Do yourself a BIG favour - Get a GDC

OP

Original post by TeeEm

I think everybody should click on Mr M's link to Amazon reviews!

Some of them are quite funny

Contrary to Mr M's snide remarks (typical of many teachers), I had no intention of advertising anything on this forum. My post was simply intended to encourage students to use the current system (which allows GDCs), whatever it's faults, to maximise their exam marks.

I too found the some of the remarks of those in school management, desperate to suppress the truth about themselves, quite funny. Unfortunately, it's not so funny for the students who they are selling down the river. And, when I'm tutoring, I regularly hear appalling stories about heads of maths (with very limited subject knowledge) ranting at their classes, like lunatics, and other maths teachers teaching their class things that are wrong!

Reply 22

OP

Original post by DFranklin

Having been to his website, I was, um, suspicious. So, not actually a mistake: thought I'd give him ~~enough rope to hang himself~~ the benefit of the doubt...

What you did was typical of far too many teachers: childish, and spiteful. However, having come across enough of your type, your simplistic ploy was very transparent.

Reply 23

Original post by David Getling

Contrary to Mr M's snide remarks (typical of many teachers), I had no intention of advertising anything on this forum. My post was simply intended to encourage students to use the current system (which allows GDCs), whatever it's faults, to maximise their exam marks.

I too found the some of the remarks of those in school management, desperate to suppress the truth about themselves, quite funny. Unfortunately, it's not so funny for the students who they are selling down the river. And, when I'm tutoring, I regularly hear appalling stories about heads of maths (with very limited subject knowledge) ranting at their classes, like lunatics, and other maths teachers teaching their class things that are wrong!

I apologize sincerely if you felt offended by my comment, I had no such intention.

I am totally against the use of any calculating aid in a mathematics exam, but I agree with some comments you made, in favour of calculators.

What has upset many people here I guess, is your dogmatic (apologies again) views which sometimes come across as personal attacks.

I always respect difference of opinion ...

Reply 24

BabyMaths

Original post by David Getling

What you did was typical of far too many teachers: childish, and spiteful. However, having come across enough of your type, your simplistic ploy was very transparent.

You could have just given us some examples. That would not be hanging yourself would it?

I have an open mind on this matter. I recommend the Casio FX-991ES at the moment but I'm open to persuasion.

Is there a particular type of student that you think would benefit most?

Reply 25

DFranklin

18

Original post by David Getling

What you did was typical of far too many teachers: childish, and spiteful. However, having come across enough of your type, your simplistic ploy was very transparent.

Seriously?

Because what I asked is actually a completely reasonable question - if you were genuinely trying to be helpful, as opposed to trying to market your pamphlet, you would be happy to give some examples so we could see what you are talking about.

I was, however, ~~childish~~ curious enough to see whether you would actually give examples, or obfuscate.

So far, the evidence is not in your favour.

BabyMaths

You could have just given us some examples. That would not be hanging yourself would it?

Absolutely. To be clear, "hanging himself" would have been referring us to his book.

Reply 26

the bear

20

Original post by Mr M

Bad mistake - here comes the advert for his wondrous books on the benefits of GDCs. Relentless advertising got him banned from the TES website.

I've no desire to publicise those books but I did enjoy the Amazon reviews for another of his less-than-weighty tomes.

Earlier thread from TSR

PRSOM

Reply 27

OP

Original post by TeeEm

I apologize sincerely if you felt offended by my comment, I had no such intention.

I am totally against the use of any calculating aid in a mathematics exam, but I agree with some comments you made, in favour of calculators.
.

Your comment didn't offend me. I genuinely was amused by the psychic one-star reviewers and the OFSTED style review.

Actually, even though it would cost me, on the whole I share your views about the use of calculators in exams, but if candidates are spared looking up tables and performing long multiplications and divisions by hand I can't see that this is a bad thing. My point is that since GDCs are allowed students should take full advantage of them. What's certain is that in at least a few (private) schools there are going to be students who are encouraged to use them and coached well in how to do so. I'm just giving others the same advantage. As I said at the start, I've seen some of the difficulties my students could circumvent with their use: and why not, if others are doing so. I'm very well aware that the most prestigious competitions (IMO and Putnam) don't have the kind of questions that require calculators, but they require thinking, and when A-level students have to do much thinking the whining about how hard the exam was (from both students and their teachers) is truly pitiful.

To those asking for examples, I've already mentioned table look-ups in two contexts, and graph sketching. If you want more then just search the web. What I will add, for those who don't know, is that the TI-Nspire has a built in spreadsheet with two special rows at the top, for naming lists and applying formulae to them. This, among other features, is something that that cheaper models don't have.

Reply 28

Original post by the bear

PRSOM

Original post by ghostwalker

PRSOM.

?PRSOM?

Reply 29

simonli2575

5

Can any of them plot differential equations, do matrix transformations or draw vectors? If not, then that feature's unless to me.

Reply 30

ghostwalker

17

Original post by TeeEm

?PRSOM?

