How Rwandan Grade 6 Mathematics Teachers Teach – A First Investigation

Abstract

This paper offers a tentative snapshot of Grade 6 mathematics classroom practices in Rwanda based on twenty video recorded lessons. It has an objective of investigating through evaluation, the teaching strategies used by Rwandan Grade 6 Mathematics teachers in their classrooms. In the absence of sufficient instruments to measure Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) in practice, a coding scheme was developed and applied to our video recorded lesson data, which helped us to answer our question of knowing the PCK levels of Rwandan Grade 6 Mathematics teachers. Choosing Rwanda as research site is mainly based on our will to know Grade 6 Mathematics practices in developing countries and particularly in Rwanda context where there has not been any study of this kind done before, which could add to researchers’ existing understanding of practical PCK. The findings suggest that there are differences in the extent to which practical PCK is engaged as some teachers seem more likely to use teaching strategies that research suggests are effective like being able to unpack the content in their teaching. Even if the overall impression is that it is fair to assume that teaching in Rwanda is not in a calamity, some teaching practices need to be improved. These include making connections and linking the contents. The paper ends with a discussion of methodological issues.

Keywords: classroom practices, Rwanda, teachers’ practices, procedural PCK, teaching strategies.