One set of teacher competences relates to professional development. Teachers improve and develop their knowledge, acquire skills, illuminate and change their own views, encouraged by others, through their own learning and active participation in the process of education and reflection on pedagogical practice. It is important that the teacher changes his teaching practice through a commitment to his own professional development, which can only be achieved by reflecting on his own behaviour and conceptions, in which situations of cognitive conflict play an important role. A teacher therefore develops professionally over the years of professional practice and experience, which enables him to better meet the challenges of teaching basic mathematics and of dealing with students who need learning support in mathematics.
A child's exposure to the basics of mathematics in pre-school is crucial, as it influences the child's future mathematical development and performance in mathematics. It is therefore important that the child has as much experience as possible with numbers and counting in the pre-school years, and that it is during this period that he gets a »feeling« that mathematics is meaningful to him. Children who do not get this feeling often have learning difficulties in mathematics later on. To help children, teachers need to identify the cause of the difficulties and be able to adapt their own teaching-teaching methods and formats. The development of their own methodological competence and the didactic principle of differentiation and individualisation of teaching help them to do this. Teachers must also adapt their own teaching to, among other things, students from less supportive learning environments, which may be due to a variety of reasons, such as poverty.
One of the operational-practical teaching methods that can facilitate the teacher's teaching of basic mathematical concepts and allow students to be active in learning new skills is the play method, which combines both play and learning. The key is for the teacher to be aware of its strengths and limitations and to complement it appropriately with other teaching methods. In particular, the teacher uses didactic games in teaching, the aim of which is for the pupil to master the specific learning objectives of the chosen content. Maria Montessori was one of the advocates of the integration of play and learning.
In the theoretical part, I defined the competences of teachers and described in more detail one strand related to teachers' professional development. In the following part, I focused on the teaching of basic mathematics and, consequently, on the emergence of learning difficulties in mathematics. Teachers' methodological competence and teaching differentiation and individualisation are important for the successful implementation of learning support. In the following, I have also focused in more detail on the teaching method of play, linking it to didactic play and teaching aids, while also presenting Montessori materials. In the last part, I have described schooling in The Gambia, in a non-conducive environment that requires the teacher's ability to adapt the teaching process.
In the empirical part, I conducted a qualitative study on teachers' professional development in the first part, in which I conducted five interviews with female teachers in The Gambia, and in the second part, I introduced changes in the teaching process with the help of teaching aids. In the morning I taught basic mathematics in a preschool (career and education centre) and in the afternoon I provided and implemented learning support to selected children.
Through the research I tried to find out to what extent Gambian teachers achieve didactic and methodological competence according to their self-evaluation, and how they evaluate and define their own professional development. I found that teachers have well-developed methodological competence and that they have developed it through practical training and performances during the training process. They define methodological competence as the teacher's action and teaching in the classroom, as the set of ideas, teaching methods and activities they use to teach children. They also consider teachers' professional development to be extremely important, as it makes a significant contribution to children's development.
Through my own teaching, I have found that the teaching aids have made it easier for students to learn new material. Students remembered things more quickly and were able to work independently more easily with the help of the teaching aids. They were able to concentrate and stay motivated for longer in lessons. I found that it was important to keep the teaching aids simple and well-made.
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