Survey posted 2001-03-29 02:11 by Andy Selle.

Contribute ideas to surveys by sending a mail to survey@ticalc.org.

Yeah other causes, like BEER!!!!
Oh yeah first comment, when I made this comment the poll was 100% in my favor.
:)

i SO agree. calculators are not to blame for the dumbening of the world's students. it's their own damn fault if they're stupid.

actually i think that if everything i learn in Alg2 can be accurately done on the 89 like factor, expand, solve, and csolve, not to mention other math programs, then why should i learn anything more then how to solve it on calc.

All in all, I don't think it matters if you cheat on the condition you don't plan on going to college. Almost every major requires calculus 1 credit, and if you know no algebra, plan to fail then, as you must show your work most often. Also, learning math and most everything is a sequential process. If you don't learn the easy stuff it will be next to impossible to grasp more rigorous math and science.

"...on the condition you don't plan on going to college..."

The question asked about university students, not others. I suppose it's fine that most people here are talking about high school or junior high students (because that's what many of them are, I'm guessing), but some of what applies to younger students might not apply to college students.

--Phillip

On a side note, BTW I'm posting this on April 1 so if u see this later, it's probably 2 late, but Calc.org has posted a parody of Ticalc.org today, and you really should think about going there. It is hilarious!

Just me and my 2.00001 cents

cause you get to college and you have to take physics 1-3 with only a scientific calculator. if you can't do calculus, algebra, and trig, you're in too deep.

I think that having games on the calculator is to blame. When I played my calculator games in math class, I failed. I've seen it happen to my brother, myself, and others. The games are the distraction that ruins your grades.

I don't believe that is true. I often play games in my precalculus class, and I have an A+ (considered A in GPA (stupid district rules)). All you have to do is read the book to learn the concepts, but I do agree that listening helps a little.

I used to play calculator games during class in high school--it didn't affect my grades in the least. (I'm a straight A student.)

But, "your results may vary"--some people just shut out what's going on in the classroom entirely and just concentrate on playing games. And this might be why they fail classes.

What type of game has to have some factor in it - I've been playing two games in class, Phoenix and TI-Chess. When I play Phoenix, almost inevitable following grades will start going down (I was free to experiment with myself, as I had already been accepted into college). However, TI-Chess had little to no effect gradeswise. My theory? The action game required a much higher level of continuous concentration, so I couldn't easily look up to see what was going on. However, with TI-Chess, I could stop looking at the calc any particular moment I wanted without the fear of loosing the game.

I think that what affects your grades is your attitude. If you can play during during class and still get good grades thats great, as long as you don't get caught. But if your grades go down, its better to stop laying during math until you can control yourself to do both things at once. I personally can do both, but i know some people that can't. It all depends on your abilities and your willingness to do your work.

It has nothing to do with the calculators, but with the ridiculous liberal mindset of too many university admissions panels who in an effort to promote "equality" and bring unnecessary "diversity" into their colleges lower their standards to allow a more "holistic" approach to evaluating applicants. The intelligent students are still out there, it's just that disproportionately many stupid people are getting into college.

I agree, my father is a geology professor and he says that a lot students sign up for his course thinking that a course about rocks will be easy. But placing a chemical formula on the chalkboard is enough to scare a couple students into dropping. And he complains that the students he gets don't understand logs or scientific notation.

Logs?

Scientific Notation?

What are thoes things?
Na just joking.
Dustin

I agree :)

It's decreasing because America sucks at teaching math. The "drill it into your head and practice until it makes sense" method is backward and ineffective. It's no wonder that everyone hates math. The only people I know (including myself) that enjoy math liked it before schools ruined it for them. (God bless Square One TV!)

Jyrinx
jyrinx@zerg.com

Is that show still on the air?

In a way, "drill it into your head and practice until it makes sense" IS the way to learn math. It is the way to learn how to solve problems; rarely do you find yourself able to skim through your lecture notes, let alone the textbook, and then do problems right off the bat.

Perhaps I should ask if there are alternatives to drilling and practice. You know there's gotta be a different way. :P

Different people learn in different ways. Math is no exception. Some people need to do 20 homework problems in each section to understand it. Some people don't. It depends on how your mind works. I'm a rather good computer programmer, which should be a good indication to how I think, or least an indicator that I can think a certain way.

With me, I either know it or I don't. In high school Algebra II, I could sit through an entire class period without really paying attention and not understand the material. Even writing everything down and paying attention usually didn't help. It just didn't seem to be explained the right way for me. But after class, I could ask a friend, and he could explain everything in two or three minutes that took an hour of class time for the teacher to explain.

Some parts of math are memorization. For most people, repetition is the only way to memorize something, and thus the only way to "learn" certain parts of math. An example would be derivatives of certain functions, such as trig, square root, log, etc. Yes, it is possible to derive these by hand, but doing so would make it impossible to do any more complicated problem an extremely lengthy process. The same is true for the rules that make taking derivatives easier. Technically, you don't need them, but without them it would take you at least several times longer.

There are two types of memorization: forced and natural. In my opinion, forced memorization is pointless. A person will generally forget anything he/she has been forced to memorize if it is not routinely used. In grade school, I had to memorize all of the presidents of the US, and the names of all of the states and their respective capitols. Does this mean it was a waste of time to memorize them? Probably. I can recognize a name as being a former president, or a city as being a capitol of a state, and usually even remember which one. So maybe it has some usefulness. But if I had to use this information on a day to day basis, I would memorize it just through the use of it.

It is natural to memorize anything this is frequently seen or heard. How smart a person appears is often judged by how fast or how much is memorized in this fashion. When you begin to use a friend's phone number, you usually have to look it up. After a while, you remember it without trying. Forcing yourself to memorize it would most likely be pointless. It would probably be forgotten if not used frequently.

The same holds true towards math rules. Being forced to memorize rules isn't going to help me at using them better or at remembering them. I can remember the product and quotient rules for derivatives because I use them so often. But until I used them often enough to memorize them, what harm is there in having them written down in some form?

I SOOOOOOOO totaly agree. Like the example, I had to memorize states and capitals. It was a pain in the ass, and I dont remember crap neither. Plus one time in math class, I actually fell asleep right in the begining, slept for ALL of math class, woke up, cursed to myself, and read and understood the chapter, on my own, in 'bout one minute.

Yeah Square One TV!

Mathnet was cool :-)

u r so right
btw are you left or right brained