Welcome to the 2012 Annual Report of GI TAU

During the passing year we worked with different populations of teachers and we also conducted research with the help of GeoGebra as a technological tool for students. We start the report by relating to our work with teachers:

a. Practicing elementary school teachers

This year we had two groups of teachers with whom we worked. The first involved 30 teachers, with little to no knowledge on mathematical software for elementary school students. The second group included 20 elementary school mathematics teachers who were also head of the mathematics teaching department in their school. We worked with the teachers in each group for 16 hours, in which we introduced the geometrical power and properties that can be used in GeoGebra. The course was organized as a workshop, in which the teachers themselves work with the tools around the mathematical topic of transformations. The teachers explored possible ways of working with and without technology, and a focus on pedagogy in technological environment was dominant. The course included homework assignments in which the participants had to use GeoGebra and send us their product. Some of them reported on using GeoGebra with their students at school.

b. Prospective high school teachers

We had two groups of students who are training to become mathematics teachers for high school students. Each group of about 15 students received two 28 hours of workshop courses. The first course is about Functions and Analysis. The students were using mainly the symbolic and graphical representations of a function. The second course is about Geometry and Statistics. In the second course students use mainly the geometrical objects and their symbolic representations, and the spreadsheet tool within GeoGebra.

The main focus of the two courses is on pedagogical issues. As the students have already their first degree on Mathematics or related fields of study, the questions which are dealt with stem from the mathematics curriculum for grades 7 to 12. The leading question in both courses is what is the best way to harness the use of GeoGebra to the benefits of high school student’s learning.

c. Students studying towards MA in Mathematics Education for elementary school or for High school

Each year we have about 50 students who are studying towards their Master degree. The vast majority of them are practicing mathematics teachers. In about 20% of their studying time their instructors make use of GeoGebra while teaching. Moreover, the MA program involves seminars in which the students need to conduct their own mini-research studies. About a quarter of the studies involve the use of GeoGebra as the learning environment in which the studies are done. Most of these studies are presented only among the group of students. A notable exception study is currently submitted for publication at PME37.

Publications

During the last year Tabach Michal presented her own work, in which she studied the use of GeoGebra as a tool for learning geometrical concepts concerning triangles at several international occasions, and also in a one national conference for high school teachers:

1. Tabach, M. (2011). Promoting technology integration among prospective mathematics teachers. SEMT '11 – International Symposium Elementary Mathematics Teaching. (pp. 328-336). Prague, Czech Republic.
2. Tabach, M. (2011). Promoting the use of technology among prospective mathematics teachers (p. 27). The Symposium mathematics education research at the university of Cyprus and Tel Aviv University, Oct. 2011.
3. Tabach, M. (2011). Incorporating the use of technology for teaching mathematics to prospective teachers. The annual congress for elementary school mathematics education. (p. 16.). Tel Aviv, Israel. [In Hebrew].
4. Tabach, M. (2012). Learning with technology: Prospective mathematics teachers and triangels altitudes. GeoGebra ICME Pre-conference, Seoul, Korea. Retrieved August 19, 2012, from https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_Hm5y1glb_lNzJ0b2tWNV9YMk0/edit