Professional Development of Mathematics Teachers in Najran: Opportunities and Challenges

Abstract

The present study aimed to identify the main opportunities with which professional development programs provide mathematics teachers at the Education Directorate at Najran. It also aimed to determine the most important challenges these teachers usually face at schools. Therefore, a four- aspect questionnaire to investigate the teachers' viewpoint about classroom teaching practices, resources of professional development, obstacles of professional development, in addition to opportunities and challenges of professional development programs was developed. Then it was delivered to (115) participants among which were (42) males and (73) females. They were all teaching mathematics at the three education stages at public schools at Najran in the academic year 2018/ 2019. The descriptive analytical approach was used to interpret collected data. Results indicated that professional development programs were very effective in improving mathematics teacher' classroom teaching practices, making them more aware of their professional development resources and more capable in distinguishing the main obstacles that hinder their profession. Findings also showed that there were significant differences between participants' responses due to gender in favor of females. Moreover, there were significant differences due to the educational stage in favor of the intermediate and secondary stages. There were also significant differences due to the number of programs teachers received in favor of more than five development programs. Nevertheless, there were no differences due to the teaching experience. Results also showed that the big increase in student's numbers inside classrooms, the length of the teaching material, the frequent absence of students, and the difficulty to follow up the latest in his area of specialty were the most important challenges facing mathematics teachers. Opportunities provided by professional development programs were not highly available because most of the required services mainly health ones did not exist.