Several teachers share their ideas for classroom activities. These include: (1) combining science and art on Earth Day; (2) implementing an inexpensive incentive scheme to get students to bring their signed papers back to school on time; (3) involving students in a virtual zoo; (4) planting real grass in Easter Bunny baskets; and (5) creating own…

A wiki was used as part of a blended learning approach to promote collaborative learning among students in a first year university statistics class. One group of students analysed a data set and communicated the results by jointly writing a practice report using a wiki. A second group analysed the same data but communicated the results in a…

Drawing on research literature on online discussion and on reading and learning from the text, we argue that research on learning from text has much to offer but has been largely absent in informing the design and study of online learning environments. We propose several key issues to be considered in research and development of online discussion,…

This study explored the efficacy of web-based workshops in topics in elementary school mathematics in fostering teachers' confidence and competence in using instructional technology, and thereby promoting more positive attitudes toward using computers and Internet resources in the mathematics classroom. It consisted of in-depth interviews of…

In this article, the author discusses the instructional challenges faced by educators this year in the 12,500-student Recovery School District (RSD), the state-run system that took over most of New Orleans' public schools after the storm in August 2005. Roughly 85% of the district's students scored at least two years behind grade level in reading…

The challenge many teachers face is how to incorporate new technology into their classrooms that strengthens classroom learning by capitalizing on students' media literacies. Blogs, a new and innovative technological tool, can be used in math and science classrooms to support student learning by capitalizing on students' interests and familiarity…

Powerful geometric software has been available to education for around 20 years but has not had the impact on teaching and learning of mathematics, science and technology that might have been expected. This is in contrast to the widespread adoption of software tools in the world outside education which use geometric algorithms to produce visual…

We provide an overview of the Calculus Pilot Project that was undertaken by the Rochester Institute of Technology in the 2001 and 2002 academic years. A brief discussion of demographics is followed by a description of three specific steps that, in concert, increased student success rates by over 16%. (Contains 3 tables and 5 figures.)

It is important for future teachers of mathematics to distinguish between technology as course content to be taught and technology as a teaching tool. This exploratory study examines prospective teachers' views of the role of technology in mathematics education before, during, and after their experience in a mathematics class that focused on…

Podcasts are a great way to expand learning beyond the four walls of the classroom or library. Just imagine taking the students on a tour of the great halls of the Louvre one day and the high-altitude plains of the Peruvian altiplano the next. This and more can be done with podcasts, episodic digital files that are the 21st-century equivalent of…

Mathematics can be perceived as being a difficult subject to learn due to the conceptual leaps required to understand particular mathematical topics. In some areas of mathematics, part of the difficulty may be associated with applying sufficient imagination to visualize a particular mathematical concept, and applying sufficient visio-spatial…

The research question addressed by this study is whether or not students made effective use of dynamic geometry software to explore the validity of a geometrical statement. Particular attention was paid to the use of definitions and the types of justifications students employed. Interviews conducted with six secondary mathematics preservice…

The title may appear daunting, but the exercises, which can be presented to students from middle school to graduate school, are not. The exercises center on creating fractal images in the xy-plane with free. easy-to-use software and questions appropriate to the level of the student.

There is a significant gap between theories of general psychological functions on one hand (e.g., memory) and theories of mathematical content knowledge on the other (e.g., content of algebra). To better guide the design of ground breaking and demonstrably better mathematics instruction, we need instructional principles and associated design…

In this paper, a central claim will be that one of the most important influences that technology should have on mathematics education is that many of the most important goals of mathematics instruction should consist of helping students develop powerful, sharable, and re-usable conceptual technologies for constructing (and making sense) of complex…