Voices from the Field > Teacher Interview 3
Voices from the Field- What Makes a Good Technology-based Math Task?
Whether teachers are creating a technology-based task themselves or evaluating a technology-based task to decide to use, they are looking for certain characteristics in a task. We asked about these characteristics to both expert teachers and teacher educations who regularly use technology, as well as 21 secondary mathematics teachers, most of whom were in their first four years of teaching. Hearing how both expert and relatively novice teachers think about what makes a good technology-based mathematics task can help inform the decision-making of beginning teachers. There are 2 separate videos to view.Before watching these videos, consider what you think are important characteristics of mathematics tasks that utilize technology.
Expert Teachers
These questions can be used to guide discussion around this 3:43 minute video:
After watching the video:
- What surprised you about any of the ways these experts characterized good technology-based mathematics tasks?
- Have you experienced any tasks that you think fit this characterization? What was your experience with these?
Novice Teachers
The following questions can be used to guide discussion around this 2:24 minute video:
Before watching the video:
- How do you anticipate the characterizations given by novice teachers to be similar to, or different from, those of the experts?
After watching the video:
- How did novice teachers tend to characterize a good technology-based mathematics task?
- Given your experiences as a learner, and your developing ideas as a teacher, make a list of characteristics that you believe are necessary for a mathematics task that is technology-based.