C.A.N. Project: Background & Philosophy

The following quotes are from Calculators, Children and Mathematics, the report of the Calculator Aware Number (C.A.N.) project which is now out of print. This United Kingdom project is the most extensive classroom based investigation into children using calculators which has ever taken place. Its results are well documented, far reaching in their implications for classroom teaching and have been repeated in other places, for example in the Victoria College (later Deakin University) project in Victoria, Australia.

C.A.N began with about 20 classes of children aged six in some 15 schools. Over the years the number of children involved grew from the hundreds into the thousands as more schools joined the project. Significantly, all the originating schools and Local Education Authorities stayed with the project throughout its lifetime.

The project was led by Hilary Shuard, Homerton College, Cambridge University (now deceased).

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• The PrIME project (Primary Initiatives in Mathematics Education) was a curriculum development project in primary mathematics. It was funded from 1985 to 1989, at first by the School Curriculum Development Committee (SCDC), and then by the National Curriculum Council (NCC), which took over the existing curriculum development of the SCDC in 1988. (CCh comment: these committees were established and funded by the British Government. CAN had its source in the PrIME project.)

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• This book describes a curriculum development project in England and Wales, in the period 1986-9, the aim of which was to study effects that the availability of calculators would have on the mathematics curriculum of primary schools. Thus, it was intended to develop a calculator-aware mathematics curriculum, especially in number, for children in the primary (five to 11) age range.
• In 1985, it was very clear that the arithmetical aspects of the primary curriculum had still not been affected by calculators (CCh comment: despite the 1982 recommendation of the Cockroft Report to do so) ... Calculators were still not available in the majority of primary schools , and children were not usually allowed to bring their own calculators from home. Some schools seemed to regard calculator use as 'cheating'. Commercial publications provided little support for the use of calculators in mathematics, and they did not encourage teachers to use them with their classes. The number work in the published mathematics schemes which most primary schools used was still based on the traditional vertical pencil-and-paper methods of carrying out addition, subtraction, multiplication and division; these methods have been taught with little change throughout this century.

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• The philosophy of CAN

Children should be allowed to use calculators in the same way as adults use them: at their own choice, whenever they wish to do so.

• Children should always have a calculator available.

The choice as to whether to use a calculator or some other method of calculation was to be the children's, not the teacher's.

• Traditional vertical pencil and paper methods for the four operations not taught.

They would not be needed, because children could always use calculators for calculations which they could not do mentally.

• Emphasis on good practice - practical, investigational, emphasis on language and cross curricula activities.
• Many activities not necessarily directly associated with calculators but involving apparatus and materials.
• Develop confidence in talking about numbers in gradually more precise mathematical language.
• Emphasise mental calculation and sharing mental strategies.
• 'Number' to occupy less than half of mathematics time.