Effect Of Geo-Board In Teaching And Learning Of Difficult Concept

INTRODUCTION
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Mathematics as a science subject is important that its usefulness in our present society cannot be emphasized. It is overtly that the subject Mathematics has been proved as an essential subject in primary and secondary schools in Nigeria today. But evaluations have shown that most students in different levels of education found it to be a stumbling block for most students of all level of education. At present, the growing dislike for Mathematics in our school and collages is alarming and if the situation is not bought to a halt, may ultimately be an obstacle to our future scientific development.
The decline in mathematics performance is due to poor method of teaching, lack of appropriate teaching media, even when those are available, it is not uncommon to see teachers of mathematics teaching their students without it (Obodo 1993)
Geoboard was invented by an English mathematician and pedagogist caleb Gattegno, the globoard was designed as a manipulative tools for teaching primary geometry in schools (William1999), Traditionally made out of plywood and nails, geoboard today are usually made out of plastic and come in a variety of different size and colours, Rubber bands are placed around the nails or pegs to form different
shapes. As learning tools, it provides means to act upon the world and can be used as cognitive scalfold that facilitate the extension of knowledge (Salomon and perkins 1998 in mclnerey 2002). The geoboard is versatile and can be used at all level for teaching and learning about different areas of mathematics, it has found to be a particularly useful and for investigational and problem solving approaches (carrol 1992). There is no set sequence to use with geoboard when using them to teach mathematical concept and so, is an easy to incorporate into mathematics units and learning sequence like every tools, however, time need to be allowed for free play, so that students have the opportunity to exploit and experiment with new equipment. Another advantage of geoboard is its design, as it allows for even young children and those who may experience difficulty in drawing shapes, to construct and investigate the properties of plane shapes. He also suggested that geoboard can be used in different areas of mathematics, as in conjunction with isometric dot paper, so that exploration can be recorded easily (carrol 1992).
The area of mathematics in which geoboard can be used includes;
Plane shapes, transaction, reflection, co-ordination, counting, patterns, classification, area and perimeter. From this it can be seen that geoboard, can particularly support learning in the primary and secondary curriculum.
However Mathematics is an abstract subject and a concrete thing should be used in impacting idea. We use symbols to explain new concept but often children are not sufficiently conversant with the language and concept we are trying to explain.
As many topics in Mathematics depend on the understanding of previous topics (it is a logical subject) a gap in the knowledge of a particular child can make it impossible for him to learn future topics. The leads to failure and frustration and often hatred for the subject
Children learn more when they can combine the three areas of domain (affective, psychomotor and cognitive). They lean more using concrete materials such as geoboard to relate their observation.
Service on verge (2001) remarked that the greatest value of concrete materials is that they allow the pupils /students to acquire mental experience of the teacher.
Mathematics lesson, properly planed and well directed, is the key success and progress in the life of every student. These includes stating good behavioral objective, writing good lesson note, asking varied questions, evaluating the lesson effectively among others. In some vein, directing a mathematics lesson involve effective class control, adequate class participation, good verbal communication variety and variation and use of other teaching medium. These mentioned above are planned before mathematics lesson takes place in classroom.
One way of planning and directing a mathematics lesson is the provision and use of recent teaching media. Teaching media are all material or resource, which the teachers in fact the entire class utilize for the purpose of making teaching and learning more effective. Classroom teachers of mathematics are offered many teaching media of different quality. These teaching media provides a panacea for learning certain mathematics concept. It suffices to say that teaching media, appeal to several sense and may be characterized by the physical involvement of pupils in an active learning situation. In teaching mathematics we are primarily concerned with concept formation as opposed to the memorization of facts before teaching media is used in the following:-
1 Appropriateness of teaching media to the age of the
leaner for whom they are meant for.
2 It clarity in utilization and simplification of concept
3 It relevant to the lesson they are meant to serve
4 It adequate in size
5 It should be interesting to the learner, durable and
readily improvisable (Okpala 2005)
The mathematics teacher has to select teaching media that fit the above specification for this use. Since inadequate or not case of teaching media makes the student not to retain mathematical concept and consequently leading to poor performance in mathematical examination, it becomes necessary to improve teaching media for some mathematical concept.
Setiostro NH (2003), devised a simple and ingenious teaching medium (Geo- board) to help over come some problems encountered in teaching and learning of mathematics. This necessitate the need to explore how the geoboard can be used in teaching and learning of some mathematical concept and consequently its effects in the teaching and learning and learning of mathematics.

STATEMENT OF PROBLEMS
Sequel to the poor performance of student s in mathematics examination, some researcher have attempted to highlight various factors responsible, among which is, non-availability of teaching media (stern,M.K Grover,B.W, and Hennigsen M.A 1996). However, it has been observed that more of these researchers enquired into the individual effects of these teaching media in the teaching and learning some difficult mathematics concept. One should therefore ask; Are there any implication or effect of using this Geo-board in teaching and learning of mathematics concept;. The interest is to find out the effect of geoboard in teaching and learning of some mathematical concept.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The purpose of the study is to find the effect of geoboard in teaching and learning of difficult mathematics concept.

SPECIFICALLY THE STUDY WILL DETERMINE
1. Teachers opinion regarding the use of geoborad in secondary schools.
2. The extent of usage of geoboard in teaching and learning of difficult mathematics concept.
3. The people perception on the use of geoboard in teaching and learning of difficult mathematics concept.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The find and recommendation of the will be of great to the government, teachers, students and parents.
Further researchers will as well find this study very useful.
1. The Government will from the study make and also after going through this project will improve the quality of mathematics teaching in secondary and primary schools.
2. Teachers and students will from the study improve on the academic performance in learning and teaching of mathematics.
3. Parent will as well contribute in the provision of this geoboard to their children in learning mathematics and this will increase the understanding of the mathematics among students.
4. The students will clear the idea and view of the people and government about the effect of geoboard in teaching and learning of mathematics.