As a first year teacher, it has been quite difficult to acquire sufficient, up-to-date, functioning equipment. I teach at a Title I school where the majority of my students come from a rural environment with limited access to resources. Most of the attending students are from predominantly low socioeconomic status households and are on free or reduced lunch.
Many are aware that Mathematics requires calculator use every single day in class, however, there are many concepts in both the subjects of chemistry and biology that require the capabilities only a scientific calculator can provide. In chemistry, these include shorthand scientific notation calculations, both large and small numbers with extended place values and decimals, lengthy formulas that require a more advanced order of operations, as well as multiple exponential functions. In the subject of biology, many ecological concepts are better understood when students can see visual representations that only statistics and graphing can provide, these capabilities are highly advantageous when trying to teach students such content. Overall, about half of the chemistry standards and multiple biology standards deal with concepts that should only be taught using a scientific calculator, while more standard calculators simply do not have the functional capability to handle more advanced arithmetic operations. In addition, most of these types of problems show up on end of course assessments, that allows the use of a calculator. With that being said, calculator literacy is an extremely important skill that is indispensable to the present-day student. Therefore, I have made it my operation, to give my students the ability to perform calculations! All in all, I have anywhere from 25-30 students, my goal is to acquire at least half this number of scientific calculators. The desired calculator is the TI-36X Pro from Texas Instruments. Thanks again for your time and effort.
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As a first year teacher, it has been quite difficult to acquire sufficient, up-to-date, functioning equipment. I teach at a Title I school where the majority of my students come from a rural environment with limited access to resources. Most of the attending students are from predominantly low socioeconomic status households and are on free or reduced lunch.
Many are aware that Mathematics requires calculator use every single day in class, however, there are many concepts in both the subjects of chemistry and biology that require the capabilities only a scientific calculator can provide. In chemistry, these include shorthand scientific notation calculations, both large and small numbers with extended place values and decimals, lengthy formulas that require a more advanced order of operations, as well as multiple exponential functions. In the subject of biology, many ecological concepts are better understood when students can see visual representations that only statistics and graphing can provide, these capabilities are highly advantageous when trying to teach students such content. Overall, about half of the chemistry standards and multiple biology standards deal with concepts that should only be taught using a scientific calculator, while more standard calculators simply do not have the functional capability to handle more advanced arithmetic operations. In addition, most of these types of problems show up on end of course assessments, that allows the use of a calculator. With that being said, calculator literacy is an extremely important skill that is indispensable to the present-day student. Therefore, I have made it my operation, to give my students the ability to perform calculations! All in all, I have anywhere from 25-30 students, my goal is to acquire at least half this number of scientific calculators. The desired calculator is the TI-36X Pro from Texas Instruments. Thanks again for your time and effort.
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