Graphing Calculator Strategies PDF Download

Chapter 1 provides a review of the literature on the effects of using graphing calculators on students' mathematics achievement. General findings suggest that calculators can have a positive effect on students' performance on assessments. In particular, students using graphing calculators seem to do better on some types of problems, such as those requiring translation between different representations of a function, and perform about the same as students without calculators on procedural symbolic-manipulation problems. In order to identify possible mechanisms for these changes, the chapter explores four possible reasons for students' improved performance: improved representational fluency, wider repertoire of solution strategies, increased reification of mathematical concepts, and changes in classroom processes. While the general trend of improved achievement appears robust, none of the four hypothesized reasons for improvement were substantiated by enough data to be confirmed. While it appears that the basic effects of graphing calculators are relatively well determined, mechanisms for those effects are poorly understood. Chapter 2 presents the result of a study whose goal was to investigate how the presence of graphing calculator technology influences the mathematical ideas that students encounter while solving algebra problems. Thirty-three Algebra II students, divided randomly into two conditions, participated in task-based interviews. In one condition, students were encouraged to solve algebra problems using their graphing calculator, and in the other condition, students solved the same problems with no access to technology. Results indicate that when students used graphing calculators, they were more likely to interpret letters as variables rather than fixed unknowns, used a wider range of strategies, were more likely to use more than one strategy to solve a problem, and expressed deeper levels of conceptual understanding. The differences in conceptual understanding and interpretation of letters were strongly related to the types of strategies that students used to solve problems, with graphing and tables encouraging more sophisticated interpretations and evidence of conceptual understanding.