PEER INTERACTIONS AND POSITIVE STUDENT-LECTURER RELATIONSHIP AS A TOOL FOR IMPROVING THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF COLLEGE ALGEBRA: A CASE STUDY AT USIU

Abstract

This paper sets out to interrogate the role played by peer interactions in the teaching and learning of College Algebra in a classroom setting. It also explores the impact of positive student-lecturer relationship on teaching and learning of College Algebra at the university level and the general improvement of student performance. The instrument of data collection herein comes from observations made from the classroom teaching, interviews with students and from questionnaires administered to students who willfully and voluntarily filled them in. The findings indicate that indeed students’ classroom participation during College Algebra lessons is influenced by the kind of feedback they get from their colleagues. The peer interaction is very crucial in their learning as they are more active when they get positive feedback and are withdrawn when their colleagues ‘response is negative. It was also established that the lecturer-student relationship during College Algebra classroom lessons can create either a positive or negative impact on the students learning process and hence the overall performance in College Algebra examinations’. Further research in this direction can play a major role in resolving some of the challenges facing the teaching and learning of mathematics in general and College Algebra in particular.

Key words:     Mathematics,  Peer interaction, Lecturer-Student               relationship, challenges, teaching, learning and performance.