This paper concerns the analysis of a didactic engineering, the aim of which is to introduce Calculus, at secondary-school level, through the relationship between global and local points of view. It was designed for a graphic-symbolic calculator environment and structured in accordance with a learning trajectory from identifying the graphical…

If students are to understand inferential statistics successfully, they must have a profound understanding of the nature of the sampling distribution. Specifically, they must comprehend the determination of the expected value and standard error of a sampling distribution as well as the meaning of the central limit theorem. Many students in a high…

As part of the "Car Lab Project," students constructed rubber band cars, raced them, and worked through a number of automotive activities. The students engaged in this project certainly had fun, but they also used high-tech gear such as motion sensors and graphing calculators to gather data on the distance and time cars traveled and to generate…

Our students like using the covers of their TI graphing calculators in an inquiry-based extension of a traditional exercise that challenges their preconceived ideas about friction. Biology major Fiona McGraw (Fig. 1) is obviously excited about the large coefficient of static friction ([mu][subscript s] = 1.3) for the four little rubber feet on her…

In this article, the author focuses on possible ways to develop the concepts of joint variation and function through the upper primary and lower secondary years of education. The examples demonstrate the building of a range of important mathematical ideas by modelling life-related situations using students' informal and intuitive knowledge. Over…

Cryptology, the science of secret writing, is a great way to introduce students to different areas of mathematics such as number theory, linear algebra, probability and statistics. Cryptology consists of two branches: cryptography and cryptanalysis. Cryptography is the science of designing techniques for encrypting and decrypting a message.…

Much like a physical prism, which displays the frequency components of a light wave, Fourier analysis can be thought of as a mathematical prism that can tell us what harmonics or frequency components are contained in a recording of a sound wave. We wrote the MacScope II program so that the user could not only see a plot of the harmonic amplitudes…

Because technological pedagogical content knowledge is becoming an increasingly important construct in the field of teacher education, there is a need for assessment mechanisms that capture teachers' development of this portion of the knowledge base for teaching. The paper describes a proposal drawing on qualitative data produced during lesson…

The most recent amendments to the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA; 2004) and the regulations of the No Child Left Behind Act (2002) emphasize teaching general education curriculum to students with disabilities whenever possible. As a result, the majority of students with mild disabilities are educated in the general classroom,…

Graphing calculator use is often thought of in terms of pre-calculus or continuous topics in mathematics. This paper contains examples and activities that demonstrate useful, interesting, and easy ways to use a graphing calculator with discrete topics. Examples are given for each of the following topics: functions, mathematical induction and…

This article describes a hands-on activity that explore weaving patterns of the Tellem people. It includes a graphing calculator program that simulates the weaving pattern.

Many popular mathematical software products including Maple, Mathematica, Derive, Mathcad, Matlab, and some of the TI calculators produce incorrect graphs because they use complex arithmetic instead of "real" arithmetic. This article expounds on this issue, provides possible remedies for instructors to share with their students, and demonstrates…

Documents the experiences of 25 first-year university students with regard to the kinds of tasks calculus instructors should design in order to engage students in mathematical practices that often require the use of a graphing calculator. (MM)

An intuitive derivation of Stirling's formula is presented, together with a modification that greatly improves its accuracy. The derivation is based on the closed form evaluation of the gamma function at an integer plus one-half. The modification is easily implemented on a hand-held calculator and often triples the number of significant digits…

This article describes a solution, using CAS, to graph theory problem that was presented in the movie "Good Will Hunting."