Chapter 14: Evaluation of Mathematical Inquiry in Commercial Rational Number Software: Pre-service Teachers’ Criteria and Choices

Educational software plays an important role in using technology for mathematical inquiry because it is often teachers’ most frequent engagement with technology and is widely available in schools. For these reasons, we were interested in how pre-service teachers’ notions of mathematics and technology play out in their evaluation of educational software. We asked 35 pre-service teachers to evaluate examples from commercial rational number software according to their own criteria. In examining their evaluations, we used ideas from mathematics education on multiple strategies, multiple representations, and developing conceptual understanding as well as criteria from research in educational technology on intrinsic motivation and flexible forms of representation. Pre-service teachers’ criteria focused on surface features (i.e., clear directions) of the software and rarely engaged content or the instructional framework within the software. Although most teachers valued constructivist principles, they did not attend to the form of instruction or mathematics in the software. Our findings suggest that technology cannot be a separate part of pre-service teacher education, but that teacher educators must find ways to integrate technology, content, and pedagogy. We also discuss how software use can provide opportunities for challenging pre-service teachers’ notions of technology integration and mathematics teaching and learning.