Pedagogical Orientations in Mathematics and Science and the Use of ICT

Teachers’ pedagogical practices and the use of ICT in them lie at the core of the entire SITES survey program. The key concern driving policy and community interest in the pedagogical integration of ICT is the premise that ICT is important for bringing changes to classroom teaching and learning so as to foster the development of students’ 21st-century skills. Specifically, these skills include the ability to become lifelong learners within a context of collaborative inquiry and the ability to work and learn from experts and peers in a connected global community. In this chapter, we endeavor to answer the research question, “What are the pedagogical practices adopted by teachers in schools and how is ICT used in them?” We are also concerned with examining the impacts of ICT-use on teachers and students as perceived by the teachers themselves.

Before we report the actual findings, it is important to reiterate a point made in the sampling section in Chapter 2. While the samples of mathematics teachers and science teachers were drawn from the same set of sampled schools, they were treated as separate populations and the sampling weights were computed independently so as to permit generalizations on these two populations of Grade 8 teachers.