Problem solving with an Advanced Computing Environment to learn Mathematics

By solving contextualized problems, studentscan gaintoolsto investigate and explain phenomena of the world around us, favoring the development of a conscious citizenship. In our constantly evolvingmodern society, it is essential forstudentstoacquire digital skills. Therefore, it iseven more important to solveproblemsthrough technologies, such asan ACE (Advanced Computing Environment). Thisallowstoperform numerical and symbolic computations,tocreate 2 and 3 dimensions graphs, to writeprocedures and to programinteractive components in order to generalizethe resolution. In this paper,the workshop“Problem Solving with an ACE”is presented, which consisted of 4 two-hourlongmeetings,andinvolved twenty-four 11thgradestudents of the upper secondaryschool “Galileo Ferraris”of Turin. It took place in acomputer lab, during curricularhours. Disciplinary topics treated were agreed with the Mathematicsteacherof the class, allowing the insertion of the workshophours in the normallesson planning. The goal of this paperis to discussan example of a possible design of problem solving activities with the use of an ACE to teachMathematics, which could be proposed tostudents throughout the school year.