| Electronic computing technologies have been part of an immense change in the ways that groups communicate and represent knowledge. As interaction changes, so too do the rules within which interactions occur. Education, the arena of much rhetoric regarding technology and change has welcomed the computing hardware into schools, but in many respects seems to have made few changes to educational processes in response to the changes surrounding new technologies. Assessment, pedagogy, and the status of knowledge and its creation/exchange have moved little with changes in technology. In this document, the adequacy of traditional models of authority are called into question in light of the growing presence of technology (especially computers) in the classroom. A new model of characterization based on the work of John Dewey, Michel Foucault, Michael Apple, and others is developed to better suit the ways that electronic technologies have redistributed knowledge, and therefore power. A set of probative questions (or criteria) is then elaborated as a guide to inquiry into authority issues in the classroom. Data from two computer-based, university-level calculus courses are used to demonstrate the need for a new model of authority, to test the appropriateness of the new model, and to exemplify the utility of the inquiry questions. A vision for rethinking authority in mathematics classrooms is offered, suggesting that complexity theories and the principles of collective intelligence offer one way for developing new approaches to mathematics education that reflect new ways of thinking about authority. |
