Re: [MATHEDCC] calculators are not the issue

RWW Taylor (RWTNTS@RITVAX.ISC.RIT.EDU)
Thu, 25 Feb 1999 10:46:15 -0500 (EST)

> I have been reading with interest the pro and con comments about using
> pocket calculators. In general, I agree with the comments that suggest
> ".. having a good teacher is much more important than whether a student
> has access to a calculator or not". This discussion reminds me of a
> talk I just had with one of my pre-calculus students about what I
> believe is a more fundamental concern. This student is one who
> possesses very minimal thinking (critical?) skills, or else prefers not
> to use them. No matter what the question raised in class the student
> invariably reaches for his calculator, whether it is appropriate or
> not. He is taking my class a second time and will be unsuccessful again
> unless he begins to apply simple common sense thinking skills. He is
> not "stupid"! In summary, I believe we all have a few students who
> would rather not think, and much prefer very mechanical robotic
> solutions to problems. I can think of several things that partially
> explain this behavior. One, of many, is that I hear lots of stories
> about pre-college classrooms where Friday is video day, and teachers
> would rather not be bothered when students require them to "think". Are
> some of us sometimes too much like my student?
>
> Lee Erker
> Math/Physics
> Tri-County Community College
> Murphy, North Carolina

With all due respect, one wonders why this student is not learning that just
reaching for the calculator will not help him? Fighting this battle myself, I
work very hard to present students, again and again, with problems where naive
calculator use is patently unhelpful and even counterproductive. In the spirit
that "telling is not teaching", it has to be possible for the student to _see_
this for him- or herself.

One of the great mischiefs is the accumulated store of assignments in
intermediate-level textbooks, the cultural heritage of past ways of doing
mathematics, with strong associated suggestions that _this_ is how you ought to
be thinking or acting. I have actually had students in my "College Algebra and
Trig" course this quarter deliberately mutilating the good, clear calculator-
based presentations they had developed (methods I had encouraged in my
classroom delivery) in order to write them down on paper and make them look
more like the old-fashioned methods shown in the text, even though this led to
the introduction of round-off error, etc. Appropriate calculator use (at, say,
the TI-83 level) can extend the reach of the curriculum and, at the same time,
allow focus on critical skills that were slighted in the past when the main
point of the problem was to carry out the details of the calculation. It is
likely to be a full generation, unfortunately, before an adequate store of
exercises with more appropriate focus is accumulated.

RWW Taylor
National Technical Institute for the Deaf
Rochester Institute of Technology
Rochester NY 14623

>>>> The plural of mongoose begins with p. <<<<
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