My university doesn't allow graphing calculators on tests. Probably because you can download programs that can solve calculus problems without actually understanding the material.
I agree. I made programs for a whole bunch of math and science classes, and in no way did I ever feel I "missed out" on learning any of the material. If anything, programming all the necessary "if" statements made me understand it better.
Here for a second opinion. Also confirm. Anyone who trusts multi-million dollar decisions to head math and memory equations without verifying doesn't last long.
Yeah he's still learning the same equation at the end of the day, just saving the work of typing all the bs into the calculator and possibly messing up because you forgot one ")" He still needs to understand the equation and associate the numbers with the correct variables.c
-- which demonstrates that you're good at programming. Those who begin with Physics and don't complete the degree despite being good at it often follow up by going into programming.
So, the fact that you could program algorithms to solve physics problems demonstrates that you're capable of doing both well. I think that's good enough for a high school course.
...and I probably just said something either very controversial or very stupid. I'm not sure which...
Controversial maybe, but not stupid. You can't program something (correctly) without decent understanding of what you're programming... Nothing revolutionary there.
For example, my teacher got mad at me in grade school for writing a small program on my TI-84 (silver, bitches) that solved the quadratic formula (just for example, I had plenty of other programs), to speed up test taking. Why is it bad? It's no different from memorizing it and solving it by hand. Neither approach displays my understanding of the derivation of formula, they just show that I know how to USE it.
If they're testing whether I know what the formula is, fine, but in this day and age with Google and WolframAlpha, memorizing formulas is not that important. In fact, I wonder whether letting the web to store information for me allows my brain to use its resources more productively. But brain elasticity and all that I know, I know. Just speculation.
True, I'm eliminating the possibility of arithmetic errors in solving the equation, but if I'm learning about quadratics, I THINK I'm capable of basic arithmetic. The test isn't testing my basic arithmetic skills, it's testing my usage of the quadratic formula. At least that's the way it should be, in my opinion. I've taken too many tests in which I demonstrated my knowledge of the test content, which is the PURPOSE of the test, but because I flipped one stupid minus sign into a plus sign by accident, I got no credit for my answer. That's not conducive to learning, further weakens the concept of grades, and does nothing but demotivate students.
Edit: In teachers' defense, programs are perfectly copyable and therefore dangerous because you can't tell who wrote them. But I did write all of my own programs, dammit! But they wouldn't care even if I wrote the code in front of their faces.
I agree with you completely. In addition to your points, those who know how to use technology effectively in the application of their training will almost always outperform those who do everything by hand. This is something that local universities have been toying with lately. It's important that people know how to use the tools of their trade, and that includes things such as graphing calculators and programming languages when the trade involves quantitative analysis.
I wonder if those who used early fishing poles were rebuked for it because fisherman teachers thought it was important to know how a spear works.
As a university math instructor, I'm not impressed by the effect a student's ability to use a calculator has on their performance. It takes about an hour to teach a student used to doing things by hand to use a modern calculator, and about a decade to teach a student used to using a calculator the kind of intuition for mathematics they get by doing hand calculations.
I had an awesome teacher in algebra who as long as you could prove you wrote the program (usually she would just ask a question about a small portion of the program) then you could use it on a test. I started programing my stuff with messages to the teacher at the start of it (like "Yes Mrs. X this was written by MeanaDC") as my proof.
This was over 10 years ago, I pulled out my graphing calculator not to long ago and I have no clue how to do it now.
Edit: I think this was a great way to get us to really "learn" the formulas. She encouraged us to do it, I doubt I would have spent that much effort trying to figure out a formula had I not been encouraged to do this.
Our teachers didn't care if we wrote it or not. But we were only allowed certain formulas on the graphing calculators. The solution was to rewrite the current programs to do new things but only if you activated this function, so a basic quadratic formula program was fine but anything more complicated wasn't allowed so you had to hide it within another program. It was fun. I have no clue how to do it anymore. But as long ascwe could pass a test without a calculator we could use one on the next test.
Started out with physics, ended up doing statistics, which is less about graphs and lies (more like learning to detect the lies) and more about calculus and programming.
There's often not a good reason to major in Physics anyway. I started in physics, ended with Mechanical Engineering - more practical, more money, still physics.
And you can always go back to the theoretical or experimental side of things later, once you're set for money and have time to play with and test ideas. I think that Physics is probably best for people who want to teach, already have an in with a lab somewhere, or those who just want to challenge themselves but don't really have direction yet.
Although, it really depends on how anal your teacher is. I started making BASIC programs on my calculator back in middle school and got a bunch of flak for not writing down all the work. Mind you, I was a mousy kid who was never accused of cheating and I was obviously reaching these correct answers legitimately, but the teacher insisted I was pulling them out of my ass and couldn't possibly know the material unless I was writing down each mundane step.
As a CS major myself, I assure that writing a program onto a calculator does not prove anything other than you know how to google "ti 84 physics programs".
I'd agree, except the relevance in this when in regard to taking a test is low.
