• UK government bans calculators from primary school maths tests
    123 replies, posted
Allowing maths students to rely on their calculators suppresses the need to truly know what is happening, in my opinion. If you teach them to do everything in their head they will because much better at pattern recognition and whatnot which is absolutely key for being genuinely good at maths. [sp]Source: My ass and doing maths with 11 year olds when I was 7[/sp]
[QUOTE=Itsjustguy;38385355]I've never used a calculator in a math test, only physics. I find it better to not use a calculator, makes you think more.[/QUOTE] Then I'm assuming you never had anything past basic math. Once you start getting into algebra, you need a calculator in order to graph the various functions, as well as do logarithms. The very basic parts of algebra can be done without a calculator, but the majority needs one.
Fascist pigs.
Good. My math classes don't allow calculators on quizzes or exams and one of my friends said he didn't use one in years at the university he went to. It forces you to rationalize/simplify shit as much as possible even if you can't double check. It's a pain in the ass with trig when you have a ton of square roots all over the place.
I love doing trig manually though, it feels so satisfying.
Guys, they want the kids developing their mathematical intuition and, by extent, increase their capacity for abstract thinking. Using calculators for solving basic arithmetics sort of undermines that.
See no reason for them to not use one. Some students will use their head anyway, but the important thing is knowing the rules and applying them, not being good at crunching numbers in your head. Higher maths is mostly about solving a problem, while explaining your thoughts and, especially, backing it up with proof. Number crunching can be left to calculators, you still need to be able to input the numbers correctly.
Western mathematics are so behind Asian ones. We learn times tables in grade 1! (seriously. I still have bad memories in the summer of grade 1 being forced to memorize them >.>, although laughing at the lack of mathematical knowledge of westerners in grade 4 was fairly amusing.)
I remember being in primary school and they told us not to use calculators, with the excuse "no one's going to be carrying a calculator around with them all day every day in real life" ...all hail the mobile phone
I'd be fucked, I still have to use my fingers to do times table. And remember milestones like 5x
[QUOTE=Doozle;38385876]I'd be fucked, I still have to use my fingers to do times table. And remember milestones like 5x[/QUOTE] I have never been able to use my fingers to do anything in maths, it makes me more confused.
I was never allowed to use a calculator until 4th grade.
Good thing I dont live in the UK and am not 11 years old, I am absolutely terrible at the whole calculating part of math. Otherwise I have a good understanding of it.
Why is everyone assuming you have to do mental maths? They probably banned calculators because it's simple math in primary, and you should be writing down your work as you go through the problem. I've always found writing out calculations much easier than using a calculator (and obviously it's way easier than doing it in your head), especially for really long or mutli-step problems.
Learning basic maths is necessary, the amount of dumb people not even knowing their multiplication tables is horrendous. I'm totally ok with this.
I always messed something up when doing it in my head or even on paper, calculators are my savior.
HAHAHAHA Wait,they actually use calculators in math tests? Where i live calculators in school are only allowed in physics tests,but on math tests,they never were and they never will. Good for kids.
Once I hit highschool and started in on algebra, a calculator probably would have made things a lot easier. As it was, I had no idea how my text was getting the graphs that it was showing. Only when I got into college level maths, did I really start understanding.
Wtf Here in Romania I was never allowed to use a calculator during tests. Not even when it got super complicated. I'm jelly.
[QUOTE=-Get_A_Life-;38386254]Learning basic maths is necessary, the amount of dumb people not even knowing their multiplication tables is horrendous. I'm totally ok with this.[/QUOTE] Never understood why people should learn those. They are pure memory, only thing they do is help (slightly) you get an answer to some multiplications, all of which can be calculated really quickly without memorizing anyway. It's not like they give you any mathematical knowledge. 7*7=7*5+7*2, much more useful than tables, easier to do, and actually makes you think and exercise.
My problem with Calculators is that you become far too reliant on them for basic maths.
So long as the tests are written with this in mind I don't see the problem
I don't see why they should tailor the tests to students who are obviously more mathematically inept, rather they should tailor them to better students so truly great minds can shine
[QUOTE=carcarcargo;38385345]Uuuh, most maths in real life with be done with calculators, kids kind of need to learn how to use them. Why does it seem that our education system has been going backwards lately? I'm almost sure they did that back when I did them.[/QUOTE] Don't you think it's better that kids learn to work out sums themselves before learning how to use a device that works out sums for them? Seems pretty logical to me
Huh, we always had to do all the calculations.
[QUOTE=proch;38387184]Huh, we always had to do all the calculations.[/QUOTE] Same, and anyway wouldn't calculators pretty much work out nearly everything for pupils since algebra isn't covered at primary school level maths?
[QUOTE=RobbL;38387237]Same, and anyway wouldn't calculators pretty much work out nearly everything for pupils since algebra isn't covered at primary school level maths?[/QUOTE] Depends on the school my step-sister went into sixth grade and they were being taught pre-algebra. Though, different country and all.
I took a quiz yesterday in history of math. For the second question we had to find the Pythagorean triple with 13 as one of the sides, and we were given Euclid's formula for generating triples. I finished in about 3-5 minutes along with a few others. Most of the class took 15+ minutes. Around then, the professor said the remaining people can use calculators. 6 people took another 15 minutes, a half hour in total, with a calculator for half of that time. One girl brute forced every possible Pythagorean triple with a calculator until she found the right one. These were senior math students and math education students, at a university. If UK students are anywhere near as awful, please take away their calculators. There's no excuse for this.
[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;38387424]I took a quiz yesterday in history of math. For the second question we had to find the Pythagorean triple with 13 as the sides, and we were given Euclid's formula for generating triples. I finished in about 3-5 minutes along with a few others. Most of the class took 15+ minutes. Around then, the professor said the remaining people can use calculators. 6 people took another 15 minutes, a half hour in total, with a calculator for half of that time. One girl brute forced every possible Pythagorean triple with a calculator until she found the right one. These were senior math students and math education students, at a university. If UK students are anywhere near as awful, please take away their calculators. There's no excuse for this.[/QUOTE] Assuming you mean 13 as one of the sides, that's trivial and actually a good way of telling who is mathematically able. I actually taught my maths teacher how to do that today.
[QUOTE=sambooo;38387531]Assuming you mean 13 as one of the sides, that's trivial and actually a good way of telling who is mathematically able. I actually taught my maths teacher how to do that today.[/QUOTE] Whoops, yes. [I]One[/I] of the sides. I can't believe most of my class is planning on teaching math and can't do this in under 10 minutes.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.