Possible death of calculators in education?

[EugeneNine]

(05-21-2017 01:24 PM)SlideRule Wrote:  

(05-21-2017 01:45 AM)EugeneNine Wrote:  ... what I'm against is memorization without understanding which is similar to plugging numbers into a calculator without understanding why.

Yes, I understand your argument, however, I have an alternate insight. What I suggest is a softening on your seemingly rigid perspective. I was often confronted with formulas. lemmas, theorems, postulates, etc I did not fully understand but had to accept if I was to advance in my academic endeavors. There are many instances of a mathematical/geometric EPIPHANY in my calculus classes with respect to formulas I memorized in my prior trigonometry and geometry classes. In other words, to advance I had to accept, on faith, the information presented was "true" without fully understanding that information but appreciating its' utility in the various applications being demonstrated. Perhaps this is simply the divergence between ENGINEERS and SCIENTISTS, application and research. Regardless, I find I'm still confronted with formulas which challenge my understanding, such as statistics. I memorize them first, then struggle to fully comprehend them as I utilize or apply them to the problem set under investigation. This seems very normal to me. I wish you the very best as you continue your intellectual development.

BEST!
SlideRule

I'm not saying to be rigid and do it my way, I'm saying don't make the success of the class depend on memorizing. I can't memorize so I couldn't pass those classes so I had to re-take with a different professor who didn't take the easy way,
Its worth noting those that the next class up which built upon the previous those students who simply memorized only struggled with the next class (unless of course that class was a memorization based as well)