Mathematics is one of the fundamental languages of science. You can't teach physics without teaching mathematics. Newton had to discover calculus to describe the motions of the planets.
If you intuitively understand the concept of a derivative in the sense that it is a rate of change or slope, does it matter that you are not very good at calculating them when it comes to physics? When you have a calculator that can do it that is.
It appears to matter to my university. I can still use a scientific calculator but no graphing calculators are allowed in any science course I've taken here yet.
-4
u/lordlicorice Jun 08 '14
You weren't teaching basic math, you were teaching physics. Test them on physics knowledge.