Teachers' Instructional Practices within Connected Classroom Technology Environments to Support Representational Fluency

摘要

The purpose of this study was to investigate the ways that teachers use connected classroom technology (CCT) in conjunction with the Texas Instruments Nspire calculator to potentially support achievement on Algebra problems that require translation between representations (i.e., symbolic to graphical). Four Algebra I classrooms that initially evidenced pre-test scores below 50% but the highest and lowest gain scores from pre- to posttest were selected for this study. Classroom episodes revealed differences in how these teachers created opportunities for interpretation of and translation between representations. Teachers in high-gain classes afforded students opportunities to interpret representations within real-world scenarios, use multiple representations simultaneously, and discuss translations between representations. Students and teachers in high-gain classrooms also co-constructed translations between representations. In contrast, teachers in low-gain classrooms fostered environments wherein students interpreted representations superficially, used representations independent of one another, and generally observed rather than enacted translations.