EJMT Abstract

MATLAB (Matrix Laboratory) is technical software that is widely used in STEM-related courses and industry. This paper gives an account of how the use of MATLAB was introduced into assessment tasks for high school mathematics students at Ormiston College in Queensland, Australia. In this context, “high school” refers to Years 10 to 12 of secondary school. The tasks were designed in such a way that as well as giving students experience in mathematical modelling and problem solving, they also provided a gentle introduction to the use of MATLAB. This gave these school students valuable experience in working with the software that they are highly likely to use when moving on to tertiary institutions after leaving school. A productive partnership between the school and the manufacturer resulted in a curriculum development project through which a collection of mathematical modelling and problem solving tasks were made publicly available. The way that coding was incorporated into the tasks is demonstrated through examples of students’ responses.