Should students be allowed to use a calculator in math classes?

[Pawelk198604]

What do you think about using calculators in math classes?

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20181217235050AACyVCW 

 

 

What do you think about using calculators in math classes? During my mother's time, and most of my school education, students were not allowed to use them 

Hi, I'm from Poland, my mother who died in 2015, she learned in the so-called (tehnikum) technical school, some kind of specialized high school, that was less material in one matter and more in other technical stuff a bit more college like 

In my mother's case it was a technical electrotechnical (electrical engineering) technikum, graduates of this type of school was known as technik (technician) for exemple my one of my best friend who had Asperger (i had it too) graduated as "technik informatyk" = IT technician xD 

So when i was young it was forbidden to use calculators in schools it was allowed about in 2000 when i was in middle school. 

So my mom once told my story, that teacher who once forbidden to call him professor even it was a custom in Poland to call High School teacher that way, saying that if they could refer him as Mr. Engineer because it title he hold or simple Mr Teacher. 

And said that they would use paper and pencil and pure math, that they could use, they can use logarithmic sliders, even if it's lame in his opinion, but ministry of education allowed it 

But if they bring "Imperialistic" portable calculator swank how they are awesome, he would put said calculator in their "rectum" soo deep that it would come with their mouth xD

My mom teacher said that they probably wouldn't newer work for in "our Soviet comrade's cosmonautic space programme nor for imperialist American NASA" and they would need calculators. 
My mother's teacher was before 30, but he liked to beat students talking on his lessons or behaving rudely with his ruler on their neck or palms, only a few students ware girls rest of them was boy (I'm a man too)

 My mom said that most girls there was in love with him, that he was so handsome and yet so intelligent and commanding xD 

My mother told me this when I said that I would probably newer found a girlfriend because of I'm Kujon (polish slang word for Nerds) and have Asperger Syndrome (now I'm known that i'm gay even though I do not look like gay :-) I think my mum suspect something xD 
My mum said that some girls like kujon (nerds) that she considered herself to be intelectualist (nerd) herself :-)That she married my dad because he was Intelligent and funny, the only fault was he's short tamper (dad died in 2002) that now after I was diagnosed as Asperger that dad had it too :-)

Edited December 18, 2018 by Pawelk198604

[Ultimate Steve]

I think people should know how to do at least multiplication and division without calculators, but I think once people have that down they should be allowed to use a calculator.

I can't imagine having to manually calculate everything to 3 decimal accuracy while also doing trig without a calculator. Interestingly enough this stuff generally happens in Physics and Engineering rather than math, though.

[razark]

Once students demonstrate that they understand the basic calculation, a calculator isn't going to help them, anyway.  Understanding how to set up the problem and work through the process becomes more important than the basic mathematical operations.  Besides, we've reached the point where anyone that's going to be doing any level of math probably has a calculator nearby.

However, people should still learn to do things such as figure correct change and basic percentages without resorting to calculators.

[Just Jim]

I'm trying to remember... I think it was 9 or 10th grade, and I was taking Trig, when we were allowed to use them in high school.

And we we allowed to have them in Physics class.

But you had to know how to do everything the hard way, first.  Calculators were just time savers later on.

This was in New York, in the late 1970's.

Edited December 18, 2018 by Just Jim

[cubinator]

Sometimes your calculus can't be helped by anything short of Wolfram Alpha...

[Gargamel]

16 minutes ago, Just Jim said:

And we we allowed to have them in Physics class.

They were required in mine. 

Calculators are just tools.   So it depends on the intent of the lesson to be learned.   Do they need to know the concepts and do them manually or mentally?  Or just knowing how to apply them work? 

[magnemoe]

23 minutes ago, razark said:

Once students demonstrate that they understand the basic calculation, a calculator isn't going to help them, anyway.  Understanding how to set up the problem and work through the process becomes more important than the basic mathematical operations.  Besides, we've reached the point where anyone that's going to be doing any level of math probably has a calculator nearby.

However, people should still learn to do things such as figure correct change and basic percentages without resorting to calculators.

This is true for basic calculators, for the more advanced ones they are pretty much computers. 
Still I agree with you, for elementary school there you learn how do calculus no. 
At higher levels  having calculators speed thing up so you can have more questions in the exam who make it more fair as if you are totally clueless on 1 of 3 questions it will hit your grades very hard while if clueless on 1 out of 8 is pretty minor

[Superfluous J]

Every math class should have a dart board. Any student that can score a full game of darts in their head without pause is allowed to use a calculator.

