Calculators not allowed, what's with this?!

I have a legit math l.d. like a right son of a gun, alright? Totally nonverbal, cannot read a map and the whole nine yards.Until just a while ago, really, I was studying math 101 at a university I withdrew from due to illness. Earned that W for withdraw and all of that, because I have been ill and am no fibber, you know?
At this university, they did not think that a calculator was an accomodation for a student l.d. in math at all. The jist of this math 101 class was that you had to pass the math placement test sometime during the course of the semester without a calculator of any sort, this test was proctored and everything. When I asked about the calculator, I was told that a calculator does all the algebra for you. I asked about the totally old fashioned non graphics calculator just so I would not mess up the rules of integers, and they said no way. This placement test was also on web ct and no one would allow me extra time. So, I took it in August and made a 3% on the old fashioned arithmetic portion and totally earned no score at all on the algebra portion because I ran the heck out of time. Since, I wound up falling ill with something that has nothing to do with any of this I do not mind, I guess. Even though, I thought it odd how you could use a calculator in the class, just not on the placement test.

But here is the thing…
For example, if someone visually impaired can have a tape recorder as an accomodation because they are too visually impaired to take notes in a lecture class…then why can’t an old fashioned humble level calculator be an accomodation for someone with a math l.d. or a l.d. that makes math hard for them in some way? That is something I do not understand, and I wonder how prudent doing a math placement test with no calculator really is. Now, there are different levels of calculators. Like, there is a Texas Instruments 89, it is a great calculator if you are doing your homework at 11 at night and need some type of assistance to learn of the steps of a problem. But, there is no way in heck one should use that powerful a calculator on a test, because it is a microprocessor or something or other. However, there are the drugstore humble calculators that one can use as well as the TI 36, which helps with raising numbers to a power and whatnot. There has to be some medium between what is permissible in math becasue someone really l.d in math or who has a l.d which makes math really hard, cannot pass most anything without some form of calculator. [b]Think about it, would you do your monthly household budgeting and bill paying with no form of calculator? Heck fire no, man![/b]
So, DES, I think you should speak with the head of the department about this issue and just go from there. Sometimes community colleges as well as public universities get extra money from these placement tests if you stop and think about it. The more people who have to start from the ground floor up, spend more time in classes that cost a pretty penny. Multiply that pretty penny by the amount of remedial math classes some students wind up having to take for what seems like forever, and you will see what I mean. Totally good luck to you DES, from your posts I can tell you have the tools to help your nephew.

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Actually, merlin, I have seen the exact opposite problem. One college I worked in gave special cram classes to help kids “pass” the placement test — so they got placed in a class they could not possibly manage and then flunked out of school.

A placement test is supposed to find out what you know and place you in the *right* level, where you don’t know everything but have enough foundation to have a good chance of success.
I believe the Accuplacer is the test used at a different college I worked at. First off, the college did NOT want to use this test. They had their own criterion-referenced test previously that was matched up with the courses actually taught. But somebody decided that too many students of certain identifiable minorities were “failing” - already a false statement, you do not pass or fail a placement test, but certain groups were being placed al lot lower than they liked. Never mind that those groups largely came from elementary and high schools that were not doing their jobs, not their fault but how is skipping to too high a math level going to help that? So anyway they brought a lawsuit claiming that the college’s carefully planned test was discriminatory, and the college was *forced* to use a nationally normed test, namely the Accuplacer.

This particular test is strictly a test of computation. a lousy reference for algebra and higher courses, but that is what the court stuck them with.
Since it is a test of computation only, using a calculator on it makes it completely meaningless, merely a test of button-pushing.
That college’s Disability Suppor Service office did indeed allow calculators for their students — and then acted shocked when those students failed miserably where they had been placed by a meaningless test.

By the way, around here a lot of colleges and universities have cut back on calculator use and do not allow graphing calculators on exams. They want to teach more than button-pushing.

Well I’d be absolutely for a test that really could measure if he could do the work or not. I guess the teacher in the class figured he coudl do the work, Accuplacer or not.

I see the point of the test is calculation so no calculators, but it is a stupid test.

I see the point in teaching ANYTHING— even on a college level without a calculator, though I think someone who can’t remember the times tables will be a little unfairly disadvantaged. But there is one thing about teaching a *concept* and another in using math in the real world.

—dse

I’m with Vic - it’s ‘way easy to get overplaced. If it’s a times tables thing, could he bring a times tables chart in with him? (And then learn the darned things?)

