How Gaming and Formative Assessment Contribute to Learning Supplementary and Complementary Angles

Tasks With Digital Technology

Regarding the intention towards the use of technology in the classroom, Pierce and Stacey (2013) find that it can be used to support students' work towards finding answers more quickly on problems by developing appropriate strategies. So, these authors present a conceptual framework that specifies educational opportunities from the use of technology that can be adopted by teachers to benefit learning. This concept map does not describe every possible opportunity, but it is organized into three levels which reflect the teachers' perspectives, taking into consideration the tasks they will set for their students; the style of classroom interaction; and the perspectives on the subject they should promote, i.e., mathematics as a whole, or a topic. Regarding the tasks that will be set for the students the map highlights five different types of opportunities to use mathematics software. These different types of tasks range from: a) assisting in mathematical learning using paper and pencil, by encouraging calculations check, thus freeing the student from mechanical work, and allowing him/her to focus his/her attention on other areas of the problem; b) allowing the student to work with real data; c) exploring variance and regularities that can be, for instance, through the use of an applet with sliders; d) analyzing simulated data or collecting data through graphs from real situations; e) or, using different representations of the same mathematical concept, visualized simultaneously.