THE NORTHERN IRELAND SUPERCALCULATORS THROUGH THE CURRICULUM PROJECT

Introduction

The Northern Ireland Supercalculators Through the Curriculum Project involved 2 project directors, 10 schools, 11 teachers and about 250 pupils. It was funded by the Northern Ireland Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA). The Project started in January 1994 and the main phase terminates with the publication of this resource pack.

A "supercalculator" is a programmable graphics calculator (PGC) and the calculators used by the Project were mainly the Texas Instrument TI-82. This comes in two styles - the normal calculator style, and the Viewscreen style which has an overhead projector attachment to allow for the projection of the calculator screen on to a wall. There is also a hardware/software package which allows the transfer of information between a calculator and a Mac or PC. All of the pictures in this resource pack were captured electronically using this Graph-Link package. Each pupil was supplied with a normal TI-82 and each school was supplied with a Viewscreen version, the Graph-Link package and a word processing package (Claris Works) to facilitate the production of this resource pack.

Aims of the Project

The aims of the Project were to develop ways of using PGCs throughout the Northern Ireland Mathematics Curriculum at Key Stages 3 and 4, and in the 6th form, to reflect on the use of PGCs in other subject areas, to establish a pool of expertise in Northern Ireland and to produce and disseminate this resource pack.

There is now a fairly extensive literature on PGCs and their use. It is widely accepted that PGCs are an invaluable aid to pupils and teachers in their learning, teaching and doing of mathematics and other quantitative subjects.

There are several words beginning with P which describe some attributes of PGCs and which give a rationale for their use! First the tautology, a PGC is programmable and this feature can be used in many ways. Some programmes are included in the resource pack and these may be transferred electronically between calculators, PCs and the Internet. Then a PGC is pocket-sized and hence readily portable making it a more convenient tool than a desk-top PC. PGCs are readily purchasable, having a price between £20 and £70. Also a PGC is personal and can be owned by the pupil thus giving added incentive to learn how to use it and to use it all the time. The PGC is private and allows pupils to work by themselves without others looking over their shoulder waiting to pounce on every mistake. Finally PGCs are pleasurable tools to use and the case studies reported in this resource pack indicate some of the excitement experienced by pupils as they discovered things or created wonderful pictures by themselves.

Implementation of the Project

Schools, and teachers within the schools, were selected by the Project Directors on the advice of lay members of CCEA, and Education and Library Board Advisors. They were selected to achieve a geographical spread (two schools per ELB), a mixture of "Catholic" and "Protestant" schools (4 : 6), of Grammar and Secondary schools (5 : 5), and of single sex and mixed sex schools (1 boys' : 4 girls' : 5 mixed). Of the eleven teachers involved, six were men. Head teachers were consulted and involved in the selection process. Some of the teachers had previous experience using PGCs while others had none whatsoever. There was universal commitment to the project from all the teachers and head teachers concerned. It was agreed that there would be eleven classes involved, three at year 8 (Form 1), four at year 11 (Form 4) including one Additional Mathematics class, and three at year 13 (Lower Sixth) including one Further Mathematics class.

Initially there were five training days for the teachers between April and August 1994 before the project entered classrooms in September 1994. The directors and the teachers taught each other how to use the calculators and reflected on how to introduce them to pupils. "Getting Started" worksheets were prepared for classroom use, along with other worksheets to help with the teaching of particular topics. These make up the bulk of this resource pack.

It was agreed that the pupils involved in the project should be encouraged as strongly as possible to look after their calculators and to use them sensibly. To this end pupils and their parents were asked (and they all readily agreed) to sign a "solemn agreement" to do so. (In this there was no suggestion that a pupil would have to pay for a replacement if his or her calculator were lost or broken). Pupils recognised that it was a privilege for them to be involved in the project and they responded in a very positive manner.

The Resource Pack

Several hints have already been given concerning the contents of this resource pack. There are "Getting Started" worksheets and worksheets to help with the teaching of particular topics. In addition there are a number of case studies, written by the teachers, which describe their experiences and reflections on using a PGC to introduce or consolidate particular topics. A selection of A-Level examination questions, and their solution by PGC, is also included. Clearly the debate about the nature and purpose of examinations will continue for many years!

The materials of this pack are avilable in hard copy for £25 plus postage from Unibooks. But they are also presented in this electronic form on the Web so that they can be downloaded and printed locally in schools. The pages can be modified or tailored by teachers to suit their own particular needs or ways of doing things and there may simply be the desire to change the examples from year to year. Teachers who develop similar, complementary materials are invited to submit them to the project directors for consideration for inclusion in this site.

Conclusion

There is now in the Province a pool of "experts" in the use of PGCs in the Mathematics classroom. This resource is available for hire by those wishing to mount in-service training courses. There are also the resources contained in this pack, which are developed for the TI-82 and the Casio fx7700g, and, to a lesser extent, fot the TI-85. PGCs produced by different manufacturers generally have the same functions and behave in similar ways. Thus they all graph functions of one kind or another, they are all programmable, they all have various statistical features and some can handle matrices and lists. All have the usual arithmetic and scientific functions. But they have their own unique programming dialects. It should not be too difficult for a skilled Sharp or Hewlett-Packard user, for example, to take the ideas in this pack and produce their own worksheets.

Finally, this pack is distributed freely to schools and colleges in Northern Ireland. and is freely available on the World Wide Web due to the sponsorship of CCEA.

M Fitzpatrick, Stranmillis College. (M.Fitzpatrick@stran-ni.ac.uk)

S K Houston, University of Ulster. (SK.Houston@ulst.ac.uk)

Project Directors.

Return to Ken Houston's home page.

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