Abstract:
"Each year, the grant support varying numbers of teachers to investigate spreadsheets with
the intent of integrating teaching mathematics/science with spreadsheets. These teachers
were taught to focus on teaching about key concepts of spreadsheet design while they
also taught with the spreadsheets as tools for learning mathematics/science. As part of
their instruction they investigated the developing prototypes as tools that focused on key
concepts of the design of accurate and dependable spreadsheets. During the first year of
the project, some teachers attempted to directly transfer their activities with the
prototypes to their classroom situations. However, many technical difficulties arose due
to the stability of the prototypes. Therefore, the Education/Outreach staff focused the
instruction on dependability and creating dynamic spreadsheets. The focus on dynamic
spreadsheets was to emphasize that the spreadsheets were accurate as new data and
values for specific variables in the problem are visible (rather than being stored in
formulas buried in particular cells).
The question for this study was focused on determining whether the teachers were able to
transfer their understandings of dependable and dynamic spreadsheets to their instruction
of students in their science/mathematics classes."--P. 1.
