Revelations in the design of Educational Mathematical Software

Abstract

After three years of research involving the design of software for use during Secondary Education it became apparent that conventional software design processes did not produce software which satisfied the specific needs of individual teachers' styles, techniques, and their associated learning environments.

This paper relates the conduct of a case study in which a software product was produced for use in secondary education. This product was designed in cooperation with an Australian secondary school mathematics teacher. It was created to address an area which the teacher believed there to be a learning deficiency using conventional educational resources. The educational philosophy of the teacher dictated the way in which the software attempted to teach the subject area. The product was specifically designed to teach the relationship between different line representations; linking tabular data, ordered pairs, graphical and algebraic representations of a straight line.

This paper focuses on the design processes that were used to create the software in this case study. It examines the features incorporated into its construction that appealed to the educational user and these are then compared to the processes used in previous case studies. From this conclusions are drawn about what processes should be used to produce future educational software products, specifically relating to the interactions between the teachers and the software design team. Additionally the actual makeup of these educational software products is examined and product features that may result in the improvement of their acceptance into the classroom are discussed.