Calculators weren’t commonly accessible until the mid to late 1970s according to the National Museum of American History. But was the introduction of calculators as big of a deal as AI is today?
Widely, teachers and students alike see a stark difference between calculators and AI. Angela Sanders, a math teacher at Lane said, “As far as calculators go, I don’t personally see a graphing calculator as being an AI tool.”
Calculators were first allowed on the SAT in 1994, over 3 centuries after the mechanical calculator was first made by Blaise Pascal in 1645. In the year 1990 a study conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics found that 47% of 4th graders never used calculators in their math classes, and by the time they reached 8th grade, that number decreased to 22%.
In higher levels of schooling, the demand for calculators increases exponentially with some, like sophomore Marissa Rodriguez, reporting she uses her calculator around 10 to 15 times per day. While this can be largely credited to the increasing difficulty of math courses through the years of schooling, if the calculator is seen as a facilitator to math now, why were they so controversial, specifically in earlier years of schooling at the time? Today, the National Council of Teachers and Mathematics (NCTM) stands by the use of calculators for concept exploration (learning new topics), and learning aids.
But this took time. In 1983, the College Board allowed students to use calculators on the AP Calculus test, but banned them a year later. This effectively forced students to do complex, long equations by hand in sake of fairness for those who didn’t have calculators. A decade later, calculators were not simply allowed, but mandated for the exam.
Rodriguez noted she does occasionally use AI for help with math. “Not necessarily to give me the answer but to explain how to get the answer,” she said. Though she also noted it was only right half of the time she used it.
AI itself can be viewed as merely a product of the time that builds on previous technology. “Using AI as a tool to help understand what’s happening, kind of the same way that 10 years ago, [you could] watch this YouTube video to understand what you’re doing, right? It’s a video of someone doing it versus ChatGPT telling you I did it this way,” Sanders said.
When calculators were first implemented into the educational system, they were controversial because educators found them to be a shortcut, allowing students to simply plug numbers in, and receive an answer based off of a memorizable formula, which bypassed understanding, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
Today, calculators are given to students for common use once they showcase basic mathematical skills, and aptitude in order to ensure strong mental math capacity for real time application, by a rule of making sure a student could manually do a problem before they use a calculator to do one (NCTM).
Though Sanders said that, “Every year I tell students that I know they’re going to use some kind of photomath, AI, ChatGPT, or something, and not to shy away from it necessarily, but to use it as like a ‘checking my work’ and asking ‘Did I do this correctly?’”
This long integration, and continuous controversial exploration is reminiscent of AI: A controversial calculation tool that can be used to ‘bypass’ learning, that is considered less controversial when used by those past schooling age. Much like calculators once were.
Timothy Bristol, a math 3 teacher, said, ”It’s changing very, very fast, and it’s hard to keep up with” in regards to AI.
However, despite the manual input required for calculators, AI is widely regarded as less accurate for math. Which comes down to the fundamental intentions of each tool. This is seen as AI aims to emulate the human brain, whereas calculators are used to aid calculations, and increase speed, as they remove the need for as many handwritten functions, and memorization of things like trigonometric ratios or logarithmic functions.
Bristol said, “I know that graphing calculators will always produce answers and graphs that are accurate, unless there is some type of user error when you type it into a calculator. With AI, I’ve also witnessed if I’m trying to throw in something for a math question into ChatGPT or whatever, it sometimes has produced an incorrect answer.”
As it is an ever-developing technology, we have yet to see the full capacity of AI in any regard. But, any developments come with consequences that have also yet to be seen in full swing. Things like water usage and job replacements are already beginning to be noticed throughout communities feeling the effects.
“I think what we will start to see is less busy work worksheets that teachers will give, and I’ll be more inquiry-based,” Bristol said, “Those are the types of questions that AI has a problem answering, and that’s where the problem solving skills really start to develop as a person.”
In sum of most discussions, AI and calculators are widely different tools. The variable of AI’s productivity level is mostly defined by the angle students take in using it. “I think it’s our responsibility as educators to help our students navigate the AI a little bit better and not rely on it so heavily, especially when they sometimes might not be aware that the AI does produce some incorrect answers every now and again,” Bristol said.
