The Role of Situational Context in High School Teachers Use of Graphing Calculator in Mathematics Instruction

By taking into consideration the significance of the socio-economic contexts, this research investigates teachers' perceptions of the role of graphing calculators, as mediating tools, to help facilitate mathematics instruction of students from two different SES backgrounds. The main source of data are in-depth semi-structured interviews with four teachers, two from each SES school. In general, the participants' perceptions of the role of the graphing calculator were dependent on the context within which it was used. Also, the participants played a crucial role in determining the nature of graphing calculator use with the low-SES school's participants appearing not to involve their students in lessons that capitalized on the powerful characteristics of graphing calculators. To tease out the role of the situation context, a four-component framework was conceptualized consisting of teacher, student, subject matter, and graphing calculator use. The components of the framework were taken to be continuously in interaction with one another implying that a change or perturbation in one of the components affected all the other components. The continuous interactions of the components of this framework suggest that equity issues in connection to the nature of graphing calculator use should be an ongoing process that is continuously locating strategies that will afford all students appropriate access and use of graphing calculators.