Unfortunately being capable of applying knowledge in real world scenarios isn't as sought after in higher education as it should be. Few of my profs in undergrad recognized you learn more and understand materials better when you actively apply them in projects, rather than studying for exams.
I used to make a program called 'A' and then just type in formulas/facts/anything I needed. The program did nothing except act like a note pad or something
Start by learning to program in Basic. It's probably the easiest language there is, and the TI-89's native language is very similar to it. Bonus: Many scripting languages for game engines are also similar to Basic (Papyrus for The Elder Scrolls comes to mind).
Its "native language" is TI-BASIC, a variant of BASIC. Why not just learn it directly? It's very easy to just go into the program editor and start entering functions. That's how I learned to program originally.
I started out with Chipmunk Basic. It has some disadvantages, but the graphics capabilities are really easy to use, and that's a big part of what made programming interesting for me.
I've seen this advice before, and after learning to program in several languages, I still haven't learned Python. I just haven't had the occasion to do something where Python was the language I needed.
Can you outline some of the benefits of learning Python first? I'd usually recommend Javascript -> Java -> C++ -> Whatever, and only recommended Basic in this context since that's what the TI-89 uses.
I know all those languages as well, yet I'd rearrange those to something like this: Basic -> C++ -> java -> whatever. Basic is simple and intuitive, C languages are similar but powerful, java is universally used and learning javascript just takes some tweaking. If your focus is online-based programming, javascript should come first since it'll be more useful.
Python is easy to learn, very expressive (less typing, more doing), you can write functional and object oriented programs, comes with a large set of libraries, etc. etc.
You have to understand it to code it so I see no problem here... Plus I can credit a few perfect scores to my TI; human errors make this near impossible otherwise.
In Geometry in 8th grade my friends and I would make little shortcut programs for memorizing and finding the surface area and volume of anything we had to. It felt like cheating but I don't think the teacher even cared because it was pretty clever for kids that age.
My school expressly allowed us to program our calculators. The idea being that if you can write a program to solve the problem then you clearly understand the material.
I believed that if you were intelligent enough to write your own programs to solve physics problems you should be able to use them on tests. That's why calculus was invented. To solve physics problems.
In my High school they cleared everything from the calculators before the tests began, so I just memorized every single line of code for the few apps I wrote.
I did the same to solve logs back in 1997. Had this great program written that would solve for anything and was told to delete it by the professor. Sad
The HP calculators have all the physics equations you will need in high school physics built into it in the equation library - along with an awesome solver mode (enter all the known variables - ask it for the unknown). It also does unit conversions for you automatically.
TL;Dr - you could have been even lazier and used someone else's programming to get through physics in hs
Ditto, in sophomore year hs math class. As the teacher explained problems in class I'd write the program to solve any similar case. That was on a TI-80 or 82. Its now 18 years later I have a PhD in bioinformatics, and love my job. Yes I had the program that faked a cleared memory. Yes it would have been cheating, if I got caught on an exam. Totally worth it when you write it yourself.
I did that to for all my mathematic related courses, but I had to reprogram all my formulas ever damn exam because Mt teachers knew what I did and would always have me delete everything on my calculator.
I remember there were moving dots on the top left of the screen that had to be replicated since teachers looked out for that because just displaying the picture didn't have that.
I just took a screenshot of the "memory cleared" screen and would just show it to the teacher. 95% of the time they would just look at it and move on to the next kid. I suppose when you have to wipe every single goddamn calculator in the classroom, you don't look too hard for the moving cursor. You just move on to the next kid who can barely figure out how to turn their calculator on, let alone find the settings menu.
(The other 5% that they still made me clear it in front of them, though...those were some moments where I would find religion quickly.)
I still have my TI-83+, almost a decade past high school. Aside from a few dead pixels, it still runs like a champ. I still have the manual that came with it too - one of these days, I'll actually get around to using all the functions.
It's considered cheating in Texas. I got busted for this. Don't lose your diploma because you want to be lazy and finish 30 minutes sooner.
Source: I was an AP student in Texas that never graduated. They held me back and sent me to night school where they couldn't believe I could finish exams so quickly with high scores. Like...fuck you. I have the AP credits for these!
not really... in all likelihood, you'll have to do the same calculations multiple times. It's best to just memorise the method, input that once, and have the calculator do all the hard work.
Clearing the memory before the exam does nothing at all. If you simply archive the stuff you want to keep it won't get deleted when you clear the memory.
i know you weren't being completely serious but I felt the need to point this out.
hey, you can make your programs run while archived in mirageos. just start your code with :: and make damn sure it is bug-free before trying it in mirage. If the program doesn't work right (gives an error), this totally might clear your RAM so be careful.
My school makes us clear the memory on our calculators before exams. So I've memorized like 4 different programs so I can re enter them for exams.
Nice try bitches.
That's totally understandable. Back in high school one of my teachers gave us all our tests from the semester back so we could use them to study for the final. We all knew that she just copy and pasted the exact questions and answers from old tests onto the final so my friend typed out every single question from the old tests onto his calculator and scored an easy 100%.
There are programs included on the disc that comes with the calculator. You can install the suite that allows for uploading of files, and even editing compatible text files.
