Abstract
This paper draws on research being developed within the teaching and learning strand of the Economic and Social Research Council InterActive Education Project, which is examining how new technologies can be used in educational settings to enhance learning. It focuses on the ways in which mathematics teachers can use digital tools for enhancing the learning of functions and graphs within a classroom setting. It includes a comparison of two teachers working with information and communications technology within their own particular contexts and circumstances, and by comparing and contrasting the two situations gives an indication of the complexity of their learning environments. It emphasises the role of the teacher in bringing together the potential disparate possibilities of exploration that ICT might allow for students and concludes that thinking about the effective use of ICT for learning requires an holistic understanding of how ICT is integrated within the classroom milieu as determined by the teacher, environment, software, individual students and collective activity.
Notes
InterActive Education: teaching and learning in the Information Age, project directed by Rosamund Sutherland, Peter John and Susan Robertson (www.interactiveeduction @bris.ac.uk).
The students in Rachel's class were given a diagnostic assessment before and after the design initiative. The questions were adapted from previous SATs tests (Standard Assessment Tests). A sample of six students representing a range of mathematical attainment, gender and ethnic mix were also interviewed as a group before and after the design initiatives. For the whole class 31% of the total number of questions were answered correctly by the class in the pre‐diagnostic assessment (with 23 students taking the assessment). After the design initiative 59% of the total number of questions were answered correctly by the class (with 20 students taking the assessment).
The students in Rob's class were given a diagnostic assessment before and after the design initiative. They were required to plot or sketch the graphs of three different quadratic functions. In the pre‐design diagnostic there were two correctly plotted graphs, and five graphs correctly plotted in the positive XY quadrant (seven out of a possible class total of 51–13.7%). In the post‐design diagnostic there were 22 correctly sketched graphs and 8 correctly plotted graphs (30 out of a possible class total of 54 graphs—55.6%). Interview data also gave an insight into the students' understanding of the effects of the parameters on the position and appearance of the graphs.
Note that new versions of graphics calculators allow some functions that Rachel's calculators did not, e.g. easy ways for students to project or exchange the work on their own calculator.
This contrasts with the ways in which young people engage with ICT at home (Facer et al., Citation2003).