Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: When mathematics teaching and learning occurs in technology-intensive environments, students often engage with tasks and use resources that differ markedly from what might be available in non-technological contexts. Exploration, generalization, reasoning, and justification tasks are but a few of the processes that technology can facilitate. Because students' performance on various tasks may be influenced by the resources available to them in a technology-intensive environment, one step in understanding the potential influence can be to determine the nature of or patterns in students' use of resources, such as mathematical representations, as they engage in tasks when they have access to technology. This study investigates students' mathematical thinking in a technological context by focusing on students' representational actions and engagement in mathematical tasks when they have access to powerful technology tools. Two frameworks were employed in the analysis to illuminate the interplay between representational acts, types of tasks, and technology use in small-group and whole-class settings.