Re: Calculators and calculating.

On Sat, 27 Aug 2005 07:04:20 GMT, "Brian Reay" <see@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

>Calculators are a tool and, like all tools, need to be used correctly.
>
>Pupils need to be taught when the use of a calculator is appropriate

Precisely! People forget that the real study is the subject
surrounding the use, whatever that subject may be.

Some short tales from the past; the first I can't vouch for, but the
next are from personal experience:

Physicist Enrico Fermi estimated the energy released from the first
atomic explosion as the blast reached him by dropping a handful of
shredded paper and using the distribution on the ground [he was a
considerable distance away fro mthe source.] Apparently he came as
near as dammit to the calculations from the then available computers.
As I say, I'm not sure about that one.

After spending quite some time convincing a young man that to change
from mm to cm he had to divide by ten, he picked up his calculator
....and would not let go of it.

Going back about thirty years? ....When multi-function calculators
first came on the scene, my calculus class all bought one. All good
students [you had to be then to get that far] with excellent rapport,
and some I'd had through three grades, so I could do what I did. I
set up an upcoming test so that each question would simplify from an
initial complex [in structure] derivative. Sure enough, as expected,
they took the earliest opportunity to use their calculators and plug
values into the initial expression. When I took up the test, and
sytematically simplified each without ever reaching fo a calculator
....well, I can still hear the groans. They were, as I said, good
students, and fully appreciated what was happening, and learned a good
lesson. That test didn't count except to give that lesson ...keep it
handy, but use it wisely and only when necessary, and they were given
ample opportunity for that. Which makes your point, I think?

There are still many opportunities to show the benefits of handwork,
the main being time to think about the processes involved and to then
be able to apply those processes more generally. It's the process
that matters in the study. The answer to "Will it fit?" can come at
the end. There are also benefits to using the calculator ...wisely,
as you suggest. It's the purpose that matters.

.

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