5 ms·

Since we're swapping TI calculator stories... In 8th grade Geometry class circa 2007, I had an awesome teacher and loved the subject. I found an extra TI-83+ l

Since we're swapping TI calculator stories... In 8th grade Geometry class circa 2007, I had an awesome teacher and loved the subject. I found an extra TI-83+ laying around the house from my brothers. I found a guide online and started building simple programs. A few weeks later, there was a quiz. I asked the teacher if it was permissible to use calculator programs on the quiz. He thought a moment and said it was fine as long as I wrote them myself. So I wrote a very simple program that probably did little more than guide which formula to use in a basic decision tree. It was the hardest quiz of the year, it was just difficult content. My class has 1 A, 1 B, 1 C, and about 23 F's. I was the B. After that, graphing calculators weren't allowed. Mad respect for Mr. Gass. He had two Apple IIe's and had programmed Wheel of Fortune and Jeopard! for review days ahead of tests. He had a couple TV's around the classroom so everyone could see the game well, and would turn on Bill Cosby during some working sessions because at the time, he was a well respected man. Mrs. Gass was also a math teacher. Some students who had both teachers made shirts which advertised "I passed Gass twice"

nicolas_t 5y ago
> So I wrote a very simple program that probably did little more than guide which formula to use in a basic decision tree. > It was the hardest quiz of the year, it was just difficult content. My class has 1 A, 1 B, 1 C, and about 23 F's. I was the B. Slightly out of topic but one of the most bone headed decisions I've seen politician do is banning the use of custom software during exams. In France, they created a law forcing all programmable calculators to have an exam mode, during exams (including the national baccalauréat), the calculator needs to be in an exam mode with a special blinking light appearing and during which time students are not allowed to access programs. What I liked when I was a child about the exams in France is that they tended to be difficult without multiple choice questions and needing students to master the material, With such exams, having previously stored the formula in a calculator is of little value and so this anti-cheat mode doesn't help. It's also a more realistic example of real life when we all have access to Google, yet just having the answer doesn't make all of us doctors, mathematicians, engineers or lawyers. On the other hand, creating useful little programs to help verify things has value, it helps with learning, it gives motivations to kids to learn how their calculator work and is a great way for kids who are mostly exposed to lockdown platforms to start programming.
- BrandoElFollito 5y ago
  I agree, but I think that it is even worse than that. French curriculum theoretically includes Python starting from at the latest in "seconde" (10th year of education). Before that, for four years this is theoretically Scratch. The teaching of Python is abysmal in terms of quality (it was dropped on teaches that had no dev experience at all) but that's another story. All the calculators for high school now have Python built in but when it comes to actually using it, well it is forbidden. This is France in its glory: pretend that we are teaching "how to code", and then for the ones who actually learned it - forbid its use in exams. The French education system has its great sides (especially early on, and particularly kindergarden) and also horrible ones that should quickly be changed (preparation schools, fake elitism and ideas of anonimization at the same time, ...). I know of many brilliant high-schoolers who unfortunately went abroad to get their diploma because it make more sense.
  - nicolas_t 5y ago
    The thing is I tend to think that the system was quite good historically, as someone who did an engineering degree in France, went to the US as an exchange student and has mostly lived abroad, I found the French elitist system to be quite good. It's allowed plenty of people I know from relatively low income families to graduate with an engineering degree. In my experience in a lot of other countries, money is much bigger limiting factor and I never would have been able to afford the tuition fees for an equivalent school in a lot of countries. In my experience, elitism exists everywhere, at least in France, there are some efforts made for it to be meritocratic. So, I used to like the fact that tests like the baccalauréat were often with open ended questions that tended to test for the knowledge of how to apply the tools rather than the actual formula. I loved the exam part of the Science de l'Ingenieur I took in high school for example and every time I did a mock exam, I learned new things and had fun. I even liked the type of exams we had in history/geography, essay type exams with open ended questions are great for those kind of subjects. I like the fact that the baccalauréat is anonymized, that no one correcting it knows who the person taking the exam is (and given the fact that some of my high school teachers didn't like me at all, I'm really glad for that) What I regret is the fact that there's been a huge push towards directing all students to the baccalauréat général when sometimes a baccalauréat professionel or technologique would be better for some of those students. I regret that the level has gone down in the past 30 years (already when I was in engineering school, my teachers were complaining that we no longer studied vectorial spaces in high school. And, yes besides this, I dislike it when the French National Education decides to do things like teaching how to code without giving the needed resources. I also really dislike politicians who have a very narrow minded knowledge of things make decisions on calculators. As for the prépa, I decided when I was a student not to tempt my chance so much and went for a school with prépa intégré. Less stressful and less risk. So I can't really comment on them that much.
CobrastanJorji 5y ago
I have the bureaucracy equivalent of that story. The year I took the AP Calculus exam, TI-83s and such were allowed, but the TI-92 was not allowed because it could do symbolic calculus, and that was like half the exam. The exam administrators chose to describe the rules as "QWERTY keyboard calculators are not allowed." The year I took the AP Calculus exam, the TI-89 came out. It did not have a QWERTY keyboard but it did have a symbolic solver. I didn't have to write any programs; I just had to read the rules for the test and buy the right calculator.
- radicaldreamer 5y ago
  There were apps to do symbolic calculus on the TI-83/84 via Detached Solutions...
  - dfinninger 5y ago
    When I was in high school, every teacher before every test or quiz would clear all of the stored programs on our calculators. A lot of the other students were upset that they would lose all of their games!
    - BeFlatXIII 5y ago
      Teachers doing that taught me about archive files and the protection bit.

