Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:our TI-84 edition is still unopened.

Is your student in Pre-calculus? It was not used in Algebra 1 or 2. It is used in Pre-calc and calculus.

Yes PreCalculus.

This is not a good sign. About one third of the AP Calculus AB exam multiple choice questions and 2 of 6 AP Calculus AB exam free response questions are calculator questions. In order for you DC to do well on those questions, he/she needs to know how to use a graphing calculator very well. These questions are hard to solve symbolically. Be sure that your DC is using the graphing calculator at the start of AP Calculus next year.

our students used it starting in AP Calc AB (at BASIS) and were fine without having used it earlier. But these kids were mostly in 8th grade, so they already had mathmania. We'll see when the AP Calculus AB exam results come out. But not using a calculator in Precal having had my kid taught by one of the math stars at BASIS (has been doing this for 20 years, private and public, has been a HOS at another BASIS school), a real rock star.... Calculators did not concern us.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:our TI-84 edition is still unopened.

Is your student in Pre-calculus? It was not used in Algebra 1 or 2. It is used in Pre-calc and calculus.

Yes PreCalculus.

This is not a good sign. About one third of the AP Calculus AB exam multiple choice questions and 2 of 6 AP Calculus AB exam free response questions are calculator questions. In order for you DC to do well on those questions, he/she needs to know how to use a graphing calculator very well. These questions are hard to solve symbolically. Be sure that your DC is using the graphing calculator at the start of AP Calculus next year.

Bottom line: make sure your kid knows math facts - and not just the basics for DCPS 4th graders and not the common core mumbo jumbo. Get a copy of Saxon 7/8 and work on the skills taught and tested there - or 6/7 if you have to, but recognize that 6/7 actually puts your child behind in math. You want them to rock the placement test and then not have math (30 problems a night) be the bane of their existence all year. We let our kid be put in an advanced class when the school opened (ultimately the right decision) but because we did not prepare over the summer the first year was a real struggle...........

our child did not use a calculator in precalculus last year and the class was taught by an excellent math teacher who has been teaching in the BASIS system for years now, and was even a HOS at another place. Came here to start up the math department and of course is now at another new BASIS school this year. My child learned precalculus as well.... So I guess there are different ways to teach it, but he is one of the teachers who guides kids into getting 4s and 5s on AP Calculus BC exams and my math oriented spouse had no complaints about the lack of use of a calculator.......

In AP Calculus they have to use one because there is a part of the AP exam that requires it.........

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:our TI-84 edition is still unopened.

Is your student in Pre-calculus? It was not used in Algebra 1 or 2. It is used in Pre-calc and calculus.

Yes PreCalculus.

Well your kid's experience is not my kid's experience.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:our TI-84 edition is still unopened.

Is your student in Pre-calculus? It was not used in Algebra 1 or 2. It is used in Pre-calc and calculus.

Yes PreCalculus.

Anonymous wrote:our TI-84 edition is still unopened.

Is your student in Pre-calculus? It was not used in Algebra 1 or 2. It is used in Pre-calc and calculus.

Anonymous wrote:The emphasis on making sure children have a strong number sense as opposed to memorization is a common core thing not DCPS necessarily. I'm not quite sure why we can't do both.

Our school does both, but the memorization of Fast Facts is homework. They occasionally are give the 100 in 5 minute test at school in 2n and 3rd grade.

our TI-84 edition is still unopened.