ERIC Number: EJ1118094
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2016-Oct
Pages: 27
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: EISSN-2014-3621
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Available Date: N/A
The Didactical Contract Surrounding CAS When Changing Teachers in the Classroom
Jankvist, Uffe Thomas; Misfeldt, Morten; Marcussen, Anders
REDIMAT - Journal of Research in Mathematics Education, v5 n3 p263-286 Oct 2016
The article discusses three empirical examples of Computer Algebra System (CAS) use in a Danish upper secondary school mathematics class that had experienced a recent change of teacher. All examples lead to didactical problems surrounding the situation and unclear expectations between teacher and students, involving loss of students' mathematical skills and confidence, loss of global mathematical perspective, and the students losing sight of the mathematical objects in question. The article is the result of collaboration between two mathematics education researchers and an upper secondary school mathematics teacher, who experienced severe difficulties when taking over a class from another teacher. CAS was experienced as a crucial part of and reason for these difficulties. As a means for investigating the potential reasons behind the difficulties, a selection of constructs from the Theory of Didactical Situations (TDS) is applied. In particular, it is observed that unclear contractual relations about the role of CAS bring with them misguided winning strategies and metacognitive shifts, eventually causing the students to "lose the game".
Descriptors: Algebra, Mathematics, Mathematics Education, Mathematics Instruction, Mathematics Teachers, Mathematics Skills, Foreign Countries, Secondary School Mathematics, Mathematical Formulas, Mathematical Concepts, Observation
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
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Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Denmark
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