Important Request

[Joe Horn]

I hesitate to disagree with the teaching experts here, but I agree with math7 on this. In fact, it would be very useful if Prime could simply create -- in one step -- a table of ALL the correlation coefficients for ALL the available curve fit types. My reason is that the BEST teacher is not the expert at the front of the classroom, or the expert who wrote the textbook, but the student's own CURIOSITY which leads him or her to PLAY with the concepts being taught. The best way to learn what correlation really means is by EXPLORING its value generated by different data sets for different curve fit equations. Easy access to that information would stimulate such exploration. But such exploration FAILS to be student-motivated if the calculator makes it a tedious procedure, as Prime currently does, requiring lots of keystrokes (as well as writing the results down on paper!) for each correlation coefficient.

YES, understanding of the function that generated the data is certainly more important than blindly using an automated "best fit" button. Nobody disagrees with that. But that's not a good reason to omit a time-proven tool that stimulates student exploration, especially for the HP Prime whose primary market is students.

In brief: Please stop thinking of "Best Fit" as a way for lazy cheaters to avoid thinking, and start thinking of it as a kind of "Explorer" that curious students will play with and learn from. I've watched many students play with it and learn well from it in the RPL models for over 25 years, and have never once seen it hinder learning.