wanted to approach mathematics through game, because I am aware that learning through game is a natural need of children and therefore mandatory appendix in the classroom or. other types of educational care. I had to use the so-called didactic games, because this is the type of game that is customized to educational practice, which means that the targets we want to achieve through the game, are clearly planned in advance. We must not neglect the educational goals, which are very important and should be developed through play (eg. Compliance with the rules, group participation, learning to cope with failure, etc.).
The purpose of the master thesis was to figure out whether the offered mathematical didactic games attract students in extended overstay and to what extent can we realize the set mathematical goals and how to motivate students to do their homework. I was also interested in if carrying out domestic tasks is anyhow associated with motivation for further employment (selection of mathematical didactic games).
In the theoretical part I presented the contents: Mathematics as a learning subject in the 3rd grade, homework, motivation, play and the concept of extended stay. The following parts of this master thesis present selected mathematical didactic games. The research part of the thesis is composed of two parts, first the written analysis of games and doing homework are gathered, according to my observations and conversations with students (students' attitude towards homework, motivation, self-responsibility), while the second part presents the results of a survey that students filled up at the end of my study (after finishing play related contents).
Evaluation of the work and analysis of the questionnaires showed that the didactical games are by all means very suitable method as a motivational tool for the consolidation of mathematical contents. The pupils liked the games and most of them would like to more of it in the future. I can also ensure that the external motivational tools to encourage students to do their homework helps to boost motivation and change students' attitudes towards homework. However, I noticed that regular and conscientiously carrying out domestic tasks is not related to motivation for further learning process, for example by selecting a mathematical didactical game. It is also not true that only more succesfull students are more eager to choose mathematical didactic games, which are more frequently motivated for learning process.
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