Even with the glut in the secondary market it’s still overpriced. A TI doesn’t even warrant $35 for its computing power. If you can buy a used flip phone for $5 on ebay, you should be able to get a used TI for that much too.
I did. And I tried to stress that even though you, and many other teachers, are fantastic teachers and try to use the calculators responsibly, a) not all teachers teach that way and b) even if you do, students will follow the path of least resistance.
Are you worried that kids won’t be able to adapt to new technology once they hit 12th grade or college? My sister is a senior in HS and has never been mandated by the school to purchase Microsoft excel yet it’s guaranteed that she’ll use spreadsheets a hell of a lot more than a TI-83 in her future life.
It’s not always about the teachers and/or teachers condoning button mashing. When a kid has a calculator in his/her hands he/she is going to use it. It’s a crutch and puts the teacher automatically at a disadvantage. A teacher has to be more disciplined than usual in his/her teacher in order to use the calculator effectively. I say the temptation is too much.
I keep going back to the fraction anecdote but I think that’s a huge sign that kids these days HATE fractions. It’s “wrong” to them to have an answer exist in fractional form. They’re conditioned to press enter either consciously or subconsciously so that 1/4 on the paper is only the penultimate answer. The “final” answer is 0.25 and that does them a disservice. I know that there are ways that the answers on a TI can be presented as a fraction but kids don’t use that because even before the TI’s, in elementary school, the solar powered 4 functions have already indoctrinated them to seeing decimals. Calculators are a monkey-paw wish for math education.
For the record, as much as I’ve gone on hating calculators, I actually would probably just buck up and buy the kids their calculators. However, I would take it upon myself to teach my kids the right way to do math in parallel.
She’s been required to use word processors. Not required to provide her own copy of a specific brand. Which yes, is problematic.
Seriously, when is the last time you did long division by hand?
I remember the last time I did it- I was writing a program to do long division on bignums and needed examples.
That also was the one-and-only time I’ve calculated a square root manually outside of class.
Well, my math education was relatively recent and I was extremely average but to me .25 and [sup]1[/sup]/[sub]4[/sub] are equivalent and which one I’d choose as a final answer would depend on the problem. I certainly wouldn’t reduce a fraction to a decimal if it would become approximate unless I had reason to believe an approximate value was called for. Beyond that, what’s wrong with decimal answers?
The complete avoidance of them indicates that kids can’t think fractionally. They are just doing whole-number math and copying the decimal. It is a problem I saw in my AP Economics classes, where they could NOT use a calculator. Many–not most, but many–of them have no real feel for what a fraction IS, and certainly couldn’t move conceptually between a fraction and a decimal and a percent.
Every single significant math problem that I’ve ever had to do for work, I’ve put on paper first. Unit conversion, keying in formulae, arithmetic, etc. Then I use the computer.
For the rest of the stuff I usually do it in my head. 10% off while shopping, in my head. Calculating tip, in my head. Splitting a check, in my head OR pen/paper on the back of the receipt. Back of envelope stuff, I jot it down real quick and type it all into google or a spreadsheet. If you asked me to do long division right now I would progress through a) do it in my head b) too hard? open a new tab of chrome c) the computer blew up? I’ll reach for the 4-function.
If you asked me to find all the zeroes of a polynomial I would use pen/paper. If you asked me to find the maximum height of a ball in flight, I would use pen/paper/calculus. The only math question right now that I would instinctively grab a TI for would be to solve a system of equations and I didn’t know to do that until Linear Algebra.
8th grade is what, 13 or 14? Why do they even need a calculator? I didn’t really need one until A Level maths, and even then I was quite happy leaving answers as fractions. Thinking back, I ought to have needed the calculator for trig functions, but I think I worked my way around that somehow.
The one thing I really don’t get here is the use of graphing calculators at all.
I have an Honours Degree in Mathematics. We weren’t allowed to use graphing calculators on tests, etc. You were allowed a basic calculator that did ASMD but that was it.
There were courses where you had to graph complex functions. Those were either done by hand with graph paper or you used computer software and programmed them in.
Presumably, these schools have computer labs. Why aren’t they doing their graphing in them?
That’s something that if they continue on in math they will actually use again.
Heck, if there are schools that require an iPad instead of textbooks, there must be an app for that. (Just looked and there are a crapton.)
I know this is IMHO and not GQ, but it’s a fact that your mathematical credentials don’t lend credence to your opinion here. I wouldn’t go into a thread about cars and spew my opinion that x is unnecessary in that field, because I know very little about vehicles or automotive repairs.
This isn’t a valid argument for not getting the calculator. You don’t know whether the OP’s kids’ math teacher will be good or bad. You’re just going off-topic on a tangent about bad teachers. And, not that it’s relevant here, but my calculus teacher had a calculator portion and non-calculator portion on EVERY test that we took, because that’s how the AP test functioned (10 years ago, I can’t speak for how it works today).
I’ll be waiting with bated breath on your evidence for these claims. Without it, you’re doing nothing more than fallaciously appealing to authority. Be ready to support the assertion that blanket use of calculators reduces the intellectual understanding of mathematics, as well as providing evidence for your implication that a significant quantity of math teachers rely on blanket use of calculators in class (please show your work).
