The transition from primary to secondary school is a time of significant change for many students often presenting challenges in terms of discontinuity in curriculum, pedagogy and school structures. In mathematics, in particular, students may experience issues related to their self-confidence, motivation and engagement (Attard, 2010), which in turn can impact on their interest and achievement levels. Technology use for the teaching of mathematics is one area where significant change can occur during this transition, however, little is known about the specific ways in which primary and secondary teachers differ in their approaches to mathematics teaching with technology.

While technology use is now ubiquitous in most classrooms, the ways in which it is used varies greatly with some teachers using it primarily as a pedagogical or organisational tool and others focussing on its transformative potential to illuminate new content (Heitink, Voogt, Verplanken, van Braak, & Fisser, 2016). In mathematics, technology has great potential to augment more traditional modes of instruction through, for example, the use of visual representations, dynamic animations and statistical experiments, in addition to automating routine procedures through the use of hand-held calculators. When used judiciously, technology use in mathematics has the power to engage students who may have been disengaged through the use of more traditional forms of pedagogy (Norton, 2016). This study will examine the ways in which primary and secondary teachers use technology for the teaching of mathematics in order to assess the degree of disjuncture between primary and secondary schools.

Participants were 406 mathematics teachers recruited through the social media platform, Twitter. Twitter is a popular source of professional development for teachers (Holmes, Preston, Shaw & Buchanan, 2013) and in early 2018 teachers were invited to complete a brief online survey on technology use in the mathematics classroom. The survey was completed by 111 males and 293 females (2 unknown) with 298 teachers residing in Australia. Most of the respondents were teaching in government schools (n=273) with 42 teachers from Catholic schools and 83 from the independent private school sector. Just over 40% of the sample taught in primary schools (n=165) with 56.2% teaching in secondary schools (n=228). Most of the respondents were teaching in metropolitan schools (n=217), with 134 in a regional school, 50 in a rural schools and five teaching in a remote school. In the survey the teachers responded to items related to their attitudes towards technology use for the teaching of mathematics and their perceived level of school support for technology use. Teachers were also asked to identify the types of technology that they use in mathematics lessons (both hardware and software) and in an open-ended question, to relate the details of what they consider to be their best lessons with technology for mathematics teaching. For this study, differences in technology use between primary and secondary teachers were analysed in order to identify potential sources of disconnect for students navigating the transition between school structures.

Overall, we found that both primary and secondary teachers held positive attitudes towards technology use for the teaching of mathematics and that there were no statistically significant differences between the two groups. Similarly, both groups of teachers generally felt supported by school leaders in their technology use with no statistical differences found between them on the school support scale. In terms of technological hardware approximately 90% of both primary and secondary teachers use a computer or laptop when teaching mathematics, however, differences arise when other types of technology are considered. Tablet technology is more popular for the primary classroom with 69% of teachers using them for mathematics teaching compared to 42% of secondary teachers. Handheld calculators were more prevalent in the secondary classroom (89% of teachers used scientific calculators; 41% graphing calculators) in comparison to the primary classroom (23% scientific calculators; 7% graphing calculators). Cameras and robotics were more commonly used by primary teachers (40% robotics, 49% cameras) than secondary teachers (10% robotics; 27% cameras). Similar differences were noted with regard to software applications used for mathematics teaching with more secondary teachers using dynamic geometry as a teaching tool in comparison to primary teachers. In contrast primary teachers were more likely to access internet websites to their mathematics lessons. These variations in technology use reveal significant differences for students to negotiate when they move from primary to secondary school, potentially impacting on their perceptions of mathematics as a discipline and their resulting engagement with mathematics. While some of the differences may be justified by the increasing complexity of mathematical content in secondary schools, other differences may have resulted from the historical prevalence of some technology types, for example, hand-held calculators in secondary schools.

Attard, C. (2010). Students' Experiences of Mathematics during the Transition from Primary to Secondary School. Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia. Heitink, M., Voogt, J., Verplanken, L., van Braak, J., & Fisser, P. (2016). Teachers’ professional reasoning about their pedagogical use of technology. Computers & Education, 101, 70-83. Holmes, K., Preston, G., Shaw, K., & Buchanan, R. (2013). " Follow" Me: Networked Professional Learning for Teachers. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 38(12), n12. Norton, S. (2017). Mathematics engagement in an Australian lower secondary school. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 49(2), 169-190.