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Different tools in different years as expectations have changed. The TI-89 is incredibly powerful, but has to give way to MATLAB and Wolfram Alpha. It used to b

by Den_VR 1y ago

Different tools in different years as expectations have changed. The TI-89 is incredibly powerful, but has to give way to MATLAB and Wolfram Alpha. It used to be productive to “google” your problems. Going further, there’s now LLMs writing python code to do calculations. Hard to say what’s next, but I’m sure what is considered ethically questionable today will be acceptable and the new thing will be the new questionable tool.

gizmo686 1y ago
To be clear; there are plenty of contexts where having a TI-89 is 100% unambiguously cheating. There are even more places where MATLAB and Wolfram Alpha are cheating.
- goopypoop 1y ago
  Please share examples of contexts where TI-89 is cheating
  - BobbyJo 1y ago
    A times table test like we all took in grade school. A test applying Newton's method. Any test where the calculator can do the work instead of you, and a TI-89 can do quite a bit of work.
    - gpm 1y ago
      And more trivially/procedurally, the numerous tests I had to take in high school and university which explicitly said "no graphing calculators" (and the occasional test that said "no calculators" outright).
    - goopypoop 1y ago
      Thanks I was thinking of exams rather than day to day learning of basics, seeing tests as teaching rather than assessing. Point being you can't cheat at learning. The calculator can't fake that you understand e.g. how to differentiate. The working is the bulk of available exam marks but the calculator only gives answers. Is it unambiguous cheating if it doesn't help?
      - dagw 1y ago
        The working is the bulk of available exam marks but the calculator only gives answers Knowing what the answer is supposed to be makes it much easier to reverse engineer the workings, and it lets you double check that your workings are correct. Also many of the more advanced graphing calculators (don't know the TI-89 specifically) have build in CAS systems and can do symbolic differentiation and as such help with showing your workings as well. Plus the fact that these calculators let you store arbitrary data, so you can have your entire textbook stored in memory if you wanted.
        goopypoop 1y ago
        Good points, thanks. I want to say something like "who learns advanced calculator functions solo but not the taught subject?" but of course shortcuts-by-rote spread like lice. I suppose that's the thrust of the problem with AI in schools
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - priceofmemory 1y ago
    My Calc 1 class forbade all calculators. Grades were also completely based on quizes and exams. Homework assignments were all optional and un-graded.
  - baobun 1y ago
    From memory it (and the 83/84) was banned from all math and physics exams during first year or two of our uni. There was a list of approved less powerful models. Nothing that could store programs.
- Der_Einzige 1y ago
  All forms/structures in society that think that a TI-89 is cheating deserve to have as many people as possible use TI-89 and similar CAS's. Ludditism is the human death drive externalized for the modern age. Reject it in all of its incarnations. There's objectively no value with learning how to perform calculations by hand that CAS's can perform better automatically. We have well over the number of human beings on earth amounts of calculator capable calculating devices. I will not "be in a situation where I don't have a calculator". Time spent not teaching folks how to use computational aids of math and teaching them to do it the "hard way" is time robbed from them. Those who invent systems which subvert or short circuit the attempts to enslave individuals into doing hard work for hard works sake are ontologically good. Those who try to defend work for works sake are ontologically evil and I hope that they reincarnate into a durian fruit in the next life.
  - mathiaspoint 1y ago
    You take these classes in order to internalize the intuition for the subject. That's the point of the class. Getting the right answers is only important insofar as it serves that goal. Your attitude makes sense in engineering but not in a math class for example.
    - MengerSponge 1y ago
      They're building a different (entirely more concrete) suite of intuition than mathematicians, but engineers need to internalize their intuition too!
  - Terr_ 1y ago
    > I will not "be in a situation where I don't have a calculator". [...] Those who invent systems which subvert or short circuit the attempts to enslave individuals into doing hard work for hard works sake are ontologically good. Those who try to defend work for works sake are ontologically evil and I hope that they reincarnate into a durian fruit in the next life. By that logic, you must also permit students another extremely well-established labor-saving technique: Hiring someone else do the homework/exams on their behalf! After all, for students from certain families, forcing them to use the calculator personally would likewise be "robbing time from them", denying them valuable experience honing their skills in managing and subcontracting. They'll never be in a situation where they don't have a calc^H^H^H^H lackey. I trust we can agree that (A) permitting outsourcing is absurd, (B) that cheating is not "ontologically good" even when reduces the total human labor, and (C) prohibiting the practice should not put a teacher into a state of stinky-fruit damnation. I submit that we do care about how students do it and which skills they use, even if we disagree on what those are. It is not as simple as saying that good education means spurring them to supply Valid Answers By Any Contemporary Efficient Means.
BobbyJo 1y ago
I feel like you're glossing over the contexts of "acceptable" and "questionable". The tool itself is not questionable or acceptable, it becomes questionable or acceptable depending on the usage. A pencil and paper can be questionable if the test is designed and expected to be completed without it. You can design tests where an LLM spitting out python is an expected tool, but what are you testing for then? I doubt there are classes that teach whatever that test would be for yet.

