>As one who uses GC's extensivley in the classroom, I have to continually
>remind myself that the primary purpose of the calculator is to help the
>students LEARN math, not DO math.
>Are we sliding down the slippery slope of over-emphasizing right answers?
>(and by "we" I mean the whole educational bureaucracy, not the readers >on this list)
>Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach him how to fish and he >eats for life. Have we forgotten what our job is?
>Is anyone other than me noticing an increase in the number of "welfare
>cases" walking into my classroom with a calculator in one hand and a >desirefor nothing more than knowing what buttons to punch to get the right >answer?
In my experience, in the days before calculators were used, so much attention was paid to getting the_right_answer that very little attention was given to what the answer_means_. I use the gc to free my students from some of the more complicated calculations and spend more time on what the answer tells us in terms of the problem. I think it is important that the answer not be an end in and of itself.
Jan Mays
Math Instructor
Guilford Technical CC
Jamestown, NC
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