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Accounting for Students’ Schemes in the Development of a Graphical Process for Solving Polynomial Inequalities in Instrumented Activity

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Abstract

This paper provides an instrumental account of precalculus students’ graphical process for solving polynomial inequalities. It is carried out in terms of the students’ instrumental schemes as mediated by handheld graphing calculators and in cooperation with their classmates in a classroom setting. The ethnographic narrative relays an instrumental sociogenetic account of mathematical knowledge construction and foregrounds a progressive evolution of mathematical knowledge from the concrete to the abstract phase.

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  1. Department of Mathematics, San José State University, 1 Washington Square, San José, CA, 95112, USA

    Ferdinand D. Rivera

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  1. Ferdinand D. Rivera
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Correspondence to Ferdinand D. Rivera.

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Rivera, F.D. Accounting for Students’ Schemes in the Development of a Graphical Process for Solving Polynomial Inequalities in Instrumented Activity. Educ Stud Math 65, 281–307 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-006-9052-2

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