Re: Scientific method was physical pendulums/ an opportunity

[Maurice Barnhill <mvb@UDEL.EDU>]

I am teaching a 20+- honors section, and nonetheless I have many
students who cannot do much symbolic algebra.  I tell them at the
beginning of the semester that after the first or maybe second exam I
won't put any numbers in the test problems.  This way I push them
towards getting adequate algebra skills.  As a side effect, I can ban
calculators without generating any reasonable protest.  I lose the
possibility of checking their ability to check numbers for
reasonableness, which I regret, but I think the practice they get on
symbolic calculation compensates.

As an aside, it is a shame that so many genuinely intelligent students
reach college unable to do algebra easily without substituting numbers
in at the beginning of the process.

Joel Rauber wrote in part:
> Leigh would you share a few thoughts about not allowing calculators on
> tests.  Have you been doing it long? Does it work well? What sort of student
> resistance do you have? What's your reasons for doing it? etc etc.
>
> I have been toying with this idea for a while now, but haven't had the guts
> to implement it such a policy.  I worry more and more about "programmable
> calculators with text and formula storage capability" as well; and like you
> wouldn't like to enforce forbidding particular types of calculator.  One
> might add that some calculators now-days can transmit to other calculators
> information; and I assume this capability will get more so.
>
> To date I haven't worried too much as most of my students can't operate the
> sophisticated features of their calculators; but this may change.  One
> thought I had, but not supported by my colleagues, would be for the
> department to provide cheap calculators for test time.  Much like I provide
> rulers for ray tracing on optics section tests in my introductory course.
>
> Joel Rauber

--
Maurice Barnhill, mvb@udel.edu
http://www.physics.udel.edu/~barnhill/
Physics Dept., University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716