Upper secondary school teachers’ views on CAS from an epistemic and pragmatic point of view

• Main Authors: Í Geil, Ragna, Heinesen Højsted, Ingi
• Other Authors: University of the Faroe Islands, Faculty of Education, Alfréd Rényi Institute of Mathematics, Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest, Paul Drijvers, Csaba Csapodi, Hanna Palmér, Katalin Gosztonyi, Eszter Kónya
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2023
• Subjects: Teachers’ views; CAS; representation competency; epistemic and pragmatic value of techniques; [MATH]Mathematics [math]; [SHS.EDU]Humanities and Social Sciences/Education; Faroe Islands
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-04410770; https://hal.science/hal-04410770/document; https://hal.science/hal-04410770/file/TWG15-Geil-878.pdf

International audience This paper reports on Faroese upper secondary school teachers’ perspectives on the benefits and challenges of using Computer Algebra Systems (CAS) in their mathematics classroom. The aim is to investigate to what extent teachers view CAS as a pragmatic calculating tool or as a contribution to mathematical learning, furthermore how they see CAS affecting students’ representation competency. Eight mathematics teachers from all five upper secondary schools in the Faroe Islands were interviewed using semi-structured interviews focusing on pragmatic value, epistemic value as well as representation competency. Hereafter, thematic analysis of the interviews was conducted. The analysis suggests that the teachers primarily see CAS as an advanced calculator and to a lesser extent a pedagogical tool supporting the students’ mathematical understanding. The visual aspects of CAS are seen as advantageous to support the students’ development of representation competency.