Martha Takats' comment about filling calculators with formulas is
interesting to me. I have students asking if it's alright to use their
programmable calculators on exams, and they have a strange look on their
faces when they ask. Apparently they believe that the calculators can be
programmed to do the problems for them. I respond that I really don't
care what kind of calculators they use, because they have to show all of
their work anyway in order to get credit for an answer. And besides, some
of the problems they are given require symbolic answers, not numerical
answers. I emphasize to them that _they_ are responsible for learning
how to do the problems. They can't have a calculator, no matter how
powerful it is, do the work for them.
Steve Luzader
Frostburg State University
sluzader@fre.fsu.umd.edu