Performance of students in WAEC/NECO SSCE 2000 – 2013 mathematics result continually reported as poor even with no. with credit pass less than 50%. Ochepa (2007) saying its more of a global issue with one of the factors as the methods of presentation, this is supporting Salau (2002), Etukodu (2006), Emaikwu (2012) etc emphasizing bad methods of teaching. Observations point at the use of Conventional Teaching Strategies as cause for the decimal performance. Sec. curr. clearly pro-activity, but teachers ignore such making learners passive in the class.

1. Activity-Based Learning Strategies
[ABLS]
By
Dr. A. K. D. Dangpe (MSTAN, FCAI) & Mr. G. G. Golji
Department of Mathematics
Federal College of Education, Pankshin
Plateau State
Nigeria.

2. Introduction
Performance of students in WAEC/NECO SSCE 2000 –
2013 mathematics result continually reported as poor
even with no. with credit pass less than 50%.
Ochepa (2007) saying its more of a global issue with one
of the factors as the methods of presentation, this is
supporting Salau (2002), Etukodu (2006), Emaikwu (2012)
etc emphasizing bad methods of teaching.
Observations point at the use of Conventional Teaching
Strategies as cause for the decimal performance.
Sec. curr. clearly pro-activity, but teachers ignore such
making learners passive in the class.

3. Introduction Continue
• With the importance of maths. in different
fields, its worrisome of the situation on
ground, thus the move for ABLS towards some
improvement.
• NPE has maths as core for primary to
secondary for sound base for scientific &
reflective thinking as well as for future.
Imagine its utility in day-day interaction to
both literate and ‘illiterate’.
• Its requirement for most courses at tertiary &
how many cannot meet their dream career
without it. Thus the call for a paradigm shift.

4. ABLS
• Describes a range of pedagogical approaches to
teaching. Emphasis on learning as some hands-
on, minds-on and hearts-on activities.
• Rooted in Constructivists Psychologists theories
– learner be given opportunity to explore
environment. Students actively construct their
own learning.
• Learners don’t need to be told what will happen
but experiment and find results.
• Some examples of ABLS are: collaborative,
group or cooperative, active, discovery, ASEI etc.

5. Collaborative approach
• It is a philosophy of interaction & lifestyle for
actions, learning & respect for peer contributions.
• A personal philosophy with some sharing of
authority & acceptance of group responsibility
based more on consensus building thro
cooperation by group members, no competition.
• Practitioners apply this philosophy generally as a
way of living. Authors see this as a means of
learners owning learning outcomes & put in their
best.

6. Group work or Cooperative learning
• Bringing learners in groups to perform task or
discuss issues supervised by the teacher.
• Students learn from one another thro this
type of grouping.
• Preparing learners to learn to work in groups,
very important for future labour market.
• Requires students engagement in activities
within same group over a time period with
shared outcomes.

7. Active Learning
• Experiences that stimulate mental activities
leading to meaningful learning.
• Direct learning (ideas from books, teaching,
radio etc) to learning by discovery (from
experiment, observation etc) or as in design
project and other problem-solving task.
• Educationally, productive mental activity can
occur with or without physical activity of
`doing’.

8. Discovery Approach
• Activity design for student thro mental process finds
concepts and principles.
• An unstructured exploration resulting in mental process as
observing, measuring, classifying etc & drawing conclusion
from.
• A method that encourages learners take more active role in
their learning process.
• Learning thro classification & schema formation depending
on given guidance.
• 3 levels of guidance are: pure discovery, guided & expository
discovery.
• Teachers should lead students to construct own knowledge
by discovering it themselves without explanation. If guided,
should be suitable ones to prevent going astray.

9. ASEI/PDSI
• Outcome of FME & Japan International Cooperation
Agency (JICA) in 2005.
• Their 2005 baseline study at primary revealed
serious challenges in maths teaching as CTS was
dominant making learners passive.
• ASEI/PDSI stand for Activity, Students’ Experiment
and Improvisation thro Plan, Do, See and Improve
anchored on Kenya-Japan adopted method of
teaching.
• It involves students and teachers in Experiment &
Improvisation called ASEI thro the PDSI approach.

10. ASEI/PDSI continue
• Kenya & some African countries adopted it when they
had similar situation of low performance.
• ASEI uses the cyclic instructional process of PDSI.
• ASEI/PDSI reduces teacher’s work of teaching to
facilitation, the main work is only during planning.
• Main features of ASEI/PDSI that distinguishes it from
others are its demand for activity, rationale, timed
stages of presentation, worksheets, cyclic nature,
reporting by learners etc.
• Learners responsibilities of their own learning
involvement increases.
• A run thro its template of lesson note throws more
light to our discussion for better understanding or
picture of how its works.

11. A template of an ASEI lesson plan
• Just as other lesson note formats, the differences
are mainly in the areas mentioned above. The
lesson procedure has five columns as in main text.
Stage/Time Teacher’s Activity Students’
Activity
Learning Points Remarks
Introduction
(timed up).
List teacher’s
expected guiding
questions.
List students’
expected
responses.
Clear students’
expected key
points.
Your observed
comments on
the lesson.
Concept
development
in steps &
timed.
What the teacher
would doing
during whole
process.
What the
students’
would be
doing.
Expected
learning points
to be achieved.
Strengths &
Weaknesses.
Evaluation
timed.
Followed by
conclusion
Design question
task test attain.
Expected
summary or
otherwise.
List student
expected resp.
Learners note
harmonization
& misconcept.
Consolidate
concepts/skills.
Forming
correct
hypothesis.
- do -

12. Conclusion
• Be guided by the Constructivist submissions of
children are active learners rather than
passive recipients of information.
• Provide them with opportunities explore their
environment to construct new ideas.
• As teachers, facilitate not telling.
• Lets shift from teacher-centered to student-
centered learning.

13. Recommendation
• We should try to embrace ABLS as teachers,
especially ASEI/PDSI model.
• Embrace improvisation of locally available
materials within for meaningful learning.
• Change is difficult, but lets try to shift from
the teacher-centered to learners-centered
approach.
• Adapting the good part of Constructivist
theories is recommended proper care of
individual differences.

14. Thanks and good Bye.