Main presenter
Co-presenter(s)
Name :
France Caron
Name:
Laurence Lachapelle-Bégin
E-mail:
france.caron@umontreal.ca
E-mail:
laurence.lachapelle-begin@polymtl.ca
Institution or
Company:
Université de Montréal
Name:
Kathleen Pineau
Department:
Didactique
E-mail:
kathleen.pineau@etsmtl.ca
City:
Montréal
Name:
State/Province:
Québec
E-mail:
Country:
Canada
Name:
Type of
presentation:
Lecture : 25 minutes.
E-mail:
Conference
strand and number:
ACDCA ,
Number:
A14
Schedule:
Room:
Thursday, 12h00
1340
Related website:
Title of
presentation:
Developing Control Over the Use of a CAS : the Teacher’s Perspective
Abstract:
École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS) is a technical engineering school where the use of a handheld Computer Algebra System (CAS) has been integrated in the first year common core mathematics and science courses. Since the fall of 1999, the TI CAS (TI-89, TI-92 Plus or now the Voyage 200) has been mandatory for all first-year students entering calculus. Students are expected to use it in class, at home, and during exams. A common culture for computer-assisted calculus has progressively emerged among teachers through the use of the same textbook for a given course, design of a common final exam for all groups, exchange of “good problems”, and ad hoc discussions. However, some interesting individual variations exist in the teaching and in the design of learning tasks given to students. In particular, though the objective of helping students develop mathematical control over the tool seems to be shared by all teachers, the strategies deployed to achieve such an objective may vary substantially from one teacher to the next. In this presentation, we will characterize the common features and individual variations of CAS-integration in the first calculus course at ÉTS based on data collected from five teachers. This is the first of a two-part study which will later look into the effects of the different teaching strategies on the effective control students display in solving calculus problems.