Jessica Nuttall

Reader Response #1
Role of Technology in Teaching Mathematics
September 3, 2015
One of the big ideas discussed in these articles is that technology can
allow students and teachers to communicate their ideas quickly, clearly, and
in a variety of ways. There are a range of ways that technology can display
students work to the whole class. This allows students and teachers to share
ideas more frequently throughout the class period. This will allow students to
learn mathematics at a deeper level as they are able to share and discuss
ideas with their peers in class. This has the potential to help students stay
engaged as they share and explain their work to the class and along with
critically analyzing their peers work. The new technologies also allow
mathematics to be represented and explored in a variety of ways. This can
help students gain a deeper conceptual understanding of mathematics as
they model and represent mathematical ideas in a variety of ways. The
implications of this for me as a teacher are that I need to be aware of
different technologies that can display students work in order to see this
benefit my classroom. This will also help my classroom take a shift away
from traditional lecture-based learning towards task-based learning. As
technology allows for me to share students work, I can more easily teach
from students work on tasks rather than just teaching them through
traditional lectures. The wide range of models, diagrams, computer
programs, and other materials provide various ways for students to model

and explore mathematical ideas. This allows for students to reason and
problem solve as they explore various methods of solving problems. As a
teacher, I would need to be aware of when it is appropriate to allow students
to explore in whichever method they find most effective, and when to specify
particular technologies in order to model a particular mathematical
relationship or idea.

Technology can also simplify time-consuming procedures and give

students more time to analyze, discuss, and delve deeper into mathematical
ideas. Calculators and computers allow students to compute faster, thus
opening up the potential to explore problems that are more complex. They
also give students access to a variety of representations of the mathematical
relationships they are exploring. This helps them visualize and understand
the mathematics much quicker and on a deeper level. The implications of
this idea are profound. Students can spend more time conceptualizing and
modeling the mathematics rather than computing and drawing. As a future
educator I need to be aware of when students understand how to do the the
computations that are needed so that I can allow them to use calculators and
computers to shorten the time spent computing and use it to delve deeper
into the mathematics. I also want to be familiar with different technologies
that can model different mathematical relationships such as graphs,
geometries, models, etc.

Another big idea discussed in these articles is that technology allows

us to explore mathematics at a much deeper level than before, which
influences the mathematics that is now being taught in schools. I think this
has a direct connection to the fact that technology allows students more
time to explore mathematics conceptually. Technology takes care of the time
consuming computations and allows students to delve into higher levels of
experimentation of mathematics. As we continue to discover new
mathematical ideas brought about by the use of technology, these new ideas
will be emphasized more in schools. As an educator, I will need to be aware
of the mathematical ideas and fields that are of most value to our society as
the times change.

Underlining all of the advantages that technology offers to enhance

student learning, these tools must be used strategically and under the
proper guidance of the instructor. Teachers must understand what
technologies will benefit student learning and how it deepens their
understanding. Purposeful use of these technologies can enhance student
learning in a profound way.