by Den_VR 1y ago

gizmo686 1y ago

To be clear; there are plenty of contexts where having a TI-89 is 100% unambiguously cheating. There are even more places where MATLAB and Wolfram Alpha are cheating.

goopypoop 1y ago
Please share examples of contexts where TI-89 is cheating
- BobbyJo 1y ago
  A times table test like we all took in grade school. A test applying Newton's method. Any test where the calculator can do the work instead of you, and a TI-89 can do quite a bit of work.
  - gpm 1y ago
    And more trivially/procedurally, the numerous tests I had to take in high school and university which explicitly said "no graphing calculators" (and the occasional test that said "no calculators" outright).
  - goopypoop 1y ago
    Thanks I was thinking of exams rather than day to day learning of basics, seeing tests as teaching rather than assessing. Point being you can't cheat at learning. The calculator can't fake that you understand e.g. how to differentiate. The working is the bulk of available exam marks but the calculator only gives answers. Is it unambiguous cheating if it doesn't help?
    - dagw 1y ago
      The working is the bulk of available exam marks but the calculator only gives answers Knowing what the answer is supposed to be makes it much easier to reverse engineer the workings, and it lets you double check that your workings are correct. Also many of the more advanced graphing calculators (don't know the TI-89 specifically) have build in CAS systems and can do symbolic differentiation and as such help with showing your workings as well. Plus the fact that these calculators let you store arbitrary data, so you can have your entire textbook stored in memory if you wanted.
      - goopypoop 1y ago
        Good points, thanks. I want to say something like "who learns advanced calculator functions solo but not the taught subject?" but of course shortcuts-by-rote spread like lice. I suppose that's the thrust of the problem with AI in schools
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- priceofmemory 1y ago
  My Calc 1 class forbade all calculators. Grades were also completely based on quizes and exams. Homework assignments were all optional and un-graded.
- baobun 1y ago
  From memory it (and the 83/84) was banned from all math and physics exams during first year or two of our uni. There was a list of approved less powerful models. Nothing that could store programs.
Der_Einzige 1y ago
All forms/structures in society that think that a TI-89 is cheating deserve to have as many people as possible use TI-89 and similar CAS's. Ludditism is the human death drive externalized for the modern age. Reject it in all of its incarnations. There's objectively no value with learning how to perform calculations by hand that CAS's can perform better automatically. We have well over the number of human beings on earth amounts of calculator capable calculating devices. I will not "be in a situation where I don't have a calculator". Time spent not teaching folks how to use computational aids of math and teaching them to do it the "hard way" is time robbed from them. Those who invent systems which subvert or short circuit the attempts to enslave individuals into doing hard work for hard works sake are ontologically good. Those who try to defend work for works sake are ontologically evil and I hope that they reincarnate into a durian fruit in the next life.
- mathiaspoint 1y ago
  You take these classes in order to internalize the intuition for the subject. That's the point of the class. Getting the right answers is only important insofar as it serves that goal. Your attitude makes sense in engineering but not in a math class for example.
  - MengerSponge 1y ago
    They're building a different (entirely more concrete) suite of intuition than mathematicians, but engineers need to internalize their intuition too!
- Terr_ 1y ago
  > I will not "be in a situation where I don't have a calculator". [...] Those who invent systems which subvert or short circuit the attempts to enslave individuals into doing hard work for hard works sake are ontologically good. Those who try to defend work for works sake are ontologically evil and I hope that they reincarnate into a durian fruit in the next life. By that logic, you must also permit students another extremely well-established labor-saving technique: Hiring someone else do the homework/exams on their behalf! After all, for students from certain families, forcing them to use the calculator personally would likewise be "robbing time from them", denying them valuable experience honing their skills in managing and subcontracting. They'll never be in a situation where they don't have a calc^H^H^H^H lackey. I trust we can agree that (A) permitting outsourcing is absurd, (B) that cheating is not "ontologically good" even when reduces the total human labor, and (C) prohibiting the practice should not put a teacher into a state of stinky-fruit damnation. I submit that we do care about how students do it and which skills they use, even if we disagree on what those are. It is not as simple as saying that good education means spurring them to supply Valid Answers By Any Contemporary Efficient Means.

BobbyJo 1y ago

I feel like you're glossing over the contexts of "acceptable" and "questionable". The tool itself is not questionable or acceptable, it becomes questionable or acceptable depending on the usage. A pencil and paper can be questionable if the test is designed and expected to be completed without it. You can design tests where an LLM spitting out python is an expected tool, but what are you testing for then? I doubt there are classes that teach whatever that test would be for yet.