Do You Teach Students to Use a Calculator?

What have I learned from teaching middle school math for more than 30 years?  Teach kids to use calculators - don't make them figure it out for themselves.  Learning to use a calculator on their own can lead to so many mistakes.  You can't just hand a kid a scientific or graphing calculator and expect them to know how it works. 

For example, suppose you want your students to "Find x squared when x is negative 32."   Nearly all of your students will enter this into their calculators as -32 squared, and will get an incorrect answer of -1024.  They must be taught to put a negative base in parenthesis when entering it into a calculator in order to get the correct answer, (-32) squared = 1024.

Don't assume your students know how to use calculators.  Instead, build calculator mini-lessons into your curriculum.

Want your students to be more engaged?  They love learning how to use new functions on their calculators.  And guess what?  As you teach them the correct way to use a calculator, suddenly you are elevated to "genius" status in their minds!

Of course the daily tips, tricks, and mini-lessons form the basis of your instruction.  However, if you'd like to try a more formal graphing calculator lesson, you might check this one out.

Explorations with Graphing Calculators

Interactive Notebook Hack

I just had to write a quick post about this ...

How is it that after doing something for years and feeling good about it, you suddenly get an idea for an improvement?

My "lightbulb" idea this year is to copy the table of contents for my interactive notebook on white card stock.

I like using binders rather than composition notebooks.  The only problem for me is that the hole-punched table of contents often tears before the end of the school year.  

We'll see how the card stock works, but I have high hopes that this "hack" will be a great help!  (My students are excited to try it out.)  ☺