Visualisation Tactics for Solving Real World Tasks

Many affordances useful in facilitating the solution of real world tasks are available in Technology-Rich Teaching and Learning Environments (TRTLE’s). Of particular use are those allowing visual image generation by technology. Whilst the TRTLE provides additional opportunities and approaches to engaging with the real world, additional complexities also exist. One of the transformational powers of the technology is to produce technology-generated images to clarify and refine students’ mental models of the situation, but is this power being realised? Following a grounded theory approach, this study showed that students often did not take up the opportunities, such as the usefulness of the data plot informing their choice of function model or comparing models with data or each other, even though they had the technological and mathematical knowledge to do so.