Chapter Summary

The results obtained from the teachers' interviews revealed that conventional

classroom teaching was the major approach used to teach mathematics in schools.

This conventional classroom teaching approach was teacher-centred but group working was often used to enhance students’ participation in learning. Furthermore, courseware was occasionally used to help students visualise abstract concepts. However, inspite of this, the learning experience was passive and not encouraging. To motivate students to learn, the teachers had used different teaching innovations, gave compliments and provided personal attention to students. Nevertheless, many students claimed to be not motivated to learn mathematics. The students had no confidence and interest in mathematics.

Students’ disinterest in mathematics was one of the reasons that likely led to poor performance in TIMSS and PISA. In schools, students were taught to solve mathematics problems using Polya’s four-step problem-solving process and they were trained to follow the predefined strategy which was laid down by the teachers. The teachers expected students to follow the step-by-step predefined route but some students refused to follow the instruction because they wanted to get things done fast and easy. For this reason, the students were claimed to be weak in cognitive and metacognitive aspects of problem-solving. In view of that, many students could not apply knowledge learned to a new non-routine problem despite HOTS were taught explicitly in schools. Inability to transfer knowledge had resulted in students’ disinterest in Additional Mathematics (compared to Mathematics or Modern Mathematics) because the subject required HOTS and mostly dealt with non-routine problems. Other than HOTS, spatial ability was also claimed to be important in mathematics learning. The teachers felt that the boys could understand better in some particular mathematics topics that required imagination. However, girls had an advantage too because they were more disciplined in doing more practice.

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Apart from students’ attitudes, students’ low performance in mathematics was also caused by the design of the education system. The teachers revealed that the existing mathematics curriculum placed less emphasis on application of problem-solving and HOTS. Furthermore, the use of calculators had killed students’ logical thinking skills. Since schools were exam-oriented (i.e. product-oriented), the teachers had to drill the students for exams because practice was claimed to be the most effective way to learn mathematics.

In the technological aspect, male and female teachers behaved differently. Male teachers used computers for work, entertainment and advanced usage. They also played variety of computer games such as fighting, strategy, puzzle, role-playing, sports, action-adventure and MMORPG. As for the female teachers, they mostly used computers for work purposes, and they played only puzzle games. As expected, male teachers were more proficient and interested in ICT and computer games. The male teachers recognised many benefits of gaming such as learning of metacognitive skills whereas female teachers were more concerned with the drawbacks brought by computer games such as game addiction, health hazard and violence.

In general, both male and female teachers always used computers for work and smartphones for daily communications. They pragmatically accommodated technologies to fit into their existing working style. The usage of computers for schoolwork was a routine process and it was not fun with no learning involved. On the other hand, students were claimed to be proficient in using computer for entertainment purposes especially the latest computer technologies. Students constantly learned new computer skills outside the school hours. Unfortunately, these technological skills usually were not recognised by schools.

When the teachers were asked about educational computer games, most of them had no personal exposure to the games. Nevertheless, they would prefer edutainments that provide training and practices. Most of the teachers were quite reluctant to consider adopting computer games in teaching mainly due to time constraints and insufficient computer labs facilities. They strongly believed that the conventional classroom teaching and practice were the best approach to learn mathematics. Nevertheless, they might consider the adoption of computer games provided the games were only used trivially to provide more training and practices. Regardless of the approaches used, they strongly felt that teachers played the most significant role in teaching and learning.

This is a group of teachers who come from different educational backgrounds and teaching experience. Though they have substantially different personalities, their attitudes to teaching mathematics are quite uniform across the board. In general, they are comfortable and confident with their existing conventional ways of teaching

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practices. The teachers’ attitudes to teaching are similar to what they would expect from their students – follow a predefined route. In this case, it is the traditional “chalk and talk” method of teaching, e.g. first step: recall previous lesson; second step: teach new lesson with some examples; third step: students are working on similar problems in the class; fourth step: homework is given to reinforce the practice. The whole education system is about doing and teaching what the teachers know. It is doubtful whether this is a viable design for the future of Malaysia.