[Pawelk198604]

12 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

Every math class should have a dart board. Any student that can score a full game of darts in their head without pause is allowed to use a calculator.

LOL  

[YNM]

You try an iterative calculation without a calculator. I'm out.

 

Though if it's pure maths, numerical results should be 2nd hand to formulations surely ? Given you said "technical school" I have a suspicion it's not "pure" maths.

[Pawelk198604]

19 minutes ago, YNM said:

You try an iterative calculation without a calculator. I'm out.

 

Though if it's pure maths, numerical results should be 2nd hand to formulations surely ? Given you said "technical school" I have a suspicion it's not "pure" maths.

My mom finished technikum (technical high school) and she gets professional qualifications as electrician (electric technician) in 70's communist Poland 

 

I was sucked in Math, that why I chose humanities like history and political science (civics) and opted to study library science instead  

I bought Python programming course on Udemy when it was on discount, on my fellow Asperger friend learned so maybe I could too     but I'm too lazy

And required match level make my scary  

I had a whole semester of Mathematical boolean Logic on my Library science 1 st year of BA study, some smartness thought that humanists profession like a librarian would need damn boolean Logic!

Edited December 18, 2018 by Pawelk198604

[K^2]

Both skills, doing mental math and doing math quickly and efficiently with electronic aids (from calculator to specialized math software) are very useful. There should definitely be some classes that do not allow use of the calculator. In terms of higher maths, calculator stops being useful circa analysis, so it doesn't even matter at that point. But requiring students in, say, algebra and calculus to do without any electronic aids is a good idea. Classes like physics or specialized courses in numerical analysis should be the place where you learn to do math with tools.

If we're talking strictly school education, saying that calculator is off-limits for anything described as a math class is probably sensible. The math you're likely to see there is of the aforementioned algebra and calculus variety. If we're starting to look at a more specialized technical education, it becomes situational.

[Ultimate Steve]

2 hours ago, cubinator said:

Sometimes your calculus can't be helped by anything short of Wolfram Alpha...

True that.

Speaking of calculus I'm not even in college and I'm wondering why in the world I need to know how to take the derivative of a logarithmic function.

[Superfluous J]

51 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

True that.

Speaking of calculus I'm not even in college and I'm wondering why in the world I need to know how to take the derivative of a logarithmic function.

It depends. Are you a Lyft driver or a rocket scientist?

[Ultimate Steve]

14 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

It depends. Are you a Lyft driver or a rocket scientist?

Neither. Yet.

[cubinator]

1 hour ago, Ultimate Steve said:

True that.

Speaking of calculus I'm not even in college and I'm wondering why in the world I need to know how to take the derivative of a logarithmic function.

Basic derivatives and integrals seem to come in handy in physics. That "e" thing tends to show up a lot everywhere, so you'd better get used to it.

[Bill Phil]

I wasn’t allowed to use a calculator (even my one-line scientific calculator - which I was quite fast with) during my Calculus tests at university. Most problems were pretty simple though and used nice numbers. The goal was to test our calculus abilities, not whether or not we could push buttons on a device. Even so the class average was not very high. I did pretty well though, calculus did come easy to me...

4 minutes ago, cubinator said:

Basic derivatives and integrals seem to come in handy in physics. That "e" thing tends to show up a lot everywhere, so you'd better get used to it.

d/dx e^x = e^x

1 hour ago, Ultimate Steve said:

True that.

Speaking of calculus I'm not even in college and I'm wondering why in the world I need to know how to take the derivative of a logarithmic function.

Instantaneous rate of change of a log function? Depends. If you model some quantity with respect to another as a logarithmic function then finding the instantaneous rate of change is pretty useful. And even more so, the derivative of lnx is 1/x, thereforr the indefinite integral of 1/x is ln|x| + C. One method of deriving the rocket equation involves an integration like this, but a definite one as opposed to an indefinite integration.

[Superfluous J]

39 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Neither. Yet.

Well then for your day job of rocket scientist you'll need it, but for your night job of Lyft driver, not so much.

