Mathematics Department
School of Integrated Studies
Klump Academic Center, Rm. 102 · (570) 327-4521
Calculator Information
The TI-83 Plus or TI-84 Plus calculator is required for every math student at Penn College and will be used in all mathematics classes.
Calculator Requirement
The TI-83 Plus or TI-84 Plus calculator is required for every math student at Penn College and will be used in all mathematics classes. Faculty will use this calculator in class for all instruction and demonstration.
If the instructor has indicated that a calculator may be used on a mathematics exam, students will be required to use the Testing Center’s TI-84 Plus calculators when completing the exam in the Testing Center.
Calculator Rationale
From Beyond Crossroads: Implementing Mathematics Standards in the First Two Years of College 2006, the American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges (AMATYC), pp.55-56:
Technology enhances the learning of mathematics, when used appropriately as a tool, to achieve the following:
- explore new concepts and discover patterns
- examine, organize, analyze, and visual real-world data
- develop understanding of mathematical ideas
- make connections among and between mathematical ideas
- provide a visualization of mathematical models
- provide symbolic, graphical, and/or numerical evidence to support or dispel student-formulated conjectures
In addition, technology helps students document the validity of their mathematical/critical thinking process, facilitating and enriching the learning processes and the development of problem-solving skills.
Students will be expected to use technology to do the following:
- enhance their understanding of mathematics
- discover mathematical concepts and patterns
- perform mathematical tasks
- visualize different representations of the same mathematical concept
- formulate and test conjectures about mathematical concepts and procedural rules
- communicate mathematical information and ideas.
For a complete copy of Beyond Crossroads, please access http://www.beyondcrossroads.com/ where you may download the PDF file.
Position Statements on the use of technology in mathematics
instruction are available from AMATYC at
http://www.amatyc.org/documents/Guidelines-Position/TechnologyUse.htm
and at
http://www.amatyc.org/documents/Guidelines-Position/Tech-Use.htm