Date: Sep 21, 2004 11:26 AM
Author: nstahl@uwcmail.uwc.edu
Subject: Re: AP

Jerry Uhl is right in saying when we put in new technology we need to put in 
new problems. 

If, for instance, we gave people a graphing calculator and allowed them to use 
it to find solutions to all the equations they came across, they would learn 
one easy thing (how to find where a graph crosses an axis) but are probably no 
longer learning a lot of harder things (about solving various kinds of 
equations) that made them think. 

All that thinking they would have done in learning to solve lots of kinds of 
equations needs to be replaced by some other important kind of thinking. 

I'm not familiar enough with AP calculus to know whether they are guilty of 
not replacing the thinking, but if they are it's a bad thing.  I have seen 
some texts, e.g. for college algebra, which I believe are guilty of that. 

Neil Stahl 

------------- Begin Original Message ------------- 

At 11:56 PM 1/30/96 -0600, John A Benson wrote: 
 .........There are many teachers who were >reluctant to use graphing 
calculators until AP said they were required. >Many of those teachers have 
become believers in the new technology.  Many >schools ahve begun to require 
graphing calculators in algebra and trig >because it is on the AP 
test.................... 

Agreed. But when technology comes in, it is natural that new courses and new 
problems come in to reflect the technology.  By and large this has not 
happened. In fact, the new AP calculator based questions are really no 
different from the old hand questions. As a result the AP encourages the 
simple expedient of just cutting technology into the old course possibly 
degrading it. 

The real advantage of technology is its potential to be used to get at new 
ideas. None of the available calculator-based courses have progressed to this 
point. -Jerry Uhl 

---------------------------------------------------------------------- Jerry 
Uhl                                   juhl@ncsa.uiuc.edu Professor of 
Mathematics                    1409 West Green Street University of Illinois  
                    Urbana,Illinois 61801 Calculus&Mathematica Development 
Team http://www-cm.math.uiuc.edu 

"Calculus, as currently taught, is full of inert material..." 
----------------Peter Lax