The teaching and learning of word problems in beginning algebra : a Nigerian (Lagos State) study

At both the junior and senior secondary school levels in Nigeria, student performance in mathematics examinations has been poor. Within the context of large classes, with inadequate facilities, and teaching and learning in a second language, algebra and algebra word problems are introduced to students during their first year of junior secondary school. The transition from primary school arithmetic to the use of the algebraic letter is challenging to students and it is important that teachers should know the likely difficulties and misconceptions students may have as they begin algebra (Welder, 2012). In this study, the impact of a teacher professional learning program on teachers’ knowledge, beliefs and practice was examined. The impact on students’ ability to solve word problems in beginning algebra was also investigated. To do this, a multiple case study was designed and data were collected using quantitative and qualitative methods. Thirty teachers of first year junior secondary students completed a questionnaire and this provided general information about the teachers’ beliefs and algebra teaching practice. After this, 12 of the teachers actively participated and collaborated in a professional learning workshop designed as an intervention program. The program focused on enhancing the teachers’ knowledge of student misconceptions about variables, expressions and equations, and language-based teaching strategies. Four teachers and their classes, two each from public and private schools, served as case studies and provided further data about the impact of the intervention program. Before and after the intervention program, lessons were observed, students completed algebra tests and some of them were interviewed using the Newman interview protocol. The data for each case study were analysed and the key findings generated from each of them were used for a cross-case analysis. The study revealed that these Nigerian teachers had mainly traditional beliefs about mathematics teaching and that teacher-talk dominated the classroom practice. Prior to the intervention, the teachers had limited knowledge of students’ algebra misconceptions and the students’ main difficulty was that they did not understand the questions. The professional learning increased the teachers’ knowledge of algebra, their pedagogical content knowledge and their awareness of algebra misconceptions. The teachers used more student-centred and language-based teaching strategies when working on algebra problems. There was a significant improvement in students’ problem-solving success on the post-test because more students were able to understand the word problems and displayed fewer misconceptions. The incidences of ignoring the algebraic letter, believing that the algebraic letters cannot have the same value and confusing product and sum reduced. However, the use of the letter as an object or a label and a belief that the algebraic letter had alphabetical positioning persisted. The study demonstrated the effectiveness of the professional learning model used in this study and it should be considered for more widespread implementation with in-service teachers. There is also an implication for pre-service teacher education. Mathematics education programs should ensure that student teachers are aware of common algebra misconceptions and the language-based strategies needed to support school students’ transition from arithmetic to algebra

Who Is Afraid Of Ẹfúnṣetán Aníwúrà? Performing Power in Yoruba Masculinist Oligarchy

The iconic Yoruba female personage of Ẹfúnṣetán Aníwúrà has, in several studies, been vilified; and at a first glance, it would seem that Akinwunmi Isola’s eponymous protagonist and heroine of that play reinforces the image of a villainous, wicked and self-centred woman. Contextualized within the Yoruba socio-political and economic national narratives of the late18th and early 19th centuries, this image appears both problematic and complexly contradictory. It is therefore useful to appropriately recuperate and verify the status of Ẹfúnṣetán Aníwúrà within the backdrop of Yoruba cultural context. This is illustrated through a feminist re-reading of Ẹfúnṣetán’s actions and character against the grain of the Yoruba masculinist cultural backcloth and the uneven devolution of powers of her time. In this essay, we make the argument that Isola’s heroine astutely resists and rejects the cultural prescriptivism and master narratives of the powerful masculinist oligarchy of that period. We therefore suggest that in spite of Isola’s seeming pejorative representation of Ẹfúnṣetán, the chieftain adumbrates possibilities for more equitable gender relations in her time

Migration and Identities in Chika Unigwe’s Novels

Monumental dispersals caused by the phenomenon of migration greatly affect the identities of people. Much like the process of globalization, migration is highly sexualized and gendered. To this extent, it is necessary to centralize women and their peculiar experiences in migration discourses and theories. Beyond the usual focus on the economics, politics and sociology of migration, which at any rate do not often adequately address gender-specific migratory experiences; this study takes a literary route that considers the fictional representations of migrant women in two of the novels of Chika Unigwe: The Phoenix (2005) and On Black Sisters’ Street (2008). The focus here is to underscore the validity and significance of gender as an imperative analytical premise in contemporary literary debates particularly by African migrants. In demonstrating how the inflections of gender portend different outcomes for men and women, the study significantly uncovers how the woman’s body is simultaneously the site of physical and symbolic migration. The essay traces the movement in transition and the impact of these and new environment on the bodies of female migrants and how the embodied motifs of migration ultimately alter the identities and realities of migrant African women in particular. In all, the essay hopes to expand some of the current theorizations on the new directions in the development of the fictional representations of Nigerian women as well as to contextualize the role of the émigré author in these developments.

Colours of Blood by Alka Singh

Colours of Blood by Alka Singh, Kolkata: Writers Workshop, 2021, ISBN: 978-81-949985-9-4 (9788194998594), Price: Rs 150, Pages: 52