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When did you introduce/allow calculators for math?


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2 hours ago, stripe said:

Thank you so much, but I can’t see anything there.

Drat.  Does anyone else see them?  Let me try a workaround:

Does this link work?  If it does, at the top of my test paper is a table of common trig values that should be accessible, if not from memory, then from a quick check of a unit circle, which I've sketched in the space to the left.  

Page 2  Just shows some fancy hand drawn sine curves.  Memories.  

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7 minutes ago, daijobu said:

Drat.  Does anyone else see them?  Let me try a workaround:

Does this link work?  If it does, at the top of my test paper is a table of common trig values that should be accessible, if not from memory, then from a quick check of a unit circle, which I've sketched in the space to the left.  

Page 2  Just shows some fancy hand drawn sine curves.  Memories.  

The link is not working 

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On 5/20/2021 at 6:35 AM, UmmIbrahim said:

In reading these comments about having kids go beyond calculus without using calculators, I find myself wondering if the ability to do this isn't dependent on which curriculum is being used. My kids have done a lot of outsourced math classes, so I haven't been choosing the textbooks for the course (i.e. they are not the textbooks that I see great reviews for on these forums). In looking back at the way the problems were presented, there were many problems throughout Algebra I, Geometry, and Algebra II that seemed to be purposely designed with "gross numbers." 

I think the idea may have been to "get the kids used to" having all kinds of "real-world" decimals, radicals, etc. in the problems. If you've got decimals and radicals all over your problem and the directions instruct you to round your answer to the nearest hundredth, I really don't see how you are doing those problems efficiently without calculators. Sometimes the problems are designed so that you would be doing 3 or 4 long division operations in a single problem to arrive at a solution. Trying to get a kid through a curriculum designed like that without a calculator would seem, to me, to require more time spent in physical computation than actually working with the conceptual aspects.

Just a thought about math curricula in general and a perhaps a contributing factor to the differing feelings regarding calculator use.

My son did College Algebra at the CC in high school and his online text and problems were like this. I loved, loved, loved algebra in high school and it became second nature to me. I don’t think that would have happened with a text like his. I thought the numbers in many of the problems were ridiculous and totally obfuscated the basic principles being taught and interfered with mastery of the concepts.

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On 5/20/2021 at 7:22 AM, regentrude said:

That argument makes no sense to me. It' s like saying we type and have spellchecker,  so students need not learn spelling. 

Just because a theoretical physicist uses a computer to solve complex integrals in their work doesn't mean a student no longer needs to learn integration techniques.

I see the fallout of lacking number sense. Math after algebra isn't about numerical calculations with lots of number crunching. The students who use calculators on their logarithms and exponent problems when they should simply using laws of exponents avoid learning what's at the core of the unit.

And that means they won't be able to do symbolic manipulations when there aren't numbers in the problems. 

That’s why when you test and practice those things, you construct problems that don’t require a calculator. Or you tell the students, “For the first problem set, we’re going to do this without a calculator, because I want you to see where this is going.”

But you made the exact argument I was making. Math after algebra isn’t about numerical calculations with lots of number crunching. So if they plug the numbers into a calculator, it’s fine. There is no point to making a calculus student do long division by hand.

I would further argue that well-constructed problems are built to make most calculations fairly trivial anyway, so the number-crunching doesn’t get in the way of the logic-building. Which means it’s fine to allow a calculator, because it makes math more accessible to those with disabilities as well.

 

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1 hour ago, NittanyJen said:

That’s why when you test and practice those things, you construct problems that don’t require a calculator. Or you tell the students, “For the first problem set, we’re going to do this without a calculator, because I want you to see where this is going.”

But you made the exact argument I was making. Math after algebra isn’t about numerical calculations with lots of number crunching. So if they plug the numbers into a calculator, it’s fine. There is no point to making a calculus student do long division by hand.

I would further argue that well-constructed problems are built to make most calculations fairly trivial anyway, so the number-crunching doesn’t get in the way of the logic-building. Which means it’s fine to allow a calculator, because it makes math more accessible to those with disabilities as well.

If you could restrict it to long division, I'd be all for a calculator. But they'll use the calculator for trig/exponents/logs. 

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