Intelligent Partnership with Technology: Moving from a Mathematics School Curriculum to an Undergraduate Program

Abstract

Through an analysis of the Ontario secondary school mathematics curriculum and the core mathematics program at Brock University, Windsor, Ontario, Canada, the authors provide a detailed description of what constitutes a student's intelligent partnership with technology when learning or doing mathematics. While the Ontario curriculum provides many opportunities for students to develop such a partnership, there is little evidence that students are instructed in that way or that teachers are made aware of all the complexities of such a partnership. On the other hand, the core mathematics program at Brock University is specifically designed to engage undergraduate students, many of who are future teachers of mathematics, in an intelligent partnership with technology starting from the first-year transition course. This evolution culminates in an independent project that requires the design and implementation of a computer environment to study a mathematical concept or conjecture, or the exploration of an application. Such an approach may be a good model for learning and doing mathematics even in secondary school, as the new generations of students are increasingly digitally literate and drawn toward technology.