Abstract:
In the near future many teachers may be required to incorporate CAS into their
teaching practices. Based on classroom observations and interviews over two
years, this paper reports how two teachers made the transition from using graphics
calculators to CAS calculators while teaching differential calculus to upper
secondary school students. Both teachers taught with CAS in ways that were consistent
with their beliefs about learning and teaching. Over two years, the teachers'
teaching approach and purpose for use of technology were stable and seemed to
be underpinned by their beliefs about learning. In contrast, both teachers made
changes to the content they taught (and thus what they used technology for)
in response to new institutional knowledge. Content choice seemed to be underpinned
by the teachers' purpose for teaching. Two other influences impacted on what
the teachers taught and how they taught it: the teachers' own content knowledge,
and the lack of legitimacy of CAS as a tool for learning and assessment in the
trial school and wider educational community. The extent of differences noted
between the responses of just two teachers indicates that there will be many
responses to using CAS in classrooms, as teachers aim to achieve different learning
goals and interpret their responsibilities to students in different ways.