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I'm in Waterloo at the moment, and next available to work in September 2008.

Unfair Calculator

June 8th, 2005

A story has come up on CNN about a calculator recall in Virginia. Eleven thousand previously state-approved devices are being replaced with a slightly crippled model so that students don’t use one particular function to gain an advantage on standardized tests.

As I read the piece, I noticed that the feature was the ability of the calculator to convert most decimals to a reduced fraction.

TI30xa

And the calculator is the TI30xa, the scientific calculator I’ve been using for six years since Grade 7.

Reducing fractions is not a difficult task; it’s something that’s automatic now. But I do remember back in middle school when several friends realised that the 30xa “did fractions” and immediately ditched their Casios to buy the model I had. They weren’t permitted on fraction quizzes anyways, but for other tests where reductions were part of larger questions, it was a nice security blanket.

Here at Waterloo, they’ve given up fighting the technology battle with students. For math courses, you can’t use any calculator at all, and for quasi-maths like physical sciences, you get anything that’s ‘non-programmable.’

Even then, though, it’s a blurred line, and I fully blame the manufacturers. There’s at least one person I know who’s got a calculator which looks like a standard-issue scientific, but in fact contains basic macro functionality. Uh oh.

Mike

← Earlier Later → Posted at 2:40 am to School.

Discussion

  1. Don’t forget the official “Math faculty approved” Pink Tie calculator…

    Posted at 12:08 am on June 9th by Ryan Gariepy.

  2. I prefer my TI-34 II Explorer or my far superior TI-89. The 34 does fractions as well…it is common place on most calculators now, but the 34’s interface is the best I’ve seen of scientific calculators. It’s my recommendation for a calculator. Most teachers have no idea of the power of some of the modern calculators that you can buy for $20 at Walmart. Overall, I’m a Texas Instruments person, as I’ve always been pleased with my calculators from them.

    Posted at 12:17 am on June 9th by Jeffrey Aho.

  3. One of these days I’ll bite the bullet and get a two-line prefix-notation calculator.

    But I’m so totally used to classical post-fix style, I half think I should just go all the way and get one of those HP reverse-polish-notation ones. After all, RPN is significantly fewer keystrokes…

    Posted at 1:30 am on June 9th by Mike Purvis.

  4. Why can’t schools teach kids to be creative, and learn to think! Arg!

    Posted at 9:40 am on June 9th by JohnO.

  5. I wish they taught me how! Would have saved me some time and agony!

    Posted at 10:00 am on June 9th by JohnO.

  6. The trouble with learning to think is that it instills the prejudices and perspectives of the instructor.

    A bland curriculum that can be evaluated by multiple-choice is just plain safer, from a lawsuit-avoidance perspective. And to be honest, I’m not entirely sure I’d want my kids learning critical thinking skills in elementary school from a state-sponsored authority.

    Posted at 4:40 pm on June 9th by Mike Purvis.

  7. If you don’t have some kind of critical thinking skills by the time you get into highschool…there may be a problem.

    Posted at 6:37 pm on June 9th by Ryan Gariepy.

  8. I dunno. I reckon there’s a lot of highschoolers who pretty much just equate ‘critical thinking’ to ‘be a cynic.’

    Posted at 6:50 pm on June 9th by Mike Purvis.

  9. Critical thinking doesn’t mean “this is right, and this is wrong, here is why”…

    Critical thinking is what spawned ’semantic’ markup (to bring an analogy). We were used to writing any code we needed to get something to look the way we wanted. Lots of people shed their loyalty to this idea/process because they understood it to be incorrect. That is the crux of critical thinking IMHO.

    While being a cynic can be good for you sometimes (it can elevate critical thinking beyond loyalties) it isn’t the end-all be-all.

    Posted at 8:11 am on June 10th by JohnO.

  10. I think that a lot of people feel that critical thinking means criticising things. That view comes largely because no one gets taught critical thinking, and critical has such negative connotations nowadays.

    Posted at 12:26 pm on June 10th by Christine.

  11. That’s what I mean. I think of critical thinking as attempting to achieve a neutral viewpoint by deliberately identifying and eliminating biases.

    But yeah, a lot of times it seems to be taken more as “assume the worst and proceed from there.” Such an attitude is unhelpful from the beginning and spawns more snide remarks than actual analysis.

    Posted at 12:38 pm on June 10th by Mike Purvis.

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