Students Enhancements on Learning integers Utilizing Geogebra

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

One of the main reasons why students tend to develop math anxiety is because of the lack of basic foundation of concepts towards the subject which is manifested during secondary level in Elementary Algebra. Geogebra is described as a free and multi-platform dynamic mathematics software for schools which has the capacity to combine in one intuitive interface the dynamic geometry software and the computer algebra system. With this, the researchers aim to strengthen mathematical foundation specifically in learning integers by finding some alternatives in effective teaching utilizing Geogebra and determining how students learn at their best, which leads to the researchers to create and develop learning materials that will hopefully ease the math anxiety of the students.

METHODS

This quasi-experimental study aimed to determine the enhancements developed among 28 Grade 7 students on learning integer operations using Geogebra. Geogebra is an open source software used in teaching mathematics. It has the capacity to visualize and aid in performing the four operations (addition, multiplication, subtraction, and division) of integers. Learning trajectories were crafted to aid students and researchers in the activities done in this study.

RESULTS

Based on the results of the study, Geogebra served as an environment for students to perform the 4 operations on integers through exploration, hands-on and visualization as observed in the developed praxeology. There were better interactions between students and their teacher in the treatment group. With the results obtained, it is observable that there is really a significant difference in the performance of both classes in the posttest as justified by the group statistics in bearing a significant value of 0.034 using t-test. Thus, the null hypothesis is rejected. This indicates that the 2 groups coming from different knowledge base in integers elicits different performance and abilities in the posttest. Students from the treatment group performed better than the control group.

DISCUSSIONS

Geogebra serve as a learning environment for students to gain further interactions with the integers instead of just dealing on it in an Abstract manner. Hence, it's an effective aid for an innovative teaching strategy. The students being taught with Geogebra learned and retained well their acquired knowledge than students with traditional teaching method. Hence, Geogebra has the capacity of enhancing students' performance as justified by the results of this study.