Electronic Proceedings of the Seventh Annual Conference on Technology in Collegiate Mathematics


CONTRIBUTED PAPER: 7-FC14

Computers in Mathematics Education - An Experience

Ana Isabel Rosendo, Jaime Carvalho e Silva
Departamento de Matemtica
Universidade de Coimbra
Apartado 3008, 3000 Coimbra, Portugal
Phone: 351-39-4191199
E-mail: me9324@mat.uc.pt, jaimecs@mat.uc.pt

ABSTRACT

The first formal course on Computers in Education to be created in a portuguese university, was in 1987 at the Mathematics Department of the University of Coimbra and has the name "Computers in Mathematics Education". This is a compulsory course for future secondary school teachers (5-12 grades).

We have been the two responsible for this course over the years and we would like to share our experience.

We have 2 or 3 hours a week of theory and demonstrations and 3 hours a week of practical work in a computer lab. At first, only computers were in this lab; now we also have graphic calculators.

We will discuss the general philosophy of this course, which pieces of software were selected and why, how the students reacted, which kind of assessment we chose, how the course changed over the years, etc.