I would like to find out if teachers and/or parents are teaching their students to use a calculator for all areas of computation. Grocery shopping, homework, money, etc? I have special needs students who come to me as freshmen with goals that heve been continued since second grade. “Will calculate basic addition and subtraction facts with sums to 10” I would like to hear from parents and teachers on their philosophy of having the kids use a calculator.
What a great topic.
I’ve done some thinking and writing about this and other general issues when it comes to using tools that end run mental processes.
“electronic cash registers help you make change but they don’t give you the underlying understanding of why a shopper just gave you $1.01 for a .66 cent bill.”
http://www.ldresources.com/articles/tools_and_dyslexia.html
In short, if you want to strengthen your mental abacus I think you need to struggle a bit working problems in your head. Too much use of a calculator reduces time spent learning the cognitive strategies necessary to make change, leave a tip, etc.
However, people who do math use calculators (and computers) to do some of the calculations in solving problems. Of course, these people know how to express the problem to the tool and don’t over-rely on the tool; they simply use it to automate and speed up part of a larger process.
Great question.