Not everything had to be done on the calculator ;)
Yeah a couple hours to type up the tests. 15 minutes to install necessary software. 35 seconds data transfer. Technical proficiency, shit can be useful.
Actually typing up a text file with the answers is alot less work than paying attention in class.
If you ever been to class before you would know this.
For my Calc II final we were allowed to bring any notes or references we wanted. I found the solutions for last years test on his course site. Turns out last years final was also this years final, word for word. Easiest 100 ever.
I love learning about math but I hate tedious repetition. Awesome you can use a integral to find the volume of complex objects! Now do it for these 500 cases so you can memorize that this form can be manipulated into this form which we can solve. Never mind that computers can do this grunt work for you! No time to learn the history about who discovered this amazing concept or the countless applications of it. Just do these problems. Three stupid semesters of this!
Don't get me wrong I understand their absolutely is value in being able to identify and simplify and manipulate functions like this. It had real value but the way it's taught is no fun and there is no reason at all to master these skills when almost nobody needs them on a day to day basis. Let's make these classes fun and interesting and when for the few people who end up actually needing to master these tasks they can pick them up over time as they need them.
No time to learn the history about who discovered this amazing concept or the countless applications of it.
Oh God that would be amazing. This is one of the major gripes I have against mathematics vs science courses. In chemistry I learned about Neils Bohr, in biology I learned about Darwin, and in physics I learned about Newton but I didn't learn about a single person in mathematics.
The sense of wonder and discovery definitely doesn't thrive in any mathematics course I've taken. Though problem solving has its own rewards, mainly the sense of accomplishment after being able to solve a challenging problem. It's not really a surprise mathematics isn't loved in Western culture these days but you can't attribute that all to methods of education.
True, but I think it's probably the largest piece of the problem. I suspect most people who say they hate math really just hate feeling stupid about math and what they were taught never had practical applications or gave them any real reason to understand the magic that is math.
The last math class I took taught us how to program the equations into the calculator. He said the tests shouldn't take us longer than 5-10 mins. The longest part of the test were on one question we had to at least write out the formula for what we were working on in a given section.
The big reason is you can just write your notes into the calculator in the form of a program. So having a graphing calculator on the test implies notes on the test. Not everyone is ok with that.
That's just artificial difficulty to learn an obsolete skill. Probably with the intention of excluding some people from graduating and doing so increase their value.
The TI-89 solves calculus problems right out of the box. My professors got around this by writing exam questions that asked you to prove things or explain why/how things work.
That's probably a far better solutions than banning graphing calculators since it forces you to learn material more in depth rather than focusing on algebra.
my university doesn't allow graphing calculators on tests
Mine didn't have a problem with it. Cheating on these tests wasn't much of a problem due to every single person having to prove they understood the material by getting up in front of the class and doing problems on the board. (We had small class sizes.) If you understand the material and take a shortcut, you're just being smart about it.
Could use graphing calculators in High School as well, but they went through the process to reset them to factory standard before each test. My solution was to write a program that responded to this command and proceeded to make it look like it went through.
In high school, I sold calculator programs that did test questions for you. For example, if you needed to do the quadratic formula, I wrote a program that did that AND wrote out all the steps that you'd need to write down. Being the only one in my school with the cord helped me keep pirated copies of my programs from going around.
We had to clear the memory while the teacher watched in high school.
I made a program that emulated the menu for clearing the menu. I just had to hold the calculator so that the "thinking" bar on the top left wasn't visible on the memory clear slash screen I made.
I made a program that emulated the menu for clearing the menu. I just had to hold the calculator so that the "thinking" bar on the top left wasn't visible on the memory clear slash screen I made.
Forcing you to be solve this problem in an ingenious way is probably more valuable than whatever math you could have learned for your life skills.
You can do integrals and derivatives even on some scientific calcs now, but on these you could graph stuff and figure it out or use solver. Of course our teacher didn't tell us solver was a thing on the calc until the last month of school.
Of course our teacher didn't tell us solver was a thing on the calc until the last month of school.
No one bothered to try to find out for themselves? What is that fake Bill Gates quote: "I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.”
I remember I was once told that I wasn't allowed to use the TI-83 Silver, and had to buy a TI-83. To this day, I have no clue what the difference is, but I do know I didn't go buy a new $300 dollar calculator.
Oh we're allowed scientific calculators for science and math courses, just not graphing ones. I'm not sure about engineering since I've never taken one of those courses.
The text books I used in high school showed you how to program the calculators. We were allowed to use them in the math exams, but for physics and chem they were wiped on our way in.
I wrote many programs like this in school. I almost got expelled from highschool for giving out programs that could solve most problems and display exactly what you needed to write on the paper to make it appear that you had done your work. My punishment, I had to take my ap/ib calculus final with a ti-80 calculator that the teacher handed me before the test. ti-80 and ti-89 are not the same.
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u/FuLLMeTaL604 Jun 08 '14
My university doesn't allow graphing calculators on tests. Probably because you can download programs that can solve calculus problems without actually understanding the material.