This paper describes how 8th grade students are using CBR, a motion detector linked to a graphing calculator, as a way of generating mathematical ideas regarding the motions concepts that surround their action. Students were previously introduced to the calculators in the classroom and teaching experiments were then carried out afterwards with a…

Presents an experiment carried out at the University of Groningen where pretest-posttest design was used including two experimental conditions with the graphics calculator (TI-81) and one control condition without the calculator. Results point toward a change in teacher instructional behavior and in pupils' problem-solving approaches. Contains 14…

Surveys a group of students who enrolled in a first year university mathematics course to study the impacts of graphing calculators on the Western Australian Tertiary Entrance Examination (TEE). Considers the perceptions of students on their use of and preparation to use graphing calculators. (ASK)

Focuses on the implications of key findings and theoretical positions from social and cognitive developmental psychology of the use of information technology (IT) tools to support learning in algebra. Presents evidence from a small-scale study of graphics calculators in Hong Kong that supports the feasibility of the UK Cognitive Acceleration…

This article describes a classroom activity in which a solar eclipse is simulated and a mathematical model is developed to explain the data. Students use manipulative devices and graphing calculators to carry out the experiment and then compare their results to those collected in Koolymilka, Australia, during the 2002 eclipse.

For many years, education researchers excited by the potential for digital technologies to transform mathematics teaching and learning have predicted that these technologies would become rapidly integrated into every level of education. However, recent international research shows that technology still plays a marginal role in mathematics…

The increasing availability of computer algebra systems (CAS) for the high school classroom is expected to have a significant effect on how algebra is taught, when it is taught, and the expected learning types. This paper reports on a computer algebra approach to the teaching of algebra to 13-16 year old students in a high school in Melbourne,…

This paper reports on a mathematics course in an Austrian high school that focuses on probability distributions. Students in this course used a TI-92 during math classes, at home for doing exercises, and during math tests. The TI-92 was used as a tool for calculations and illustrations making the concepts of probability distributions easy to…

This paper discusses how students' participation in conversation and classroom activities potentially evidences and constitutes their cognition. Participation is viewed in terms of reflective discourse, a construct from the literature, and is described in the context of two Year 11 students together designing a simple aplet for their graphics…

In his recent article in this journal, John Gough (2004) concludes that the practical results of the considerable academic research undertaken at the University of Melbourne into the uses and impacts of graphics calculators and CAS (computer algebra systems) should be made more widely available in journals for teachers. This short article is…

The paper concerns the analysis of the role of artefacts and instruments in approaching calculus by graphic-symbolic calculator at high school level. We focus on an element of the introduction of calculus: the global/local game. We discus the hypothesis that the zoom-controls of calculator support the production of gestures and metaphors that…

We present in this paper five case studies of instrumental genesis of number-theoretic concepts and techniques involving multiples, divisors, and numerical decomposition. The pupils, who were 12 to 15 years old, used the multi-line screen display of the graphing calculator to explore numerical tasks related to the "Five steps to zero"…

Investigates gender-related effects on the Western Australian Calculus Tertiary Entrance Examinations for the period 1995-2000, three years before and three years after graphics calculators were introduced. Considers students' total examination scores, scores on questions grouped by curriculum components, and students' use of graphics calculators…

This paper documents how eight high school students in a precalculus class enhanced with graphing calculators think about functions. Three models of thinking about functions emerged from students' function images observed over a period of 9 months. In the graph model, students believed that functions are essentially graphs; in the equation model,…

Explains how the graphing calculator can be used in simulations of physics experiments and how its use for plotting graphs requires a shift in emphasis from obtaining an experimental result to evaluating that result. (DDR)