[Silavite]

In the classes I've taken, I feel like this isn't much of an issue. For example, in my calculus 3 class this semester, we were not allowed to have calculators on tests, but our tests would have some problems which would say, "set up, but do not evaluate." Generally this meant to apply whatever methods we learned, and stop once we had the problem in a form which could be solved by methods from calculus 1 or 2 (usually a definite integral; maybe a double integral on some problems with Stokes' Theorem). Some problems would be in this form, and some would require an exact numerical answer. This allowed tests to touch on our computational knowledge while keeping the majority of the assessment on material learned in class.

In summation, a good instructor will write assignments that account for whether a calculator is allowed.

Edited December 18, 2018 by Silavite
clarity

[YNM]

4 hours ago, Pawelk198604 said:

My mom finished technikum (technical high school) and she gets professional qualifications as electrician (electric technician) in 70's communist Poland

Ah. Yeah, in the past we had a similar thing - and we still kind of do - but I guess in those schools the methods teached are such that it avoids counting up until the last minute.

You either make up in the algebraic side or you use numerical methods. There are also approximations etc, including slide rule (not sure, those where there are a few bars and you measure across them things), graphs, lookup tables (there were logarithm tables) nd graphical methods, but these days numerical methods are greatly boosted by electronic counting machines, so that's what prevail. Plus the occasional full algebraic/calculus methods for validation - they also helps explain the core idea behind the physics.

3 hours ago, K^2 said:

There should definitely be some classes that do not allow use of the calculator.

True - I didn't use calculator in calculus class, but I did use them in numerical methods class because it's relevant.

Though dealing with real-life conditions, load cases and materials means nasty numbers - hence calculators in most classes.

Edited December 18, 2018 by YNM

[Pawelk198604]

17 minutes ago, YNM said:

Ah. Yeah, in the past we had a similar thing - and we still kind of do - but I guess in those schools the methods teached are such that it avoids counting up until the last minute.

You either make up in the algebraic side or you use numerical methods. There are also approximations etc, including slide rule (not sure, those where there are a few bars and you measure across them things), graphs, lookup tables (there were logarithm tables) nd graphical methods, but these days numerical methods are greatly boosted by electronic counting machines, so that's what prevail. Plus the occasional full algebraic/calculus methods for validation - they also helps explain the core idea behind the physics.

True - I didn't use calculator in calculus class, but I did use them in numerical methods class because it's relevant.

Though dealing with real-life conditions, load cases and materials means nasty numbers - hence calculators in most classes.

I wonder do I could learn to programme at my age almost 33, I suck at math, as a kid, I would want to learn in Python language, truth to be told I learn more about math playing KSP than in school    and I liked physic more than math  

[YNM]

Just now, Pawelk198604 said:

do I could learn to programme at my age almost 33

You can, but it'll take effort.

1 hour ago, Bill Phil said:

d/dx e^x = e^x

That's not all... you'll learn how we get logarithms as well. Or it might be different where you live.

[DDE]

WolframAlpha. Excel. Calculators. Slide rules.

...hidden font 4 cheat sheets. No mercy to honesty 

Edited December 18, 2018 by DDE

[Reactordrone]

Back in my day we had to do all the basic arithmetic by hand until year 10 (with working shown). After that calculators could be used.

[Nuke]

when you are learning basic operations, no. the point there is to learn to figure out how to solve basic math problems, and learn to do it quickly. however once you start getting into higher math, like trigonometry and calculus, forcing students to do things the hard way is sadistic and frankly a waste of time which could be put to better use. its also not the way people use math in the real world. because humans are relatively bad at math when compared to technology, it is both more efficient and more accurate to use the calculator, i even got reprimanded at a job doing math on paper when there was a calculator nearby. like most cashiers are not trusted to do math on their own when the system crashes and so they twiddle their thumbs while someone finds the technician (ive actually been that technician, with a business loosing hundreds of dollars every hour for a problem that can be solved with four keystrokes). construction workers on the other hand do a lot of math, like when they redid our decks last summer it wasn't unusual to find a scrap of wood with trig calculations penciled on it. so it is still useful skill to be able to do math to solve problems in the field where you might not have access to a calculator (though to be fair the omnipresence of smart phones is changing that). the higher math you do the more likely it is you will use spreadsheets and other mathematics tools as time savers. 

that said i think we spend way to much time on basic math in school. i hated coming to class, and get handed a page of 50 long division problems and that was it. i wasnt learning anything, all you are doing is drilling for speed. which in a technological society is better done with a piece of silicon. the amount of time spent on review was absurd. thats time you could be using to teach higher math.