SEEU Review vol. 6 Nr. 2 (pdf) - South East European University

Teaching in Small Groups MotivatesLearningTeuta Iljazi, MASadri Alija, MSc (PhD Candidate)Assistant in Mathematics, Faculty of Business and EconomicsSouth East European UniversityAbstractThe aim of this research is to see students’ achievements in their first yearat the faculty of BA at SEEU in mathematics depending on the teachingmethodology, their previous knowledge, the type of secondary school theyattended as well as the success they had achieved in secondary school inmathematics. The link between students’ success in mathematics and theteaching methodology has also been identified. This was carried out bycomparing results when applying the traditional way of teaching as well asgroup methodology. We came to the conclusion that the most successfulapproach was small group work, since by utilizing this approach thestudents’ success improved considerably along with their attendance toclasses, interactivity and homework completion. There was also aquestionnaire that was given to both those learning in the traditional way andthose in small groups and we came to the conclusion that the latter was thepreferred approach by groups. By using logistic regression, we have come tounderstand more clearly the impact of small groups on the results inmathematics and then those results were used to identify the relationshipbetween teaching practices in class and the success/failure in mathematics.Small group work proved to be the most effective tool for improving thesuccess of students.Key words: group, group work, traditional teaching.153