Preparing future mathematics teachers to teach with technology.

Abstract

The use of technology in the classrooms brings out new teaching methodologies, especially in teaching mathematics. In a teacher preparing courses, besides working out examples of activities and training students to use technological equipments, it is necessary to educate future teachers about the potentialities of technology as teaching aid, and the right choice of teaching strategies. The recommendations for profile of a modern teacher of mathematics, from Teacher Standards of many countries including Brazil, cite the importance of the recognition of technology as powerful communication media to be taken into teaching/learning situation. Also, they point out the importance of calculators and educational software as teaching/learning aid, especially in problem solving with real data. Consequently, these recommendations require a proper preparation of future teachers to be able to select the right technology for each educational situation and to analyse the information, in order to take the best advantage of new methodologies.

The aim of this paper is to present a description of a discipline that is designed to attend this aspect of preparation of modern teacher of mathematics, of the curriculum of mathematics course of Federal University of S? Carlos, Brazil. This discipline presents and explores different kinds of educational technology, such as videos, educational sites in Internet, educational software (computer algebra systems, dynamic geometry systems, spreadsheet programs, graphic calculators), it analyses the advantages and the limitation of different types of educational software, and it guides the student to understand the meaning of doing mathematics with technology in basic school mathematics as well as the different teaching/learning strategies appropriate to each technology. The paper discusses the objectives of the discipline, its contents, the outcomes and reactions from the students. The experiences with the discipline since 2001 are producing good effects on new teachers who are working now in basic schools.