Date of Award

1998

Document Type

Thesis

Publisher

Edith Cowan University

Degree Name

Bachelor of Education Honours

School

School of Education

Faculty

Faculty of Education

First Supervisor

Dr Tony Herrington

Abstract

This project was designed to study how the Internet was used in a secondary mathematics classroom. It looks at a Year 12 Mathematical Modelling class and how the internet is used by the students and teacher in their mathematics lessons. The study consisted of observing and interviewing students to determine how they felt about using the Internet in a secondary mathematics classroom and how they used the Internet. Analysis of observations and the audio-taped interviews involved categorizing the students' usage of the Internet, the types of activities the Internet was used for, the length of time spent on the Internet, the organisation of the students with the computers, and how the students interpreted and used the teacher's instructions. Documents were also collected to illustrate the Internets use in the mathematics classroom. The research found that the Internet was used for research purposes. It was used to gather information for projects in Modelling with Mathematics. The students also used the Internet to 'surf when the projects were completed. They would look up information that reflected their interests. The research also found that there were mixed responses in the attitudes to using the internet in a secondary mathematics classroom. All students agreed that the Internet would be used more in the future of mathematics education, especially in Modelling with Mathematics (Year 12) and Mathematics in Practice (Year 11). They highlighted many advantages and disadvantages of using the Internet m the secondary mathematics classroom and agreed that the advantages out-weighed the disadvantages. The research has found that the Internet has been successfully implemented into a secondary mathematics classroom and provides some ideas of how other teachers can implement the Internet into their classrooms.

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West-How the Internet - Part 1.pdf (9397 kB)
West-How the internet - Part 2.pdf (10392 kB)

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