nicolas_t 5y ago

> So I wrote a very simple program that probably did little more than guide which formula to use in a basic decision tree. > It was the hardest quiz of the year, it was just difficult content. My class has 1 A, 1 B, 1 C, and about 23 F's. I was the B. Slightly out of topic but one of the most bone headed decisions I've seen politician do is banning the use of custom software during exams. In France, they created a law forcing all programmable calculators to have an exam mode, during exams (including the national baccalauréat), the calculator needs to be in an exam mode with a special blinking light appearing and during which time students are not allowed to access programs. What I liked when I was a child about the exams in France is that they tended to be difficult without multiple choice questions and needing students to master the material, With such exams, having previously stored the formula in a calculator is of little value and so this anti-cheat mode doesn't help. It's also a more realistic example of real life when we all have access to Google, yet just having the answer doesn't make all of us doctors, mathematicians, engineers or lawyers. On the other hand, creating useful little programs to help verify things has value, it helps with learning, it gives motivations to kids to learn how their calculator work and is a great way for kids who are mostly exposed to lockdown platforms to start programming.

BrandoElFollito 5y ago
I agree, but I think that it is even worse than that. French curriculum theoretically includes Python starting from at the latest in "seconde" (10th year of education). Before that, for four years this is theoretically Scratch. The teaching of Python is abysmal in terms of quality (it was dropped on teaches that had no dev experience at all) but that's another story. All the calculators for high school now have Python built in but when it comes to actually using it, well it is forbidden. This is France in its glory: pretend that we are teaching "how to code", and then for the ones who actually learned it - forbid its use in exams. The French education system has its great sides (especially early on, and particularly kindergarden) and also horrible ones that should quickly be changed (preparation schools, fake elitism and ideas of anonimization at the same time, ...). I know of many brilliant high-schoolers who unfortunately went abroad to get their diploma because it make more sense.
- nicolas_t 5y ago
  The thing is I tend to think that the system was quite good historically, as someone who did an engineering degree in France, went to the US as an exchange student and has mostly lived abroad, I found the French elitist system to be quite good. It's allowed plenty of people I know from relatively low income families to graduate with an engineering degree. In my experience in a lot of other countries, money is much bigger limiting factor and I never would have been able to afford the tuition fees for an equivalent school in a lot of countries. In my experience, elitism exists everywhere, at least in France, there are some efforts made for it to be meritocratic. So, I used to like the fact that tests like the baccalauréat were often with open ended questions that tended to test for the knowledge of how to apply the tools rather than the actual formula. I loved the exam part of the Science de l'Ingenieur I took in high school for example and every time I did a mock exam, I learned new things and had fun. I even liked the type of exams we had in history/geography, essay type exams with open ended questions are great for those kind of subjects. I like the fact that the baccalauréat is anonymized, that no one correcting it knows who the person taking the exam is (and given the fact that some of my high school teachers didn't like me at all, I'm really glad for that) What I regret is the fact that there's been a huge push towards directing all students to the baccalauréat général when sometimes a baccalauréat professionel or technologique would be better for some of those students. I regret that the level has gone down in the past 30 years (already when I was in engineering school, my teachers were complaining that we no longer studied vectorial spaces in high school. And, yes besides this, I dislike it when the French National Education decides to do things like teaching how to code without giving the needed resources. I also really dislike politicians who have a very narrow minded knowledge of things make decisions on calculators. As for the prépa, I decided when I was a student not to tempt my chance so much and went for a school with prépa intégré. Less stressful and less risk. So I can't really comment on them that much.

CobrastanJorji 5y ago

I have the bureaucracy equivalent of that story. The year I took the AP Calculus exam, TI-83s and such were allowed, but the TI-92 was not allowed because it could do symbolic calculus, and that was like half the exam. The exam administrators chose to describe the rules as "QWERTY keyboard calculators are not allowed." The year I took the AP Calculus exam, the TI-89 came out. It did not have a QWERTY keyboard but it did have a symbolic solver. I didn't have to write any programs; I just had to read the rules for the test and buy the right calculator.

radicaldreamer 5y ago
There were apps to do symbolic calculus on the TI-83/84 via Detached Solutions...
- dfinninger 5y ago
  When I was in high school, every teacher before every test or quiz would clear all of the stored programs on our calculators. A lot of the other students were upset that they would lose all of their games!
  - BeFlatXIII 5y ago
    Teachers doing that taught me about archive files and the protection bit.