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Tech eases maths strain
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Han Ximin
IT is not unusual for senior high school students to be stumped by maths, especially functions. Though teachers may repeatedly demonstrate the skills involved in solving complex problems, students who have difficulty grasping abstract ideas often continue to struggle.
One reason for this, experts say, is that students are expected to follow the same line of reasoning as their teachers, rather than their own.
But by utilizing a book-sized calculator
developed by Texas Instruments specially designed to illustrate maths, physics and chemistry, students of Shenzhen Elite Experimental Secondary School are becoming more at ease with numbers.
The school, together with Shernzhen Middle School, was chosen by the Chinese Maths Education Association to experiment with the devices starting this term.
The calculator, which has a liquid crystal display in the middle and buttons along both sides, can solve maths problems including calculation, factorization and function graphs. The most attractive advantage is that it can quickly draw algebra graphs.
Guo Xiaobing, the teacher responsible for running the experiment, says students can acquire direct and figurative graphs by entering data, while the teacher demonstrates a certain theorem to the class. It greatly improves students' calculation efficiency and problem-solving skills.
According to Principal Xia Fuhan of the school, the adoption of modern teaching techniques has been a top priority since the current term began.
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