Effectiveness of teaching and learning in technology-supported mathematics education

Abstract

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT tools) are the important teaching resource in modern school. Each new didactic tool is introduced into educational process in order to increase the effectiveness of this process. The paper concerns the research on the efficiency of using ICT in mathematics education. The research on effectiveness of using ICT in average secondary school in Bialystok conducted at the University of Bialystok with using research in action method is described in this paper. It was a preliminary study of what was happening at school in the classroom in the everyday didactic work with using ICT in proper didactic situations and in everyday school circumstances. Progress in using computer for change of style of work during math lesson (from drawing graphs in exercise book to concluding and structuring knowledge) was visible and quite fast. Some students noticed better results of their class tests after lessons with computer. Maybe it is a result of better understanding topics or possibility of solving more exercises instead of drawing graphs by hand. That indicates in some way the change in effectiveness of learning in new circumstances. Connection between using computers in math education and the individual development of the student and his progress in learning mathematics under the influence of using ICT in individual research work and the independent construction of mathematical knowledge will be investigated in the next stages of research.