FATHOM THAT!: AN ETHNOGRAPHY OF THE USE OF INTERACTIVE DATA ANALYSIS SOFTWARE IN A STATISTICS CLASS OF A HIGH SCHOOL SERVING LOW-INCOME STUDENTS

摘要

This paper explores a high school classroom integration of Fathom software in the teaching of statistics. A majority of the students at this high school, serving a lower income community, are aspiring to be first generation high school graduates and learning in English as a second language. This paper will attempt to capture the "spots of time that glow"--episodes that stand out as being particularly enlightening. The guiding questions for the exploration in this paper focus on student reports of the highlights of their interaction with the software and curriculum, the teacher's strategies to integrate technology and how she adapts them as the year progresses, the nature of some of the challenges faced by the teacher, and the role that the software ends up playing in the classroom and the reasons for this role.