Teacher choice and effects of classroom resource utilization in a technological intervention on rate and proportionality

Abstract

SimCalc MathWorlds™ (SMW) is a piece of educational software that supports dynamic graph creation and manipulation. The Scaling Up SimCalc study is a controlled, randomized experiment investigating the hypothesis that the students of a wide variety of teachers could benefit from the package of SMW plus curriculum and teacher professional development more than those who were given an alternative, highly rated teaching option. The first year of the study has been completed, and researchers found that students who used the SimCalc package gained significantly more than those in the control group. While this result demonstrates the successful use of technology in class settings, a number of questions still remain. In particular, how do different ways of implementing SimCalc affect students' access to learning resources? I plan to explore the differences between classrooms that have successfully implemented the SimCalc curriculum through a series of case studies.