- Title
- Researching the development of a programme that merges mathematics and music in Grade R
- Creator
- Stevenson-Milln, Carolyn
- Subject
- Mathematics Study and teaching (Elementary) Activity programs
- Subject
- Music and children
- Subject
- Music, Influence of
- Subject
- Music Africa
- Subject
- Action research in education
- Date Issued
- 2018
- Date
- 2018
- Type
- text
- Type
- Thesis
- Type
- Masters
- Type
- MEd
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10962/61928
- Identifier
- vital:28084
- Description
- This small-scale case study explores the potential for synergy between music and mathematics learning in early childhood education whereby music can be used to help enhance children’s mathematical proficiency. Informal observations of the young learners participating in an Early Number Fun programme initiated by the South African Numeracy Chair Project suggested that many children struggled to exercise executive functioning and self-regulated skills, and struggled also with fluency in basic numeracy concepts such as understanding pattern. This case study was set up to investigate the effect of the development and implementation of a programme in which African music and mathematics learning, (particularly in relation to pattern and sequencing) were blended. The study’s core aim was to contribute to strengthening learners’ executive function and self-regulated learning competencies, both of which are important to learners’ developing agency over their own learning. An Action-Research-embedded-in-Design-Research approach was employed. This allowed an iterative process in developing a new mode of learning through blending music and mathematics. The theory of enactivism provided a theoretical framework to the study. The basic assumptions of an enactive perspective are shared understanding and joint action through engagement (as exemplified through group interaction between learner and teacher, and learning through action). The programme was developed and implemented with ongoing refinements in two Grade R classrooms. Data collected through observation, interviewing, document analysis and the keeping of a reflective research journal, are qualitative in nature. Analysis of the data indicate that the use of African block notation, as a rhythmic medium was well within reach of the participating children, such that at the end of each 16 session intervention programme, learners at both research sites demonstrated their capacity to: • Focus their attention on one activity while a different activity was taking place alongside them. • Watch, listen and only then act. • Practise their numbers through play: to count out and to write up to 16 and beyond. • Notate, read and interpret rhythmic patterns through block notation and instrumentation. The findings suggest the intervention programme could be continued over a longer period for maximum benefit, possibly through following Grade R learners through to Grade 1. The findings further suggest that fun with rhythmic, number-based patterning can assist learners’ development of executive function and self-regulated learning skills.
- Format
- 174 pages
- Format
- Publisher
- Rhodes University
- Publisher
- Faculty of Education, Education
- Language
- English
- Rights
- Stevenson-Milln, Carolyn
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