Did you know your graphing calculator can draw the derivative, integral, or inverse of a function? How about that it has the ability to perform linear, exponential, logarithmic or power regressions? Or how it can be used to effectively evaluate sequences and series?
If we are going to effectively use the calculator as a technology in our classrooms to its fullest extent, we need to be intimately familiar with how it can potentially be used. As our Interactivity from this week emphasized, when we use technology in our lessons, it shouldn't be thrown in there just to use it. Instead, we need to incorporate it in truly planned, useful ways that hit home the learning goals and standards. By increasing our own personal knowledge of how the calculator can be used, we open up a whole host of possibilities of establishing lessons where the calculator is use to its fullest and most meaningful extent.
There are a lot of resources available to help in this, but one I found to be particularly helpful is located at http://mathbits.com/mathbits/tisection/openpage.htm. The website contains information about using the graphing calculator (there are sections for the TI-83, TI-84 and TI-NSpire) in many different areas of mathematics. There are also some helpful "Quick Reference" sheets that may be useful to either refresh your memory or distribute to students.
Justin, you have a great point here. A teacher must know the technology they want to use in a classroom to a great extent. This better prepares the teacher for the lesson, and lets them infuse the technology so that it is reflecting the standards they are trying to meet. I took a mathematics course at a different college with a great professor, he required us to buy a TI-Nspire for the course. He showed us how to use it and we practiced with it each week. He used his own calculator on the projector and walked us through different steps and modeled different techniques to us. He also let the class go up and model problems. If I was given the TI-Nspire and told to start using it with JUST the manual, I would be a lost dog. That calculator has SO much to offer, and it is one of the first ones! Now they have one with a COLOR screen! These are useful for a mathematics classroom, but only if you, the teacher, are "intimately familiar" with it.
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ReplyDeleteI agree with the fact about knowing the technology well enough before using it in a lesson. We shouldn't put high expectations on our students to be able to use technologies the right way, especially if teachers aren't good with incorporating it into the classroom the right way. As a future math teacher, there are some technologies that you don’t have to familiarize yourself with. However, if a math teacher isn't good at using technologies that they must use in the classroom, then they better find a way to get really good at it. I like your choice of the calculator. A calculator is definitely a technology math teachers will be involved with during their whole careers, and is something they must know how to use in a classroom. I would incorporate a calculator in the classroom by allowing students to use it to check their answers after they finish doing problems. This is just one of the many ways I would incorporate something as important as the calculator in the classroom, and for me to know this; I would have to get to know the calculator very well.
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