Any engaged parent (who isn’t self-deluded) should have a pretty good idea whether or not their kid is good at math and/or college-bound by the time they hit middle school. If these children are not college-bound, then maybe they’re on the wrong academic track.
Engage in a little introspection before posting back. It’ll do ya good, kid.
Kids are doing more math in 7-8th grade compared to the math we did in High School. Hell, I was a math major in high school (and calculated logs by hand, thank you very much), but kids are doing algebra much earlier than I did.
My kids didn’t start out using all the functions, but needed them into high school, and I’d rather buy one calculator that will be useful for years to come, than buy multiple calculators as they needed them.
This statement is patently untrue on so many levels. Kids achieve mastery of subjects at wildly different rates, and even a child who was slower in math in middle school can develop the desire and interest and ability later on. Becoming passionate about a field can drive effort and inspire kids to master material that doesn’t come easily to them. Kids may not seem college-bound as they struggle through adolescent troubles and bloom in high school. Any good parent, who’s not self deluded, doesn’t pigeon-hole their child based on their apparent aptitudes in middle school.
I wasn’t out to diss teachers/teaching as much as curriculum choices and absurd, inflexible requirements with no apparent basis in reality. But yeah, it does devolve, like so many shitty things about schools, to teachers who can barely fumble their way through the courses they’re teaching - with a programmed curriculum and a crutch.
I don’t disagree with any part of this argument EXCEPT requiring a very pricy tool years ahead of real need and for ALL students, including those who will take no math much past elementary geometry.
Also, as these are children numbers 5 and 6, we have far too much experience with things like calculators getting lost, stolen and broken. We WILL be out the cost of at least 3 calculators by the middle of high school, and probably more when the TI-84 isn’t enough for their later high school and early college classes.
Explain to me, in as much detail as you like, how an advanced graphing calculator applies to learning and mastering Algebra I.
Then parse your answer for all instances of “making it more fun” and “having all the kids push the same sequence of buttons” and other instances of using a toy to take the load off the actual “teaching” part.
Well, having just graduated on child from high school this year, one step-child already graduated years ago and one entering 10th grade, this has not been my experience. It’s just never been an issue and my kids are hardly organized…
And it certainly wasn’t buying them the tool years and years before they needed it. Probably within 2 years. Compared all the stuff we have to buy for school, a really good calculator is never one I begrudged. I’ve probably spent more on insulated lunch boxes and buying wrapping paper…
Is there a state left in the union where you can graduate high school without passing Algebra II? That’s a serious question. You can’t in Texas. There’s no subbing “math models” or anything in for it. There has been a real Sea Change in STEM requirements over the last couple decades.
I know, but a lot of students take very watered-down courses past algebra/geometry. Minimum exit-test prep.
I suspect both my kids will take a very advanced track, continuing into college, but I still object to the demand for a college-level calculator when, really, there’s absolutely no place for a calculator at this level.
Mastering the calculator is essential to scoring well on the ACT and SAT. The ACT is less than a minute per math question - some which are stupid easy if you know your calculator. Most people taking it don’t complete it.
For the vast majority of kids, knowing how to set up the problem in the calculator and get the answer is FAR more important than math theory will be in their lives.
My son’s textbook has problems designed to help you understand your calculator. My daughter took Algebra one as a seventh grader.
What’s the quality control on a TI-84? I remember getting a TI-59 in 1980 (and getting rebuked by my physics teacher when I tried to calculate a half-life with it, although I was just calculating ln 2 / ln (average population ratio in successive generations)), which was TI’s answer to the HP-67 (which was $700 to the TI’s $200 back then, IIRC). About four years later, some of the keys - the 0 and 1 come to mind - stopped working. On the other hand, I have had an HP-48GX for at least twice that long, without any problems (well, other than the fact that the thing likes to hang for a few seconds on occasion), but obviously no school in its right mind is going to impose RPN on its students.
I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if more schools go the iPad route in the next few years, especially as early generation models will go down in price. (There’s an idea for Apple; a “school version” of the iPad, which uses older technology and can be priced for enough kids to afford it - oh, and a way to make sure you can’t access iTunes or the App Store from it, except for apps “approved” by the school in question.)
I used my TI-84 through 3 years of college as an accounting major (so lots of math, although I admit I didn’t use the graphing or stats buttons much once I got done with Algebra and Statistics), handed it to my son in sixth grade and he is still using it going into ninth grade - his sister got a new one when she started sixth grade. Most of the people I know have needed one to get them through middle/high school and college - assuming it doesn’t get stolen - which at my kids’ school is a big problem - its a low income school and about 1/3 of the advanced math kids don’t have the calculator they need. (Which slows down the entire class).
I’d be shocked if schools went the iPad route - iPads allow you to do research on the internet - that isn’t really something SAT and ACT testing organizations want you to be able to do while you are taking their tests.
I was thinking more along the lines of a glorified Nook, where they didn’t have general net access. Then again, you do have a point - it would be too hard to tell them apart from full-blown iPads when taking the SAT, and you also have to allow for the fact that somebody will find a way to “jailbreak” them.
On the other hand, why are calculators even allowed on the SAT? It ruins a problem like, “What is 17.62% of 65.93 minus 65.93% of 17.62?”, which should be a test of reasoning ability (which is one of the things the SAT is supposed to be testing - “scholastic aptitude”) rather than punching in numbers.