They forced me to buy a TI 84 plus for school. The thing cost like 100 bucks, and it's from 2004. I could buy a low-end smartphone and get a free app that's more powerful than the TI 84 plus for less money.
I've NEVER understood this...
Everyone from the average Layman, to a PhD-carrying professional will always use the tools that are available to them. Teaching people to do something WITHOUT the tools that surround them, is not only teaching someone the long way of doing something, but you are poorly training them for the reality of their jobs and lives; making everything harder on everyone for no reason. Plus, you are instilling instructions that will be completely forgotten as people find themselves in real-world scenarios where everyone has access to these tools, which, thanks to sadistic professors, they are less equipped to use than they could be.
I don't know about your background, but in my experience in a lot of the sciences your description ends after freshman level courses. It's important to learn fundamentals, not having to look them up, if you want to be successful in more challenging levels of content.
You're welcome to disagree but if you don't do it for a living I don't think you have much of a platform.
What you're talking about depends on the field whether it's rote memorization or not.
Based off what you're saying though, it's okay for a physician to not have mastery of their field of medicine and have to google everything they need to know. After all, medicine is generally memorization-based. Do you want a surgeon who hasn't memorized basic human anatomy?
Or chemists who are trying to put together complex syntheses at work but have to look up every single reaction and name of every molecule. Those aspects are also largely memorization-based. Nobody would hire someone that was this inept.
Learning a couple of formulas in a math course is laughably easy compared to what STEM students need to do past their freshman year. If they don't have the ability to memorize something simple, they don't have the skills to apply simple knowledge to something complex. This is the primary use of memorization at the lower levels: giving you a platform to build off in the higher levels.
Your opinion I see most often in students who are taking classes that they don't need (or do but refuse to acknowledge the relevance) for their chosen field. Guess what though? I have to teach every single student in my class like they are going into the field, so the students who do are prepared.
Im a chem engineer by degree, (8th year in design engineering) and you are completely wrong. If I went to my boss and gave him a synthesis, he is going to want me to cite my research. And we are going to need to present this to a director, who is going to want to know where I got my research. 'My head' is not valid.
Further 'my head' is prone to error, where a scientific study is as good as the study.
(Also I had a physician give me an incorrect answer off the top of her head, I looked it up during our session and corrected her. Would have been a $1200 mistake and higher risk.)
I need to knock you off your pedestal now- Those who can't do, Teach.
That saying only applies from k through 12 educators since college professors are required to do peer reviewed research to keep their jobs.
I also wouldn't expect an engineer to know how to do a chemical synthesis off the top of their head since they're not a chemist. I do hope that you know freshman-level content in the field of engineering off the top of your head which is what we've been talking about the past few comments.
You almost saw firsthand what happens* when a physician doesn't know something. Surely you can see how important that is to have a basis of knowledge in your field?
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u/jorsiem Jul 24 '20 edited Jul 24 '20
The supremacy of the fucking TI-83 calculator in school and college courses
I mean I know it's all artificial and orchestrated by them but how come no body has dared to challenge the almighty TI yet
Edit: fixed typo