The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD] is a global policy organization that includes the United States and about half of the Western Europe countries. It administers international comparison tests, called Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), for 15 year-old students in Mathematics and other subjects. I…

The ubiquity of calculators led to many "computational abuses", when numbers substitute for substance. On the other hand, it resulted in decrease in number oriented dexterity of students. The latter led to a disdain for even simple calculations to work about unfamiliar mathematical problems. As a reaction to the former, the reputation of…

Which manual calculation skills are still needed when students use graphic/symbolic calculators or computers with computer algebra systems (CAS)? What should students be able to do manually, i.e. just using paper and pencil? This text is the outcome of a two-day discussion on these questions, held by the four authors. Our answers and proposals are…

This paper reports on part of a wider study on the teaching and learning of the conventions of formal algebraic notation. Through the analysis of paper tasks given to teachers I argue that not only does the inherent mathematical structure have an effect on the way in which an equation is manipulated but also the visual impact of notation itself.…