UK government bans calculators from primary school maths tests
123 replies, posted
People that can vaguely guess things pretty correctly are usually better at math than those who can't.
I work at a Kumon center, and I can tell you that a huge chunk of the students are kids who have been using a calculator since second or third grade that they can't do basic math mentally or on paper. There's even a couple of high-schoolers that don't know how to do double-digit multiplication (Edit: fixed).
Simply giving kids calculators and expecting that to help raise state testing scores without teaching them the basics (Hint: it doesn't at all) isn't going to fix anything, yet that seems to be the trend.
They absolutely need to limit calculator use *at all* in primary/elementary school unless it's explicitly needed, and only shift to primary use in middle school and high school, when dealing with exact numbers and scientific values. In the US, kids who can't do old-fashioned math are going to have a bad time on standardized tests and state testing, and they do right now. I could imagine in the UK that poor math skills in primary school will lead to further problems on the equivalent.
Tl;dr teach kids how to work without a calculator before letting them have full access to one.
[editline]10th November 2012[/editline]
[QUOTE=Greenen72;38392516]If it's a good prof, they won't grade on your ability to do basic math. If you can hold off on substituting in actual numbers for your variables until the last steps, you've probably demonstrated you know how to use the concepts of what you're being tested over[/QUOTE]
For the most part, that's actually what you're supposed to do, or at least how I learned it. Solving the equation and then punching the numbers in once you've pretty much figured the rest of the problem out is a lot simpler and better at demonstrating that you know what you're doing better than just coming up with a number without accompanying work.
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