Prospective Elementary School Teachers’ Use of Graphing Calculators to Solve Systems of Linear Equations and Inequalities

Abstract

This study involved three classes of prospective teachers. In a pilot study a class of prospective lower secondary school mathematics teachers participated in the development of an integrated unit on solving systems of linear equations and systems of linear inequalities using graphing calculators. The unit was then presented to two classes of pre-service elementary school teachers. Results showed that one of the two classes of prospective elementary school teachers performed at a comparable level to the pilot class of secondary school teachers. Findings also confirmed that both classes of future elementary school teachers performed on the calculator-based activities at a level that was consistent with their overall performances in their mathematics content classes. Analysis of the students' errors in solving the linear systems revealed that most of the non-computational errors were errors of omission or errors due to a lack of familiarity with properties of linear graphs or with how to interpret order relations graphically.