Enabling students to make investigations through spreadsheets

• Main Author: Erol Karakirik
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bond University
• Series: Spreadsheets in Education
• Online Access: http://sie.scholasticahq.com/article/4639-enabling-students-to-make-investigations-through-spreadsheets.pdf

Spreadsheets are widely used in education to save time and simulate many scenarios in many different disciplines. However, they are not usually employed to provide rich interactions in the class although they provide huge computational powers and relate data in different places. It is argued in this paper that spreadsheets could also be used as an empowering tool for making inferences in the class by enabling students to investigate an open-ended problem, to make discussions about the problem and to share their results by turning a spreadsheet into an empowering tool. Constructivist approach requires students make conjectures and test them through cognitive tools provided such as Dynamic geometry environments. User could be required to investigate an open-ended problem by the help of available macros or templates provided by the instructor in a spreadsheet. It not only motivates the user to participate in the class but also make them think about the problem at hand. Our approach is exemplified through macros prepared for a math class and divisibility features of binomial coefficients were investigated through spreadsheets in this paper.