Consequently, the introduction of gaming pedagogy might face resistance from the teachers given the prospect that they would need to change their existing teaching behaviour. As an educator myself, I understand the stress and resistance to change among the teaching profession – something that is written about widely. For instance in Blin and Munro (2008), they have mentioned that technology has little disruption in academic teaching practices for various reasons: too time consuming; a mismatch between the technology and curriculum; complexities of the technology; a lack of skills, and mismatch of training and academic needs. In the study, they have found that a Virtual Learning Environment such as Moodle is merely used for administrative purposes and to disseminate resources, which complement or replicate existing practices. Although technology has been widely used in the education industry, the potential usability of the technology is always underused due to various practical constraints.

From the interview data, teachers' reluctance to use technology is a way to inform us that they can teach more effectively and confidently without the technology. An excellent and experienced teacher may deliver a poor lesson with computer games, e.g. Teacher D had 30 years teaching experience but labelled herself as “old timer”. Teachers’ resistance to educational technology policy has shown that they have been left out of the new education world. However, looking from a different perspective, many teaching innovations introduced in schools are too focused on the latest technology and fail to make the best of what the teachers own, e.g. content knowledge and teaching experience. Some teachers’ self-esteem may be challenged by technology deployment in schools because they are slow learners of new technologies. Should we punish and belittle these digital immigrant teachers for not being computer literate?

Although some teachers (i.e. male teachers) appeared to be digital natives in their daily life outside of schools, they did not show their digital natives’ capabilities in schools. Digital native capabilities (e.g. multitasking) seem to be irrelevant and been supressed to conform to the formal school education. The educational policy or school culture have somewhat constrained the teachers to show their digital natives’ capabilities, creativity and innovation. In this case, teachers' reluctance to the

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pedagogical change could be a way to avoid risks (e.g. exam results) and complaints (e.g. parents or students). In this chapter, teachers’ competencies in computer technologies do not seem to significantly influence how they teach in class. Computer expert teacher such as Teacher C is more likely to use computers in teaching but the underlying pedagogy is still the same – drill and practice. The teachers, regardless of their age and computer literacy have given similar responses to mathematics pedagogy and DGBL. Apparently, teachers' beliefs are the best indicators of their traditional teaching practices (not technology proficiency or age).

Forcing teachers to adopt a new pedagogy that contradicts their beliefs is destined to be a failure. Similarly, using coercion to turn poor teaching into an acceptable teaching may be necessary, but it will never produce an excellent teaching as personal commitment. The main question is not so much about the change of teaching practices, but their beliefs that drive these current teaching practices. Belief is something that will have developed over time and is not open to change instantly. Thus, it is important to accept where the teachers are, and try to understand what they think and why they do what they did, and start from there. Understanding teachers’ views and perceptions enable us to explore the feasibility of DGBL.

From the educators’ points of view, it is hard to justify the usefulness of playing COTS games (e.g. Angry Bird or Candy Crush) to learn mathematics. It should be noted that playing the games may not help children to develop explicit mathematics knowledge, but there are some implicit skills that could be learned, i.e. differentiate colours, identify targets and arrange the right steps. These are the skills that may relate to cognitive skills required to learn mathematics, such as analysis (differentiate colours and identify targets) and planning (arrange the right steps). However, not every educator could see the underlying benefits of computer games (e.g. Teacher D as one paradigmatic example).

It is also not unreasonable for teachers to indicate that computer games are not suitable for some mathematics topics – since pragmatically the curriculum is largely a collection of topics. For instance, to teach simultaneous equations, it could be hard to find a suitable educational or COTS game to teach the topic. Even if there is one, the schools may not have sufficient financial supports and the teachers may not have time, interest or expertise to manipulate the games for teaching. Even if one assumes that all these obstacles can be solved, there is a question of whether this innovation is worth the time spent. Would teachers spend a few weeks of their time to search, install, prepare, learn and play a computer game just to teach a small topic? Given the heavy workload in schools, it is unlikely that the use of DGBL would be considered.

However, there are benefits of computer games over and beyond their potential (or lack of) to teach mathematical topics as I will go on to discuss in the rest of this thesis.

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In this chapter, the teachers do not seem to aware of other learning possibilities with computer games other than DGBL. This thesis aims to help educators to see their personal teaching practices from a gaming perspective (outsider’s perspective), and how these relationships might lead to a new gaming pedagogy that complements their existing teaching practices. The motivating nature of computer games may supplement the conventional nature of mathematics pedagogy in schools.

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Chapter 6: Analysis of Students’