Counseling Office

Being a math teacher I have noticed that calculators are not always a good thing in a classroom. I have watched students blindly enter numbers, use some operation (why is it mostly multiplication?), and simply write down the answer. They are unaware of why the answer is incorrect or even how the answer seem to appear on the screen. Yet, I’ve watch other students (a depressingly few) carry out complex “what if” tasks before confidently jotting down the numbers on the tiny screen.

It is such a wonderful feeling to find research that supports what your gut has been saying: calculators can be helpful and also very damaging.

The Journal of Experimental Child Psychology studied the use of calculators in the classroom. The determining factor on the usefulness of calculators is the knowledge of the student. The stronger the child is in basic math facts the more useful the calculator was. If they already knew their math facts, having a calculator did not help or harm them on subsequent tests. Students who were not good at knowing their multiplication table were harmed by using a calculator.

I find myself resorting to dreaming of the glorious past when my classmates and I were made to know the multiplication tables inside and out in grade three. I have hoped for a return to those days and wished my high school students were stronger in basic math skills. And now I have reason to believe I’ve been right all along . . . at least on this subject.