ICOTS 8 Paper description

This paper is an account of a year spent in a high school classroom observing the integration of Fathom software into the teaching of statistics. A majority of the students at this high school, which draws its student population from a lower-income community, are aspiring to be first generation high school graduates and learning in English as a second language. The school aims to "meet the needs of their students by combining models of urban school reform, with highly qualified teachers and a curriculum that connects the work of the school to the life of the community".

This paper will attempt to capture the "spots of time that glow"—episodes that stand out as being particularly enlightening. Questions guiding the exploration are:

• What do the students report as the highlights of their interaction with the software and curriculum?
• What are the teacher's strategies to integrate technology and how does she adapt them as the year progresses?
• What is the nature of some of the challenges faced by the teacher? How does she address them?
• What role does the software end up playing in the classroom and how did that come about?
  

Data to inform this discussion will gathered from six months of participant observation by the author as well as in-depth interviews with the teacher and students.