Design research in mathematics education : the case of an ict-rich learning arrangement for the concept of function

The concept of function is a central but difficult topic in secondary school mathematics curricula, which encompasses a transition from an operational to a structural view. The question in this paper is how to design and evaluate a technology-rich learning arrangement that may foster this transition. With domain-specific pedagogical knowledge on the learning of function as a starting point, and the notions of emergent modeling and instrumentation as design heuristics, such a learning arrangement was designed for grade 8 students and field tested. The results suggest that these design heuristics provide fruitful guidelines for the design of both a hypothetical learning trajectory and concrete tasks, and can be generalized to other design processes.