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Silicon Valley High School Teaching Students to Think More Mathematica-lly

Located in the heart of the high-tech industry, where virtually the entire student body has at least one relative employed in the high-tech sector, Harker students have a higher than average interest in pursuing careers in math, science, and technical fields. And officials at the century-old institution are convinced that learning Mathematica now will help better prepare them for their university studies and future careers. Last year's first class of high school graduates have already gone on to an impressive array of universities including Harvard, Stanford, and MIT.

The Harker School feels it is important that students utilize technology throughout the curriculum, integrated in appropriate forms from the early grades on. Says Joanne Mason, Director of Math Studies, "computers are used in every conceivable way in all classes." All upper-level students use web authoring software to prepare assignments and projects and most classes require the use of online conferencing for collaborative projects and discussions.

After an exhaustive evaluation of the options, Mason says she and her colleagues were sold on Mathematica when they reviewed Version 4.0 because of its interface. "Mathematica offered the ability to do advanced calculations, symbolic mathematics, graphics, and word processing--all at the same time, in the same document, on any computer platform our students may be running." Although some teachers use Mathematica as a presentation tool, Mason says that the primary use of Mathematica at Harker is for students to work on homework and other projects.

After attending several Mathematica training workshops to ensure that students would have a positive experience, Harker teachers also felt that "this was a great program and that in fact the learning curve was not that steep." This prompted them to use Mathematica in all upper-level math courses instead of just the advanced ones as originally planned. In fact, although last year the teachers devoted the first two full weeks of class to teaching Mathematica, this year they skipped the initial instruction. "We wanted to spend time on our core subject content, and what we've found is that it hasn't made any difference with the students; they've been able to "pick it up" pretty well as we go along."

Harker now has an unlimited site license that enables them to install Mathematica on every computer on campus, to provide teachers with personal licenses for home use, and to supply individual copies to upper-level students for use on their required personal laptop computers (for an affordable fee). A Premier Service agreement entitles the school to complementary technical support and upgrades for the life of the agreement, and upon graduation, new alumni are given permanent licenses to take with them to college.

Mathematica's success at Harker has encouraged school officials to spread the news to others, primarily through their website which contains extensive tutorials, samples of student projects, and other information. Plans are also underway for a Mathematica training institute that will focus on the design, development, and management of project-centered curricula. This will facilitate training of Harker staff, as well as make the services available to other schools in the area.

Since implementing Mathematica, Harker teachers have noticed an increase in students' interest in very challenging math and programming research. They also feel that Mathematica reinforces their project-oriented curriculum since it supports learning-math-by-doing-math and encourages projects that require collaborative work. As their website states, "Writing mathematics and writing about mathematics should be central curriculum goals, and software like Mathematica greatly facilitates this. It may be that this is the single greatest positive educational benefit of using Mathematica."

For a closer look at their Mathematica usage, visit The Harker School's website.

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