Project News

The first Joint Coordination Committee took place on 3rd of February 2017. The work plan, the editing guidelines for the student textbooks and teacher's guides, and the activity schedule of the project up to April 2017 were discussed and agreed by the Committee. Despite the fact that the revision of the mathematics national curriculum is in progress and the project team has not been able to officially start working on the development of mathematics textbooks and teacher's guides, various project activities are ongoing.

The project team conducted a situation analysis on mathematics education in 2 lower secondary schools in the capital city and 2 lower secondary schools out of the city on 15th and 16th of February in order for the project team to understand the actual situation on mathematics education at the lower secondary education in Guatemala and to share it among the project members. The study included mathematics test of second grade students, observation of mathematics lessons, and interviews with mathematics teachers. As a result of the study, the project found that most teachers use difficult questions to explain new concepts and spend much time in explaining them; hence students have difficulty to understand them and have less time to think and solving the questions. Furthermore, the majority of interviewed teachers missed teaching many units included in the national curriculum due to lack of time and/or their scarce expertise.

Based on these findings, the project team will focus on improvement of basic skills in student's textbooks and develop user-friendly teacher's guides to respond to the current needs of lower secondary mathematics education in Guatemala.

The first Joint Coordination Committee held on 3rd of February, 2017

Students taking mathematic tests as a part of the study for situation analysis

Observation of a mathematics lesson as a part of the study for situation analysis

Interview to a mathematics teacher as a part of the study for situation analysis