Learning and Participation in High School Classrooms

In this chapter, we report quantitative and qualitative findings of a curricular approach to investigating quadratic and exponential functions in conjunction with the representationally rich software. The quantitative findings we report demonstrate the positive effects SimCalc has on student learning in comparison to similar algebra classrooms, as measured by pre and posttests. The qualitative findings show us the positive effects SimCalc has on students’ participation in the SimCalc environment through participatory discourse where students partake in mathematical communication to add ideas, justify their ideas, and challenge one another’s ideas about varying rate using the various representations available in the SimCalc technology. We present our qualitative findings through two classroom case studies in which we analyze the classroom discourse.

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