The point abouit the calculators doing algebra could be a valid one, and I can understand why they would want a person to know the integer rules to proceed; I have wanted to snatch the calculator from many of my students who *would* internalize those integer patterns, if they actually practiced them; instead they stick the numbers in the calculator and copy the answer without thinking. (THese guys don’t have LDs and it really does bite ‘em in the butt later in the semester.) THe thing that is so frustrating is that so many of these teachers & admins struggle to comprehend that yes, there are a few people out there who really *do* have specific disabilities and are honest to goodness exceptions to what would otherwise be good practices.
At our community college, lots of people take the test with a caclulator, btw (but it is with documentation of an LD).
My question is: are they using those points as an excuse, because really they’re against all accommodations? I’ve got a student who’s going to ask to have a times tables chart with her, and I”m hoping the teacher will go for it (*no* documentation of an LD; just seems like she’s managed to get to reasonably advanced algebra without the times tables. She’s ready to just buckle down & learn ‘em now…) I could imagine negotiating for three of them: one wiht all positives, one wiht positive and negative, and one with all negatives, if that would help with the integer rules.
The thing that might help with the addition rules would be a number line, perhaps?
If you made ‘em and laminated them, so you had it on a piece of paper (or a couple of pieceds of paper if putting them all together is too visually confounding), and they could see the paper wasn’t going to do any fancy algebra for ya, maybe…

“Think about it, would you do your monthly household budgeting and bill paying with no form of calculator?”

I never use a calculator. I even took the WorkKeys Applied Mathematics test (my boss arranged for us take it because we’re vocational evaluators) without using the one they provided. I was tempted to use it on the problem that required multiplying two 4-digit decimal fractions, but I’m stubborn. I finished the 45-minute test in 30 minutes and got the top score. They wouldn’t tell me if I missed any problems. :(

I’m really not bragging - arithmetic has always been pretty easy for me. Maybe a small part of that is because saw how much my father liked it 50+ years ago and I never developed any fear of it. Maybe it’s genetic. I dunno.

At the office we deal with accommodations every single day and as a vocational evaluator I can see both sides of the calculator issue. For me the dividing line when looking at job placement is whether or not a calculator would be practical on the job. Community college or trade school placement tests are another thing though.

Ideally, there would be a test without a calculator, a test with a calculator and an oral test.

The one thing I see day after day, year after year, are people who can’t add 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 using pencil and paper, but they can do it in their heads when I phrase it in terms of $1.50 + $2.50.

John

It is nice to get a little dialogue started sometimes…

Des, I hope things work out and Sue and Victoria bring out lovely points because basically their has to be a happy medium between a little times table chart or number line or even a five dollar calculator.
I am sorry for having a limited perspective. I live in the south, and we are more than a tad behind with a thing or two with regards to l.d.’s, which is why I always try to keep up on things the best I can.

Welp, your frustrations are totally valid, too.

There are an awful lot of people who will “put their foot down” and not allow accommodations, will insist that students “learn this stuff” - but not provide the opportunity to learn it, or the chance to show that in some very specific areas, the brain just isn’t wired to learn it, period.

I’m fairly convinced my nephew never really was remediated for the math calculation problems. He has had one on one aids, but these people glorified baby sitters. One or so did a program I outlined but I don’t even have time for that kind of thign any more, and it wasn’t done. I don’t feel he should sit in the math 111s classes, unless they would actually remediate these problems. From what I gather he has good math reasoning. But he wants to do computers (I think CISCO certification). He doesn’t want to be a physicist. His computer skills are fantastic. From what I understand he passed a router class which involved math skills already.

I think the thing is a penalizer. I get the whole point of trying to take a test to see if a kid could actually handle the coursework. But as Victoria said— it isn’t that sort of test. I see a rationale for teaching without calculators, heck I would do it too. But we are talking community college on a very specific career track. IMO, this is a 504 violation. You want to do x job, and you otherwise have the skills to do X job and they keep you from it via some artificial criteria. My understanding is that they are required to give reasonable accommodations. I understand how they have put themselves in a bit of a bind by doing a calculation test vs. some actual test that could tell you if he could do the work. Might be harder to write that sort of test!!

It is fine to be able to do the checkbook,etc. without a calculator, but it isn’t required. That’s not the point. Some of us have good skills in this sort of thign and some don’t. My point is more that if he has the skills to do the job, he should regardless of what accommodations he might need that would be applicable in the real world of work. You COULD use a calculator if you wanted.

No there isn’t much I can do— thanks for the kind words. I talk to his mom who handles things. I work full-time for the public schools.

—des

The nephew should look into other college routes and/or private computer certification. In specific career tracks, private courses offered by a computer company may be more to the point than community college anyway.

