Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion When to stop using calculators?

ITA with Quantum and bluemagic. DD has used a calculator since-- well, since she was about five, actually.

Sometimes the point of the exercise is to use the calculator appropriately-- that is, to understand the math that is being explored.

The calculator is just a tool to make the background noise smaller so that the math can shine instead, IMO.

Sometimes it gets in the way if the underlying foundation is poorly understood (since students are then more prone to data entry error and to not writing steps down for themselves and therefore don't catch conceptual errors)-- and sometimes it removes barriers (graphing using any other means is painfully slow, frankly).

Seriously-- I know how to do a linear regression manually, but why on earth is that skill a useful one to practice now that I know??

I have worked for a College and public school districts and what I see is there is a problem in the school district level (because of reasons I won't get into here but no fault of their own). Students are being pushed to learn to depend on calculators and not really understand HOW to do math. Then by the time they get to college they are having to take Elementary and Intermediate Algebra to get them caught up to the College Algebra Level. In the college I work for they aren't allowed to use calculators in the lower levels because they have to learn what they didn't in Middle and High School.

Since you are homeschooling you should be better aware of whether or not your student really understands the basics enough to remember them. So that should be your judgment point and if you feel that they are losing the skill you can decide to refresh those skills by telling them no calculators today.

What on earth is a graphing calculator anyway? And why would you need one to do pre-algebra?

Graphing calculators allow you to graph functions. Learning to use them is a valuable skill that a child could do whenever ready to use one.

I should clarify my previous response. I think it's valuable to keep in practice doing basic mental math (e.g., there is no reason to need a calculator to convert meters to millimeters). Simple addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division can be done quickly and easily and I wouldn't want my child to get out a calculator every time she needed to use those.

For complex things, like graphing, exponential functions, etc., then a calculator can be very valuable as long as the underlying concepts are understood. I don't think age matters.

What concerns me is that I often see students who struggle with very basic equations when they don't have access to a calculator. I'm sure they learned these skills at some point, but they just have become very reliant on calculators (and maybe weren't confident enough in math in the first place, but I don't know). I think there is a benefit in using mental math regularly for these relatively simple calculations to keep a confidence and facility with it.

I think kids who are really confident with math find it quicker and easier to do these simple calculations in their heads anyway versus using a calculator; I'm definitely not talking about working out complex problems when much more can be accomplished using a calculator.