REAL-WORLD PROBLEMS: TEACHERS’ EVALUATION OF PUPILS’ SOLUTIONS

This article scrutinizes the solutions of real-world problems by pupils and the evaluations of these by their teachers in a semi-rural school in Zimbabwe. Generally, real-world problems are solved as if these are standard problems expecting a solution and a correct answer. In most cases, the solutions of the pupils are considered correct by the teachers thereby suggesting teachers’ unfamiliarity with the nature of these problems. There is not much variation in the solution approaches among pupils as well as between pupils and teachers. As assessment in many ways dictates teaching, it is suggested to incorporate continuous assessment into the system, which should include more open ended tasks from real-world contexts. This may encourage teachers to include the same in their day to day teaching.