Exploring a Blended Learning Model to Teach First Year Mathematics Education Students Trigonometry at a UoT

The study was performed on first year mathematics education undergraduate students using a Blended Learning Model (BLM). The students are digitally literate, mobile, flexible and socially collaborative in their learning process. A BLM is learner centred, shapes the resources and approaches to the needs of the learner. The model provides discovery learning with students constructing their own knowledge as autonomous learners. The National Senior Certificate (NSC) examinations in mathematics show that candidates perform poorly in trigonometry. Diagnostic reports outline errors and misconceptions for mathematics at secondary school level. The grade 12 mathematics scores indicate that these students had average scores. All the students were exposed to a Traditional Learning Model (TLM) at secondary school. The BLM through discovery learning will help the students to diagnose their own errors and misconceptions in basic trigonometry concepts. The activity theory framework was used. A group of 40 students were randomly selected to use a BLM to form the experimental group. A second group of 40 students were selected randomly as a control group. This group was taught using traditional teaching methods. Both groups were given the same learning content material. The pre-assessment and post-assessment scores were quantitatively analysed for both groups. Further the BLM students were clinically interviewed and their protocols were analysed qualitatively. Results indicate that the BLM students exhibited better results quantitatively. The qualitative analysis indicated that errors and misconceptions were minimised in the BLM group. The BLM group performs better than the control group.