Text-messaging: A tool in mathematics teaching

CEBU, Philippines - In the advent of the mobile communication devices, a lot of people, especially the teens, are seen using mobile phones. Teenagers who are texting-while-walking (TWT) is an evidence that these ages are highly attuned to the use of these gadgets. This has already become a trend, which is strengthened by the network's promotion of unlimited text-messaging at a minimal cost, P10 for one day. However, there are lots of complaints from among the teachers that some students are texting inside the classroom even during class hours.

This cliché brought new enlightenment on integrating text-messaging in the mathematics teaching-learning process. A study was conducted at University of San Carlos during the second semester of the school-year 2013-2014. There were 41 students who were chosen as a sample of the study. All of them were teenagers (17 - 19 years old), who were in the second year of their accountancy course. Preliminary findings of the study revealed that all of these students have a mobile communication device. And, 70.73 percent of them have load every day, the remaining have load once a week, once a month, and when needed only. It was also found that the respondents  haven't tried the integration of text-messaging in mathematics teaching-learning process.

Within the duration of the research study, the teacher and the students interacted with each other exclusive of the things related to teacher-student teaching-learning process. The teacher sent text-messages to his/her students on the following: Updates  on exam schedules and results, updates on class standing, concepts that need to be super-emphasized because of constant use, enrichment items especially those students who performed low in the quiz and those who are shy during seat work, congratulatory remarks to those who scored high in the exams and those who did a nice participation in the discussion, follow-ups on activities that were not yet submitted, updates on new topics, critical thinking problems related to the day's discussion which will be voluntarily shown by the students during the next meeting,  "catch-up" items for students who were absent, and advance topic organization for the new lessons, like set of examples, and concepts. The teacher also sent trivia questions to the students worth certain points, which answer was explained by student volunteers during the next meeting.

At the end of the research, the pre-test and post-test results were analyzed. It showed a significant increase on the scores of the students during the post-test as compared with the pre-test. This implies that the integration of text-messaging was effective. The study also showed that the students agreed on the integration of text-messaging in mathematics teaching-learning process.

Here are some of the students' comments:

"It was interactive. We can communicate with our teacher continue to learn even after our class hours."

"Being a shy student inside the classroom, it helped raise questions and clarifications in the lessons by just texting my teacher."

"Even if I was absent, still I remain updated with the classroom activities because my teacher sent me messages on what went inside the classroom."

"I felt flattered when my teacher texted my on how well I explained the answer inside the classroom."

"I sometime felt nervous if I will get low scores in the seatwork, because for sure my teacher will text me."

These findings served as a springboard for further intensive researches on the use of text-messaging in mathematics teaching-learning process currently conducted by the teacher-researcher at the University of San Carlos. (FREEMAN)