[vault_]

While I agree that most graphing calculators are overpriced and too limited in functionality, I disagree that students should only be given problems that can be nicely worked out on pencil and paper.

There were occasional problems I was given in my high-school calculus class where the goal was to find the area under a curve of a function that was difficult or impossible to integrate by hand. The calculator does it numerically so we were forced to recognize which types of problems could be solved exactly and which could not. Intersections of curves can also easily be solved with a graphing calculator.

Other things like systems of linear equations, probability distributions, statistics, combinatorics, and rapid data entry and processing can also be done really easily on a graphing calculator. These are all tedious to do by hand, and all make an appearance in upper level high-school math classes.

Part of taking a math class should be learning tools to solve your problems efficiently, and exact solutions are often not the most efficient way to do that. Things like Excel, Python, and Maple are all nice but they assume access to a computer and would require significant disruption to lecture flow. With a graphing calculator it's easy for students to do these things themselves (at their desks) without having to give them each a portable computer (which causes other problems with keeping the students attentive) and teach them a programming language.

[jacobolus]

Through 6 semester courses of high school mathematics, 10–11 semester courses of college pure/applied mathematics, 5 semester courses of college physics, and lots of other numerical problem solving, I never ran into a case where punching some complicated formulas or numbers into a graphing calculator during a lecture would have been useful, and never ran into a time when I wished I had a graphing calculator instead of a regular $10 scientific calculator or a laptop. YMMV.

[batbomb]

I guess you never took Nuclear & Particle and had to type the SEMF into a calculator :)

I have my TI-89 Titanium next to me on my desk as I speak.

I used it a lot in Applied Physics. I used it during thermo, I used it during optics lab, I used it during electronics exams, I occasionally it during Linear Algebra, I used it during Physical Chemistry. I used it a lot during undergraduate lab.

I didn't use it in senior year Classical or E&M.

Sometimes I used my laptop (when I finally bought one 2 years in) for those things, but I'd end up remotely logging into another computer on campus and punching stuff in Maple when that was the case.

It was a speed thing. It's faster (and more explicit) than a scientific calculator, and accurate for what it is.

[TheAceOfHearts]

I'm a computer engineering student. I've taken physics, thermodynamics, electronics, linear algebra, etc.

I've never had a need for a TI-89. I inherited one from my brother and I've never used it. If I'm doing anything complicated I'll just use my laptop.

[S4M]

Well, I can remember the coefficients of the Fourier series being a real pain to calculate...

[zokier]

That'd be more salient argument if graphing calculators were used outside educational environments.

[sliverstorm]

With a graphing calculator it's easy for students to do these things themselves without having to give them each a portable computer

Oh, the irony...