Integrating Technology with Mathematics Teacher Preparation

Abstract

It has become increasingly evident that the use of technology can facilitate mathematics education. If we want to design a strong mathematics teacher preparation program that is consistent with the reform of mathematics, we must emphasize the infusion of technology into the program. Important aspects of doing so include integrating the use of technology into mathematics content and methods courses, designing and offering at least one specific technology course, implementing technology in students' field experience activities, and conducting research on the effects of using technology on teacher preparation. The mathematics education faculty should work collaboratively with mathematicians on exploring how to integrate appropriate technology into college mathematics courses. The initial step may include using computer algebra software such as Maple and graphing calculators such as TI-86 or TI-92 in the calculus courses. These technologies have been found by many mathematicians to be a great help in facilitating dynamic and interactive visualization for calculus concepts and problems, and in linking the visualization to the numerical and symbolic aspects of calculus to develop students' conceptual understanding. At the same time when calculus courses are so benefited from technology, statistics software such as Datadesk and graphing calculators that have statistics component should be used in statistics and probability courses. Within the mathematics methods course, technology should be used for investigations, applications, communications, problem solving, and a suggested teaching tool. The preservice teachers should be expected to write their essay questions, create sketches to illustrate points of their discussion, and utilize a variety of tools including technology to analyze problem situations or interpret data. At least one specific technology course should be designed and offered to the mathematics preservice teachers. This course could be named “Learning Mathematics with Technology”, which treats the preservice teachers as learners of school mathematics in technology-rich environments. The emphasis of this course should be on exploration of various mathematics contexts to learn mathematics, to pose problems and problem extensions, to solve problems, and to communicate mathematical demonstrations by using various software applications and graphing calculators. Students' classroom explorations, follow-up investigations, and projects that require the full range of mathematical work in technology-rich environments should be major course activities. Sound pedagogical issues such as cooperative learning with technology, journal writing, and more general considerations of communications about, with, and through mathematics will be woven throughout.

As my suggestion, the technology activities in this course should involve the following:

1) Using the dynamic movement and dynamic measurement features of the Geometer's Sketchpad (GSP) to construct and investigate geometric shapes, explore geometric transformations, find out the relationships embedded in certain geometric phenomena and their real-world applications, and develop mathematical reasoning based on the electronic geometric models;

2) Using spreadsheets, graphing calculators, Calculator-Based Laboratory, World Wide Web, and other technology tools to explore real-world data collection, data analysis, and statistical concepts through multiple formats such as electronic index cards, tables, charts, and graphs;

3) Using spreadsheets and mathematical microworlds to simulate probabilistic phenomena and explore both experimental and theoretical probability; and

4) Using the analytical component of GSP, spreadsheets, algebra software, and/or graphing calculators to explore algebraic operations, patterns and functions with multiple representations such as graphical, numerical, and symbolic representations.

The preservice teachers should implement the appropriate technologies and problem solving techniques that they learned in the technology course and other courses with the middle and high school students in their field experience activities. When they go to schools to visit mathematics classrooms, they should be expected to observe whether the children involve the use of technology in their learning and (if so) study the role of technology in helping the children's thinking. During their student teaching, it should be one of the requirements to use appropriate technology to lead their students to explore related mathematical concepts and problem solving. In order to constantly improve the practices mentioned above and make clear what is the correct direction to go, research should be conducted on how the preservice teachers adapt to and use technology in their learning and teaching of mathematics and how this use of technology affects their own and their students' learning and understanding of mathematics. A first stage of the research might be to study how the preservice teachers originally view the use of technology in the mathematics classroom and their possible attitude change during the technology course.