Is it ridiculous that you can't use a graphing calculator in a precalculus course?

its precal. get over yourself and stop relying on the calculator to do all of the work for you.

lol, you are more than pathetic if you need a graphing calculator for pre-calc. There is no a single thing covered in pre-calc that would require the use of a graphing calculator. In fact, the same thing can be said about calculus.

The state of math education is simply laughable at best.

I'm retired from many Silicon Valley ventures. I volunteer as a Physics/Math/EE tutor at local colleges. You shouldn't have a calculator at all, graphing or not. If you don't understand the math, a calculator won't help you. That's what your instructor is trying to convey to the class. Get used to thinking that way. That's how it is.

A ti-89 can do a lot more than just arithmetic - it can solve symbolic equations, factor, integrate, differentiate, etc... definitely needs to be banned

ti-89 wrote:

A ti-89 can do a lot more than just arithmetic - it can solve symbolic equations, factor, integrate, differentiate, etc... definitely needs to be banned

definitely. i can't believe collegeboard allows them to be used on AP calculus exams.

Pre-cal's easy get a grip.

You can't use your graphing calculator at all, or just on tests? I can understand why they wouldn't allow it on tests; its very easy to write a few programs that will solve all the problems for you, and they want you to think on your feet, not punch in numbers. If you can't use it for classwork though, thats a ridiculous rule.

I just rolled over in my grave. I didn't even have to use a calculator for Quantum Mechanics.

I am an academic adviser at a top ranked college. Our most failed course is calculus because high school kids think that using their calculator to get through AP calculus in high school means that they can do math.

They have no idea what math is--a method of analysis. They think doing math is memorizing a set of laws, concepts, and ways to solve problems, so they fail.

The high school teachers shouldn't allow it.

Im a junior majoring in mathematics.

I have yet to take a course in my major that allows ANY form of calculator on a test/exam.

it's the fault of the Japanese who in the 1980s invented the microprocessor that goes into calculators and computers and ruined math education

Albert Einstein wrote:The high school teachers shouldn't allow it.

They shouldn't. But many of them also do not see math as a method of intelligence. They see it as laws and equations and "typical problems", which is to say as a subject of memorization, and they teach it that way.

*Yes, there are also many good high school math teachers. And there are also many poor college calculus instructors.

Its very important to be able to manipulate those fractions and decimals. You have to have a certain understanding of how numbers work and be able to manipulate them in your head.

I wasn't allowed to use a calculator for Calc I, II, or III so get used to it.

The quadratic formula can be a pain, and I get that, but really the actual arithmetic of pre calc is nothing that you should need a calculator for. I know it sucks now, but no one who has gone on to any kind of higher math is going to agree with you on this.

I wish they banned graphing calculators when I took precalc... Due to that phoenix game and tetris I never paid attention once. I blame my calculator for my D.

I had a physics class where we were allowed to bring in our textbooks and laptop computers to solve problems. Worst grade I got in a physics class, I didn't study nearly as much as I should have because I figured it would all be in the textbook (or mathematica) when I got to the test.

Hahaha. That was exactly me!

academic adviser wrote:

I am an academic adviser at a top ranked college. Our most failed course is calculus because high school kids think that using their calculator to get through AP calculus in high school means that they can do math.

They have no idea what math is--a method of analysis. They think doing math is memorizing a set of laws, concepts, and ways to solve problems, so they fail.

regradsf wrote:

I had a physics class where we were allowed to bring in our textbooks and laptop computers to solve problems. Worst grade I got in a physics class, I didn't study nearly as much as I should have because I figured it would all be in the textbook (or mathematica) when I got to the test.

It was. You are just dumb. Sorry.

I would like to restart this discussion, but more civil, with more ethos, and logos. I am personally confused why my calculator which I have programmed is not allowed in math courses. Someone here made a VERY good point if you don't understand the math a calculator won't help you. Yes! I agree with you, but my issue has never been with the conceptual portions or memorization of tables, ( like sin, cos, tan, sec, csc, cot )it's been my arithmetic. I, unfortunately, have been diagnosed with dyslexia, which carries over to my math. For whatever reason, I will make the same written mistakes when double checking math problems. Example ( rewriting a basic polynomial expression (x^4 - 2x^3 +2x^2-4x-6) --> ( x^4 + 2x^3 -2x^2-4x-6) I make errors when I rewrite this expression ( sometimes as serious as switching the values of the exponents with their bases. ) Any way to make this post shorter I have found that I make fewer transfer mistakes when typing into a calculator. I had a high school calculus teacher who showed me that calculators can't answer certain questions (limits was the main category he talked about) but Texas instruments have scripts you can download to equip calculators to solve these problems. I showed him this, and in his disbelief, he allowed me to use a calculator. ( there was more to this story, Man vs machine, machine won 5-0) HOWEVER: Machines are in fact 'stupid', if you don't know how to use they are paperweights, but I know how to use them, and I am not alone.

If you are building an engine, would you tell the engineer he could not use a wrench to screw in the bolts? Or a graphic designer, who would not be allowed to use a computer software ( like Adobe ) when creating advertisement? It would be cool if my accountant does his work accurately without a calculator, but it makes me feel better when I know he has a machine programmed to deal with this common issues ( like taxes ) and just needs to fill the values in accordingly.

Nowadays, phones can take pictures of clear crisp problems, provide answers to those problems, and explain them. The internet is becoming more and more powerful, and more and more people have access to its information. With access to the internet, everyone has access to a basic graphing calculator, same with phones. For people with phones, there are graphing calculator apps, because that's all a calculator really is, a user-friendly program. The main point here: the argument should not be: Why can't I use a calculator, it should be, why I shouldn't be allowed to use a calculator.

Before you send me here:

http://math.jhu.edu/~jbaber/calculators/

: as another site has, please note that site is old, and all points made where countered due to age.

If I made any logic errors with this please reply,