Developing Students' Creativity and Promoting Achievement by Using Peer-Tutoring as a Strategy for Teaching School Geometry in Taraba State, Nigeria

Abstract

Research is replete with evidence indicating that classroom practices in the state of Taraba particularly and in Nigeria generally are predominantly teacher-centred. Teacher-centred classroom activities have evidently been shown to be largely responsible for students' under-achievement in school geometry in Taraba state. In this approach, students learn geometry in passive situations instead of being active. On the other hand, the teacher, viewed as the major actor, employs and emphasizes routine arithmetic which encourages geometry students to not only repeat activities but also memorize materials. The consequence of this is that students merely become able to carry out straight-forward calculations or computations and less able to understand geometrical/mathematical ideas. The result is that they achieve poorly in the subject (geometry). On the other hand, research evidence clearly indicates that when learners are made to be the focus of geometry instruction, they are made to think and to participate actively in the teaching/learning process. Active participation leads to greater achievement in geometry. This investigation is to explore the use of peer-tutoring as a teaching strategy for making students learn geometry actively and to develop abilities for critical thinking and being creative. To achieve this, students were made to work in small groups as peers to actively think and make sense of given properties of geometric figures like rectangles, triangles, trapezia, and so on. The study employed the use of quasi-experimental design for its conduct. A sample of 176 Senior Secondary Two (SS2) students (88 males and 88 females) was randomly taken and used, using cluster random sampling. Six (6) research questions guided the conduct of the study and three (3) null hypotheses were formulated for testing at the 0.05 level of significance. Two instruments were used to get information i.e., Properties of Geometric Figures Test (PGFT) and Geometry Performance Test (GPT). To analyze data, mean, standard deviation and t-test were used. Based on findings, recommendations were made.