The study entitled “Transformative Professional Development for Mathematics Teachers” talked about issues regarding with the difficulty of teachers and students on handling mathematics as a tool for learning, and Philippines being one of the few countries who need to improve its mathematics system of education. As I have read the study, I learned that there are certain things and issues which serve as a reason why students had the difficulty to learn and cannot relate to mathematics, and why teachers also had the difficulty to teach and handle mathematics properly with their students. The researchers first introduced the problem of the study which I already stated above, this problem was taken into consideration that leads to the implementation of the transformative professional development training in mathematics, that eventually became the key to address students and teachers’ problems and issues regarding the said subject.
The educational research applied the qualitative method of inquiry that used interpretivism and criticalism as paradigms. For this case, I learned that interviews and discussions were completed by the researchers. This inquiry had a goal of engaging people on critical understanding and awareness in which making them act towards mathematics by means of transformative professional development. The researchers also stated the Taylor’s five aspects of knowing in transformative learning which made students embolden their critical thinking skills and abilities.
In addition, I discovered that developing and nurturing the mathematics education would become more relevant since there was a lack of consistency in terms of learning and managing mathematics. Rural regions were found to be the best location to utilize transformative learning due to a limited source of facilities and teaching strategies, and the availability of the environment were also considered. A number of 250 students out from the four public schools were chosen by the three university researchers to participate in the said training together with the number of 28 secondary mathematics teachers.
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Personally, the participants showed a great enthusiasm and a willingness to adapt and experience the new learning strategies and make the best out of it brought by the transformative development training. Moreover, the educational study hoped to have a contribution in maintaining UNESCO’s “mathematics as a tool for learning”. The researchers’ way of collecting amount of data and observations were as great as they were. Using vernacular and English discussion in getting information from the participants, and by mentoring and interviewing both teachers and students helped this research successfully motivated and done as the researchers got spent a three-day workshop and making their observations in getting the data and the need information properly. As I have noticed in the study, it was said there that the whole process gave each and every participant to learn more and deeply understand the context of mathematics as they were writing journals with regards to their past activities.
Then, I realized how the transformative development training in mathematics brought the joyous and engaging way of learning the subject to the teachers and students affected by the lack of communication and resources which made them find the subject difficult to handle more specially to the students. I found out that the most popular issue with regards to learning mathematics was the interest of the students to learn the subject. Students had the difficulty in participating when it comes to sharing ideas about mathematics which then the reason why they could not relate mathematics in real life scenarios.
Similarly, teachers also had the difficulty on understanding the importance of mathematics in the real world, which caused the bridge of confusion, the lack of intellectual learning capacity, and the unhealthy relationship between the teacher and his/her student. I must say that these problems were probably the reasons why the country had its low percentage score in the performance of the National Achievement Test (NAT) in Mathematics. Most teachers in the participants confessed that they failed to had the best teaching strategies for their students and the lack of capacity to apply mathematics in their own perspective and to the environment. Subsequently, students had the trouble to develop and nurture their learnings and skills in mathematics.
In conclusion, the implementation of transformative professional development in mathematics paved the way in better understanding for teachers and students who had issues and problems handling mathematics as their tool for learning. Limited resources, lack of confidence, lack of critical thinking, and not so good communication and relationship between people are the most common reasons why people find it so hard to handle mathematics so well. Personally, I learned that opening our selves to a new friendly way and learning strategies helped us to improve and develop our understanding and knowledge about a certain subject especially mathematics. By the help of the transformative learning, I believe that it will be the best way to address our issues regarding mathematics and it will be the
