Over 80 primary school teachers in Dominica have been exposed to new revised edition of the Caribbean Primary Mathematics text series for teaching Mathematics in the classroom.
Assistant Chief Education Officer Dr Jeffery Blaize says the new revised series was prepared by educators of the region including Dominica, to create more relatable content for students. “Gone are the days when we would have material that would have content that is not totally relevant to students” he said, “today thankfully, because of several different factors, we are able to make material more contextually relevant for our students.”
Facilitator of the workshop, Mrs Katie McKenzie-Stuart says this new revised series adopts proven teaching techniques from Singapore and Shanghai while maintaining relevance to each region. “When we were doing this edition of the Caribbean Primary Math, we were very aware of some of the new ideas about teaching maths that have come from this thing called the Mastery Approach that came from Singapore and Shanghai and is being adopted in some parts around the world. We absolutely try and make sure we cover the content for a specific country, region for their syllabus but try and bring in some new approaches as well that have been proven to work in other parts of the world.”
Meanwhile, teachers appeared content with the workshop and seemed eager to use their newfound knowledge in the classroom. "Not only will the students benefit from such a workshop, but the teachers will also benefit from the different skills…” said Mr Hubert Lee of the Savanne Paille Primary school.
Wotten Waven Primary’s Mr. Ambrose also told GIS “I think this material will go a long way in that the children will have more activities in a much simpler way and give the teachers an easier tool to transmit the math content to the children. So, I think this program Hodder is a welcome initiative at this time.”
Hodder Education, part of the Hodder Education Group, has been working with schools and colleges, expert authors and awarding organisations for many years to create quality print and digital resources. They support teaching and learning throughout the world, providing coverage for KS3, GCSE, IGCSE, IB and A level alongside numerous vocational qualifications. Hodder Education also creates specific resources for the Caribbean and Singapore.