Teaching nowadays uses not only board and chalk but with the aid of technology. Calculator as one of the technologies, are worldwide available and affordable. Also, there are some gadgets with installed calculator like cellphone, tablets and even wrist watch.

Most high school students are knowledgeable how to manipulate calculators.  With the help of the calculator, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of numbers are made easy by just pressing the indicated keys. Similarly, solving and graphing equations are also possible using more high – tech calculator or by using applications that can be downloaded from internet.

This technology (calculator) was sometimes over used by the students. As a product, there are students who rely solely on calculator when it comes to computations. That’s why the question is when to use calculator?

 

Simple computation doesn’t require calculator

            Student who handles calculator don’t want to think anymore. Instead of solving manually, he is more prepared to solve the given problem using calculator. Sad to say, even a simple 6 x 7 or   56 ÷ 9, the student relied on the calculator. Eventually, there is a low mastery of the four fundamental operations due to lack of practice of the different skills.

            Prohibit the use of calculator if the problems or equations use only basic operations. Teachers should not allow students to use calculator in solving simple computations especially to those students who don’t master the 4 F’s or those who are poor in manual computations.

  

For checking purposes only

            Utilizing the technology doesn’t mean it will be use whenever you want. Calculators can also be used but for checking purposes only. Students will still solve problems using a long – hand computation. Also, though graphing equation can be done using graphing calculator, it is required to graph manually.

On solving higher math problems

Calculators maybe allow on dealing with higher math problems. Trigonometric problems involving sine, cosine and tangent and logarithmic problems can be solved using the values that can be found on the table or if the corresponding value was given by the teacher. But since these values are too many to memorize, calculator can be used.

            Calculator is truly a great help in solving mathematical equations and problems but we should not rely solely to this. We should know how to utilize it properly.

By: Mr. Arnold D. Marcos | Teacher II | Hermosa National High School | Hermosa, Bataan