A study on the use of collaborative learning to enhance mathematical understanding among elementary students

Abstract

This study investigated the use of collaborative learning to enhance mathematical understanding among elementary students. This study will give an overview on the usage of collaborative learning in mathematical teaching and learning as an interactive and interesting alternative approach that helps in enhancing mathematical understanding of learners. Mathematics may be regards as hard and difficult subject by most learners as they tend to be learning this subject in more traditional approach. This study focuses on the objective to study the interactions of the students during the collaborative learning activities, to investigate students’ perception and attitude towards collaborative learning as well as the effectiveness of collaborative learning in enhancing student’s mathematical understanding. This study employed the qualitative approach by combining the Communication Study Framework by Sfard and Kieren (2001) and The Pirie-Kieren Theory (1992,1991). The data collected from selective respondents were analysed through the recorded videos of the mathematics lessons on selected sub-topic. From the data, the respondents indicated active interactions during the tasks, and it also indicated that by having collaborative learning, respondents have positive perceptions and attitudes based on their active participations during the group discussions. From the data as well, the respondents’ portrayed appropriate level of mathematical understanding based on the selected topic.