The Use of a Calculator in the Classroom

When teaching "Introduction to Computers" the use of the calculator on the computer is one of the topics discussed. While you are writing a document in the word processor it may become important to check a particular calculation and the use of the calculator that is available on the computer only makes sense. Many people carry a small calculator with them today or their cell phone may have a calculator function. In the classroom children should be encouraged to learn to do mathematics in traditional ways, but can use the calculator for more difficult problems or simply to check their results. The use of a calculator is particularly useful in dealing with patterns in numbers and in explaining scientific notation.

I often had students calculate their age in days, hours, minutes, and seconds. This would only be an approximate age, but they would put 365 down on a piece of paper and then multiply that times their present age in years. We would not get into the half years etc. Once that number was established we would then multiply the answer times 24 (hours in the day) and this would give them a number that represented their age in hours. We would then take that answer and multiply it times 60 which would give them their age in minutes and then finally we would multiply that answer by another 60 which would give them their age in seconds.

This is one of those math problems that would be easier to do on a calculator and it may display the result in scientific notation. Some calculators may not be able to display a result, but will give an error. The great part about this kind of lesson is that they can then go home and do the same calculations for their mother and father and perhaps their grandmother and/or grandfather. They get a chance to tease their parents about how old they are in comparison to their own age.

Scientists do calculations with large numbers. For example if an elephant has a baby every 2 years and you start out with a heard of 1000 female elephants that could have a baby elephant how many elephants could you have in 25 years with the assumption that none die over this time frame. Such population predictions are extremely important to the preservation of a species and definitely important to the protection of endangered species. Each year we try to take a count of the numbers of manatees in Florida and from such counts we can get a better picture of how well we are doing in our efforts to protect them.

The graphic shows a set of blank calculators on which a variety of mathematical problems could be printed. If an overhead transparency is made of this graphic then the teacher can use it on an overhead projector. To make the initial graphic I brought up the calculator on the monitor and pressed the print screen button on the keyboard. This placed the calculator picture on the "clipboard". Then I opened "Paint" and pasted the clipboard into "Paint" (Control V) and then began to draw the rest of the page. For a teacher this method of getting a graphic and pasting it into a worksheet is quite useful.

When teaching mathematical operations consider teaching about the "Order of Mathematical Operations" which is the topic of several articles on Associated Content., but basically means that mathematics is done in a specific order: Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction. Calculators can make math more fun, but neglect getting it properly formatted on paper.