Subject: RE: [MATHEDCC] Assessment
From: David Beach (DavidB@labette.cc.ks.us)
Date: Wed Feb 09 2000 - 10:18:51 EST
Bob and Dorrit:
My thought is that what they (k-12 ed) have accomplished is to help create
students who can't think and who believe god is machine and machine is god,
who can't estimate, can't measure, and cannot think abstractly about
mathematics.
The idea to keep pushing calculators down to lower and lower grades is one
of the largest educational frauds ever perpertrated upon the american
public.
DavidBeach
Labette Community College
> ----------
> From: Bob Leibman[SMTP:bleibman@io.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2000 9:13 PM
> To: Alton Amidon; mathedcc@archives.math.utk.edu;
> DOhallaron@CHUCK.STCHAS.EDU; castagna_p@hotmail.com
> Subject: Re: [MATHEDCC] Assessment
>
> At 1:06 PM -0500 2/8/00, Alton Amidon wrote:
> >And the problem goes further. Our Community College graduates going on to
> >a four-year college or university or often restricted in calculator use
> in
> >higher level Mathematics, Science, and Engineering courses.
> >
> >Al
> >
> >Alton Amidon
> >P.O. Box 185
> >5049 Highway 306 South
> >Grantsboro NC 28529
> >252-249-1851
> >FAX 252-249-2377
> >
> >>>> "Paula >>>
> >Dorrit:
> >
> >This is one battle looming that I have not tackled. The high schools
> tell
> >us that we are undoing much of what they have accomplished if we do not
> allow
> >students to use scientific calculators on our placement tests. I concur,
> but
> >have not mounted the energy to fight this particular battle.
> >
> >Paula
> >
> >
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>
> I know that I am going to sound like a reactionary, but I am wondering
> just
> what it is that those who use calculators in their teaching think that
> they
> have done and, therefore, what it is the those people at the next level
> are
> "undoing."
>
> If the calculator is used to allow the student to learn through
> exploration
> and thus make the concepts being studied "their own" this is great. If it
> permits them to handle a greater variety of problems without the
> restrictions of being limited to those which are easily done by means of
> the algebra which we teach, that too is great.
>
> I wonder, however, why, at the end of the course, that same student should
> not be expected to do the simpler problems for which calculators are not
> necessary with the same ease as those who did not have the benefit of
> learning with a calculator.
>
> I just noticed that the original comment was referring to scientific
> calculators rather than graphing calculators, but I think the same idea
> holds - the computations involved would presumably be easy enough to
> reasonably expect hand calculation - or the answers would be such that a
> reasonable estimate should make the correct answer clear.
>
> I say this on a day in which a reasonably bright student in Elementary
> Algebra could not tell me what 6% of $100 is, could not multiply
> 0.06($100)
> because she didn't have her calculator - and wouldn't even try.
>
> Bob Leibman
> Austin Community College
>
>
>
>
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