The Industrial Revolution and its Consequences: Math-Solving Apps Edition

With the introduction of more and more technology into our lives, classrooms have adapted to this change of technology over the years to better suit the students, which has led to many cool programs, apps, games, and practices being used in the classroom.  It has also led to some controversy as math calculators and help tools become widely more popular as every day passes.  But why, and what are the effects of using these calculators? 

In the year of our lord 2023, there are dozens, if not hundreds of different math calculators and math help tools available to anybody with a computer and Google.  Typing in simple phrasing like “polynomial calculator”, “integral calculator”, and “inverse calculator” into Google can give a student many results that are not only helpful, but some consider to be downright cheating.  In my humble opinion, math apps and calculators are fair game, just as long you don’t use them just to get homework done, but to actually learn the material.  This is where the problem lies entirely, how do you get students to use these math tools and calculators for the betterment of themselves, rather than using them to do homework?  That is a question I cannot answer because it is impossible to answer.  It is impossible to know a student’s intentions when doing homework. However, you will know if they “cheated” by looking at their test scores.

This also raises the question; how can you prevent students from using math help tools and calculators?  This depends entirely on how you run your classroom.  If your classroom is a traditional classroom where the students are given the material in class and are to do homework outside of class, it is nearly impossible to monitor or stop this.  Students today, myself included, have no patience to wait for a teacher to return their email.  That’s why they go to math help tools, solely out of convenience for them, which I think could be a good thing because it eliminates a teacher’s stress in responding to students’ questions, but also could be a bad thing because students could be receiving the wrong information.  If you are in a flipped classroom, you don’t have to worry about students using these math tools because there are doing their homework in class and the teacher is there to answer questions.

Overall, I believe math-solving apps and calculators are very helpful to students needing quick help on their math homework but can be abused to the point where the students are not learning the material.