Pre-School Teacher Subject Matter Knowledge for Teaching Informal Geometry: A Pilot Study

Informal geometry which is part of the early childhood mathematics education course is relatively new in public universities in our country. Even in private universities where it has been taught for quiet sometime, varying attention has been paid to it from it not being offered to being offered as an elective to a full course. This article examined pre-school teacher subject matter knowledge for teaching informal geometry. The theory of pre-assessment was used. The philosophy used was realism. Mixed methods were used and the sampling criteria was explanatory-exploratory in nature. 111 participants were involved in this study. The findings were that the respondents under study had an average SMK. Although this varied depending on a question to question analysis and a focus group discussion where they could not separate SMK questions from PCK, classroom practice, challenges and opportunities that they spelled out during the focus group. Respondents were employing some play based teaching such as free, inquiry, collaborative, learning through games, stories, project, art, physical education. They also had personal, management and curriculum related challenges although local outdoor environments and conditions were favourable for informal geometry teaching. The study recommended pre-testing of students to tailor instruction on understanding, introduction of high level content in informal geometry to strengthen students informal geometry background, a guided student centred curriculum, further research in other content strands, further capacity building and technical services to teachers, teacher trainers/educators and managers in play based learning and informal geometry teaching during and post the Covid-19 era.