Des,
You said,” [i]He has had one on one aids, but these people are glorified baby sitters.”[/i]

You may be interested in an article in the May/June 2005 issue of the Council for Exceptional Children entitled, “Be Careful What You Wish for …”:Five Reasons to Be Concerned About the Assignment of Individual Paraprofessionals.”

Here is a link for the pdf of the article. http://journals.sped.org/EC/Archive_Articles/VOL.37NO.5MayJune2005_TEC_Giangreco37-5.pdf

Victoria, the community college is offering CISCO certification, or so they say. I imagine the company is underfunding this to some extent. CISCO pretty much does the “intrastructure” for the internet. This is the program he is enrolling in.

KTJ, interesting. Of course I meant to write *aides*. :-)

—des

Des — well, if he can take the computer courses without being required to take the math, he can take them and get the certification from Cisco. He wouldn’t get a college diploma, but in his field that is of lesser importance.

If he is not allowed to register without taking the required math upgrading, so he signs up for whatever course they place him in, probably remedial 1. Either the instructor has some common sense and boots him upstairs placement test or no; or he sits the course through and gets an easy A. There may also be an option for self-paced study through these math classes — he should look for it. Either way he does easy remedial math one class period and learns his computer stuff the rest of the time.

I don’t know how it works exactly with Cisco. I think they are allowing him in whether he places well in the Accuplacer or not. They have talked with him as far as I know., and he is taking binary math. (I don’t think a calculator is too helpful for this though.) I think that may be the only math course— not sure.

I imagine you’re right and they will put him Math 111 or whatever, as well.

—des

I don’t think a calculator would make much difference in binary math… I’m thinking maybe he should go ahead and take the test (tho’ perhaps with the times tables chart). We often have studetns who are allowed to ‘re-assess with accommodations’ once the paperwork has been done or arguments have been won.

Okay, no, I’m editign this post…

… the best option probably is to take binary math & do well in it. Success speaks *volumes* including to administrators. So… what would he have to do to do well in binary math? Could/would he get the book a bit early and do some advance work in it?

Hooray! the math teacher here *is* going to let my new dropper-inner have a times tables chart for the last exam & final, tho’ she’s also going to spend some time working on them ‘cause she knows that’s not the best fix… she’s got no documented LDs). So, you could tell ‘em that there’s at least one college professor who does that…

I guess he took the router course (long story on that one) and aced it, even though it did involve regular math. He used a calculator on the computer, which I don’t think the instructor even knew about.
Funny thing but you can use google as a calculator too. Didn’t know this til the other day.

BTW, it is final and he is living with me. Well at least I won’t have to wait a month for lights to be changed. :-)

—des

How many des’s does it take to change a light bulb?

Keep on pluggin’…

How many des’s does it take to change a lightbulb?

Well if it is 7-8 feet up, 0 I don’t change lightbulbs if I have
to climb a ladder. So I don’t. I wait around and see if someone else
will. Sometimes I go a LONG time without changing one.

—des

Well, des, tall roommates are really useful — many of mine have ranged from 6’1” to 6’7” …

Just curious , but how did this work out? I am used to my privacy, but I think a roommate would be useful (he also will vacuum, clean my fishtank, etc.), and I get a little bit more money for him.
Of course, I know him very well. That should help— better the devil that you know. :-)

—des

I’ve had really good and really bad roommates, some I cried real tears to lose, and some I sent out in the hands of the police. The better ones tend to be the students and the younger guys on their way up in a career and the new immigrants with a goal in mind. You’re on the right track with the nephew.
For privacy, give him a sitting area of his own — easy chair or sofa in his room and let him run a cable for his own TV and his own phone extension, and he can set up a dsl router and a home wireless network for you (one of my more recent roommates set one up for me, easy.). Then you can get together when you both want to, not when you don’t.
Set clear house rules re noise, cleanliness, animals, guests, etc., and post them in the bathroom. Then in case of argument he knows what he was supposed to do.
Roomies are nice — I get lonely without mine.

I like it better living with people too… spent a few years in Pete & Marge’s spare room downstairs. Guess I was the roomie :-) (It was a little funny when she mentioned in a chat room that I “lived with her husband.”) Now I’ve got my own house… and it’s *almost* like having roomies ‘cause Pete & Marge are just a few blocks away. (Their daughter lived in my house for about as many years. It was nice on the rent, though she wasn’t tall enough to change light bulbs :-))

Or you could all come to Illinois - the house is big enough! we could start the Cyberschool for the Gifted & Interesting…

Well sounds like fun, Sue. And I could leave Albuq. public schools. But I really wouldn’t want to leave NM. Gotten kind of used to the better weather. ;-)

Thanks for the good suggestions, Victoria…

—des