zlacker

Back when (and where) I grew up calculators were hardly ever used in math classes and completely forbidden in exams. I later went the IMO route and obtained a degree in mathematics; neither required a calculator.

I still fail to understand why the hell graphing calculators are required for some high school math curriculum.

>>oefrha+(OP)
Statistics is taking a larger and larger part in many math curricula and is quite aided by the use of a graphing calculator. The AP Stats coursework and exam also assumes you will have one.

>>oefrha+(OP)
Don't you find it useful to check that you're visualising the functions correctly? I'd say the calculator was most useful to me as an exploration tool than anything else.

I think some can also do calculus, which is something where you can often miss a term or forget a minus, so definitely useful for checking that kind of thing.

>>gtk40+d2
To learn and demonstrate understanding of statistical concepts, no calculator is required. In fact calculating and graphing by hand are great for learning. To bridge the gap to the real world, a computer, however crappy, with Excel installed, however outdated, is infinitely better. (Not that I endorse Excel, it’s just the most common tool among the general public.)

I happen to be a physicist too and while I’m not an experimentalist, I’ve been through plenty of experimental training, and have participated in real world data analysis projects. Never once have I seen any physicist doing any statistics with a graphing calculator (I did see a few when I taught undergrads mostly from other departments, so there’s that).

>>lordna+b4
For the kind of functions seen in American math curricula, no, I don’t need help visualizing them, but that’s me. However, I do believe one should develop their intuition through graphing by hand; typing into the calculator, however painful, doesn’t develop anything other than RSI.

I think my TI (yeah I did have one as the prize of some math competition...) could do some integration too but I never used it.

The thing is these crappy calculators do a poor job of pretty much everything they claim to do. Some of the functionality might help with learning, sure, but you’d better use an actual computer (including a modern smartphone). It’s not 1980s anymore...

>>oefrha+N4
Perhaps you can learn without a calculator, but these timed statistics tests do not function without one. Do you really expect people to do repetitive operations on even n=10 datasets when they only have an hour? You can’t use Excel (because it’s on more capable PC that you can use to cheat).

At the end of the day, if you want to remove the calculator from the statistics classroom you probably also have to remove the standardized test.

>>oefrha+N4
Yes, Excel is superior, but part of the beauty of the graphing calculator is the limited feature-set. It works well for classrooms and especially test-taking environments.

>>pietro+S8
Maybe they should do as when I learned and reduce the size of the data set.

>>pietro+S8
I’ve been through tests with statistical problems where calculators are forbidden, so this is completely false.

>>gtk40+la
Where calculators are absolutely not necessary, doesn’t help understanding and more of a waste of time.

>>oefrha+(OP)
Yes exactly. I'm about to complete a PhD in physics. I've never once needed a graphing calculator from the beginning of my bachelor's until now. It's a complete waste of money.

>>gtk40+d2
Wtf do you need a calculator to demonstrate conceptual understanding in statistics for?

>>pjmlp+Ec
Actually, even n=10 is really nothing, not being able to do that kind of calculations by hand reasonably quickly is more of a reflection of terrible basics, which isn’t surprising in American high schools.

>>mnky98+jd
But Mathematica, on the other hand...

>>pietro+S8
Take a look at some UK tests for example as they don't use graphing calculators, just scientific ones. I can't say my education was worse for it.

It does cost more to mark those tests than pure multiple choice though.

>>oefrha+(OP)
Yup, none of my high school or college classes required a calculator (graphing or otherwise) and they were prohibited on calculus quizzes and tests.

I had a graphing calculator to check my calculus homework. (This was pre smartphone)

>>mnky98+jd
They were a lot more useful when computer access was limited. You could do a lot of practical things on, say an HP-48 that these days you would just use a laptop for.

>>pietro+S8
You can always make problems with steps that involve "easy" numbers. My experience with high school math was that if you wrote 1.414 when the answer was sqrt(2), you got the problem wrong. So I am not sure what the calculators added, really.

>>ska+UI
For physics specifically, I'd still take the HP-48 over a laptop, because there's no good PC software that provides a nice user interface for doing calculations with units. Undergrad physics (and to a lesser extent, chemistry) homework sets are much easier when your calculator is not only doing automatic unit conversions for you, but also type-checking those units throughout the whole process. The laptop only really becomes preferable when you're doing things like statistics or numerical integration where the sheer quantity of arithmetic becomes inconvenient for a handheld device.

>>jrockw+dN
If the answer is ugly, always try squaring it or dividing by pi to see if you get something that looks rational.

>>edflsa+KP
Or use a calculator with some sort of CAS.

>>oefrha+t6
I prefer using my TI-89 over e.g. Mathematica. There’s something about purpose-built hardware that lends itself to being able to do things quickly and reliably.

>>gtk40+d2
Anything that you can do with a calculator you can do/demonstrate in Desmos.

>>oefrha+zd
For a stats class, even n=10 is tedious and absolute overkill. N=3 or 4 is entirely sufficient to prove the student understands the process.

>>edflsa+KP
Yeah, it's amusing how often that works. I remember taking the amateur radio exam which involves some path around impedance and power. The answers were always in the form of 0.5, 1, 1.414, 2. It's always 1.414 (or 0.707, its close cousin).

>>jrockw+E91
The ham radio exam is a joke (at least for the technician class in the U.S.). Just a bunch of multiple choice questions from a public question pool. I literally went through the pool twice before my exam and got a perfect score, although I hardly knew how to install and operate radios. (I just needed the license to be able to remotely operate a radio telescope.)

>>oefrha+cd1
If I recall correctly there is no math until you get to Extra. But I agree that the questions are trivial and the multiple-choice format makes it even more trivial.

I am honestly shocked that there are any operators that aren't Extra class.