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

Teuta Iljazi, Ma.; Sadri Alija, MSc.IntroductionIn math classes at the BA Faculty, we deal with different kinds ofstudents: those that come from different places, from different schools, withdifferent grades and scores in mathematics, students that took math as part oftheir state Matura as well as those who did not. Some of our students alreadyhave good knowledge on the subject which is taught in their first year ofstudies, and some know nothing. This is probably one of the factors thatmake mathematics at our Faculty the least successful subject. This made ussearch for any of the factors that influence the final success of this subject atthe BA Faculty. The teaching methodology and the approach were crucial inthis process. Therefore, we tried to apply two approaches: with one half ofstudents we used the traditional approach (frontal teaching) and with theother we used small group work.ContentLearning math is most often done individually, with only paper and pen.This learning process is slow and boring and creates anxiety among thestudents as regards to math as a subject. It is often said that only talentedpeople can do math, but their number is very small. Based on human naturewhich has a need for security, support and help, we decided to try and teachmath (with one group of students) by placing them in small groups.What is a group and how is it defined? There are many definitions as faras the term group is concerned. Their study began in the 19th century bysome psychologists. Some of the definitions can be found in N. Rot (1983)who explains that according to Homans, a group is a certain number ofpeople who communicate among themselves for a given time frame. Thenumber is small enough to enable every member of that group tocommunicate with another one without the mediation of a third party. N. Rotalso offers the definition of Sherif & Sherif who define the group as a unit ofsociety comprised of a certain number of people that have certainrelationships among themselves about things that are important for the groupitself. Again, according to N. Rot, group definitions are not all-embracing,since they do not point out what type of group they are talking about. In ourcase, by saying a group, we mean a number of 5-6 students that have beenartificially structured, i.e. based on preset terms and conditions in order toachieve our aim of investigating the most effective teaching approach156