As I approach my 70th year in physics, let me tell my younger colleagues about my adventures with computation. When I was 14, my father gave me a slide rule because I appeared to be headed toward a career in physics. Since then, I have had experience with many other calculating devices.

As an undergraduate in the 1960s, the author mostly used a slide rule for calculations and a Marchant-brand motor-operated mechanical calculator for statistics. This was after an elementary education replete with learning multiplication tables and taking speed and accuracy tests in arithmetic. Times have changed and assuming even basic calculation…

In order to stimulate further discussion, this article addresses issues concerning calculator use in elementary school mathematics such as: Is computation still important in elementary school? How would a calculator-driven curriculum look? When is calculator use appropriate? and How should calculators be used? (Author/MKR)

Discussed are the difficulties that entering college freshmen seem to have with mathematics, particularly with fractional forms. A success-oriented program is suggested in which all students are successful. To obtain this goal, a number of alternative routes are discussed such as presenting decimals before fractional forms and the use of the…

Describes the development of computers and calculators, noting intitial resistance to and later acceptance of calculators in the classroom. Advocates teaching children to perform simple calculations and stresses estimation skills over speed and accuracy for doing long, complicated computations. Includes recommendations for classroom calculator use…

Discusses the history of different methods of representing numbers and how these representations facilitated counting and computing devices such as the abacus. (MDH)

Which manual calculation skills are still needed when students use graphic/symbolic calculators or computers with computer algebra systems (CAS)? What should students be able to do manually, i.e. just using paper and pencil? This text is the outcome of a two-day discussion on these questions, held by the four authors. Our answers and proposals are…

Discusses the efforts of one Japanese company that makes abaci to demonstrate that the abacus continues to be a feasible alternative as a calculator in the elementary school mathematics curriculum. Argues that the abacus improves number sense, mental computation, and mathematics achievement for students who use the abacus. (MDH)

Calculators have made the arithmetic curriculum obsolete in both scope and sequence. Calculators can perform each operation as easily as any other. We should be asking if there is ever a time when we should trust paper-and-pencil computation. (MNS)

Presented are twenty essays related to applications in school mathematics and aimed at the classroom teacher. The essays use numerous examples and illustrations that provide the teacher with something tangible for immediate use. Four thematic areas are addressed: (1) What are applications?; (2) Why include applications in school mathematics?; (3)…

It is suggested that the reasons for teaching the standard written algorithms for calculations are not out of date. Alternative algorithms, such as mental algorithms, calculators, and nonstandard written methods, are discussed. (MP)

Three different methods of teaching fraction computation were compared using community college student scores on measures of fraction computation, fraction understanding, and attitude towards mathematics. One method used conventional algorithms; the second, a control for the effect of using a calculator, used conventional algorithms and…

The Cockcroft Report on English Schools recommends that all schools design their syllabuses and examinations on the assumption that all students will have access to calculators. How to use calculators sensibly to improve what is taught and how curriculum content may change are discussed. (MNS)

This essay discusses the possible types of uses of calculators in the elementary school, citing several publications, articles, and research studies. (MP)

Issues in school mathematics programs are considered in this book. In the first section, mathematics education at the start of the decade is examined through two articles: a discussion of the status of mathematics programs and of prospects for the 80s, and an interpretation of the results of the second national mathematics assessment of the…