The Integration of Symbolic Calculators into Secondary Education: Some Lessons from Didactical Engineering

Abstract

In this chapter, we approach the question of the integration of symbolic calculators into education, through the analysis of two didactic engineering projects developed and experimented by the research teams ERES (Université Montpellier II) and DIDIREM (Université Paris VII). The first project concerns exact and approximate computation, and the equivalence of algebraic expressions; it was planned for grade 10 students (15-16 year-old students); the second project concerns the teaching of the derivative to grade 11 scientific students. Through retrospective analysis of these two experiments, and by using the theoretical frames and approaches developed in the previous chapters, we investigate the problems raised by the integration of symbolic calculators into secondary mathematics education. This leads us, in the last part of this chapter, to discuss the viability of such an integration.