Why is it Johnny can't add and why can't Sally multiply without a calculator! Perhaps the calculators are introduced too early or perhaps there isn't enough time spent on learning the basics. Hopefully research will help point educators in the right direction and lead us to a sound practice in early math to avoid the calculator concerns. I whole heartedly support the use of calculators but I also know that there is a need to have the students of today understand math basics.
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I definatley think that calculators should not be introduced until they are necessary for things like graphing or other high school level math. If kids aren’t learned to think and compute early they will be lost in math forever. I have been really good in math all my life and I think it’s because I have always thought out the answer and done the math.
For instance in early elemenatary when you are learning you times tables and addition tables ect. you are taught to memorise them and recite them as fast as possible. this does nothing but screw you up for the rest of your life. I always got chastized because I didn’t have mine memorised and could recite them quickly but that was because when I was asked a question I always did the math in my head and did the math instead of reciting something from memory. I strongly beleieve this is why I have done so well in math. because after a few grades you can’t rely on your memory to do math and you have to be able to think and compute
I have always believed that children of elementary school age should not have access to a calculator. The use of calculators should be introduced perhaps at the grade 9 level of mathematics. When I was growing up, (I’m probably dating myself), we didn’t have the use of calculators as they were not mainstream. When you got to the high school level of mathematics and physics, you were introduced to the now defunct slide rule.
I teach 8th – 12th graders Algebra, Geometry, and Calculus. These are bright kids who can boil simultaneous equations down to 3x = 18 but cannot solve for x without a calculator.
Some placement tests don’t allow the use of calculators, so when a student runs across a multiple choice question like “How far (in feet) does a 23-inch diameter bicycle wheel roll in 3 revolutions?”, she is lost.
You cannot quickly factor the difference of two squares if you cannot recognize easy squares without a calculator.
We use calculators for Trig of course, but a claculator is a disaster if set in radian mode for degree problems. I tell all my students to always check their calculator by entering sin(30) and expect to see .5. Pretty soon they learn that the sine of 30 is 1/2, 45 is .707, 60 is .866, and 90 is 1 – and they now understand the Unit Circle without a calculator.
It’s all about Mental Math – especially when checking answers for reasonableness.