Advanced calculators and advanced-level mathematics

Extract

In July 1988, six small groups of teachers, from Bury, Essex, East Sussex, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire and Suffolk, met together to launch the Graphic Calculators in Mathematics project, sponsored by the National Council for Educational Technology. Each group was locally coordinated by an adviser or advisory teacher, while I was on 0.2 secondment to act as national coordinator of the project. Over the following two years, the project teachers worked with classes of students who had permanent access to graphic calculators throughout their advanced-level mathematics courses. Rather than following any prescribed programme of calculator activities, the teachers were free to plan the work of their classes within the normal syllabus constraints, meeting together from time to time to exchange ideas and review progress. In this article, I want to draw on experience from this project to discuss two major issues that new technology raises for advanced-level mathematics.