"Please Rate Some Other Member"

If you give a member a positive rating, then you have to rate 40 different people before you can rate the same member again.

That's the start of the phrase that appears if you haven't rated 40 others - PRSOM just lets the other poster know that you tried to give them a rating for their post, but couldn't.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 31

OP

Original post by simonli2575

Can any of them plot differential equations, do matrix transformations or draw vectors? If not, then that feature's unless to me.

Google the information for yourself! If you are too lazy to do this then it's not worth you getting a GDC, because you won't put in the effort to learn how to use it well.

This is my last post on this thread. Students now have enough information to help themselves. Unfortunately too many students want everything handed to them on a plate, and expect to get good grades for minimal or no effort. That's why I like tutoring. I'm only interested in students who are prepared to work hard (regardless of ability).

Reply 32

Kvothe the Arcane

20

Original post by David Getling

That's why I like tutoring. I'm only interested in students who are prepared to work hard (regardless of ability).

Do you teach (a) class(es) and tutor or do you just tutor?

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 33

simonli2575

5

Original post by David Getling

Google the information for yourself! If you are too lazy to do this then it's not worth you getting a GDC, because you won't put in the effort to learn how to use it well.

I have a calculator that does one-lined programming, and one of the programs I've made can find the probability of a binomial or poisson distribution. What makes you think I wouldn't put in the effort to learn the function? And if you wanted to promote GDCs, why would you tell me to google it myself? You're not making me more interested in them.

Reply 34

DFranklin

18

Original post by David Getling

To those asking for examples, I've already mentioned table look-ups in two contexts, and graph sketching.Those are actually good examples, but they are also the two "obvious" scenarios where a more powerful calculator makes a significant difference.

It's actually a bit of a mystery to me why "normal" calculators don't have erf(x) (+ inverse) these days, particularly given some of the "more dubious" bits of functionalty ("grad mode", anyone?) they do provide. As soon as you need to use the normal distribution, you're back relying on tables, which seems a bit mad in this day and age. You could somewhat say the same for cumulative binomial / poisson, but I can't say I've often felt the need for this.

And as for graphing, I think it's fairly obvious that its silly for examiners to have curve sketching questions in papers where graphing calculators are alllowed (unless they are sneaky enough to make questions graphing calculators will mess up!). (And similarly for the stats tables, I think the examiners need to decide whether students should know how to use tables or not. I think these days the answer is increasingly not).

So perhaps I should have been clearer: outside of these two specific areas, what kind of thing are you talking about? To give an example of my own, when I did A-level maths, one standard question was some variant on:

Rewrite A sin x + B cos x in the form R sin(x + C) (where A, B were given constants).

And I realised you could do save a bit of time by treating (A, B) as (x,y) coords and using the Rectangular->Polar conversion function on my calculator. But no-one else in my year seemed to "get" this - they might be able to do it by rote, but they didn't understand it, and that left them very vulnerable to changes from the standard form. (And to be honest, I wouldn't be very confident in using it as a sole method of solving the question, it was more useful as a 2nd method for testing).

So at the end of the day, "cool trick, but not actually much advantage". It seemed to me most calculator tricks fell into that category.

Funnily enough, I'd absolutely agree with you that calculator practice is important, however, to my mind it's being quick, accurate and confident with the "normal stuff" that makes the biggest difference. I would routinely do all calculator work twice, and make sure I got the same answer both times; a lot of people are so slow using a calculator that this wouldn't be viable for them.

Reply 35

Original post by ghostwalker

"Please Rate Some Other Member"

If you give a member a positive rating, then you have to rate 40 different people before you can rate the same member again.

That's the start of the phrase that appears if you haven't rated 40 others - PRSOM just lets the other poster know that you tried to give them a rating for their post, but couldn't.

many thanks

i understand now.

Reply 36

BabyMaths

Original post by DFranklin

It's actually a bit of a mystery to me why "normal" calculators don't have erf(x) (+ inverse) these days ....

...You could somewhat say the same for cumulative binomial / poisson

The inverse can be done quite quickly by trial and improvement. I'm not saying I'd recommend that though.

c poisson.jpg

You would have to spend about £16 to get these options.

Reply 37

DFranklin

18

Original post by BabyMaths

The inverse can be done quite quickly by trial and improvement. I'm not saying I'd recommend that though.

c poisson.jpg

You would have to spend about £16 to get these options.

Thanks (PRSOM...). (I did do a quick search erf in calculators and all the top results seemed to be graphical. Of course, graphical isn't exactly expensive these days either).

Reply 38

the bear

20

Original post by ghostwalker

"Please Rate Some Other Member"

If you give a member a positive rating, then you have to rate 40 different people before you can rate the same member again.

That's the start of the phrase that appears if you haven't rated 40 others - PRSOM just lets the other poster know that you tried to give them a rating for their post, but couldn't.

what ghostwalker said... but also if you want to save your reps for other posts you can pretend you ran out :getmecoat:

Reply 39