TEACHING AND LEARNING MATHEMATICS WITH COMPUTER APPLICATIONS: A CASE STUDY

The Normal Technical (NT) Course was introduced in Singapore in 1994 to provide secondary school students who are more technically inclined with an opportunity to complete 10 years of basic education that prepares them for post-secondary technical and vocational courses at the Institute of Technical Education in Singapore. Mathematics and Computer Applications (CPA) are compulsory core subjects for the students in the Normal Technical Course. Currently, these two subjects are taught separately either by the same teacher or different teachers. Over the years, feedback and observations have shown that students are more interested and have done better in the study of Computer Applications than Mathematics. Teachers face more difficulty keeping students engaged and on task in the learning of mathematics. An innovative way of redesigning pedagogy leverages on Normal Technical students’ strong interest in Computer Applications to teach them Mathematics. The study aims to find out the pedagogical approaches and types of scaffolding that would be best for teachers to implement the teaching of Mathematics with Computer Applications for students in the Normal Technical Course. This work is leading to a re-conceptualisation of the teaching and learning of mathematics with the learning of computer applications. The paper presents a status report of this ongoing study and the work with teachers on the topic of measurement for Secondary 1 NT students in one secondary school